United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Accompanied by Tommy, who said nothing, but often glanced at her fascinated yet alarmed, as if expecting to see the ghastly change come over her at any moment for he was as convinced as she, and had the livelier imagination she returned to Monypenny to beg of Blinder to tell her one thing more.
The Airlie post had dropped the letters for outlying farms at the Monypenny smithy and trudged on. The smith having wiped his hand on his hair, made a row of them, without looking at the addresses, on his window-sill, where, happening to be seven in number, they were almost a model of Monypenny, which is within hail of Thrums, but round the corner from it, and so has ways of its own.
But he had opened his eyes at the grave, when a cord was put into his hand, and then he wept passionately, and on his way back to Monypenny, whether his eyes were open or shut, what he saw was his mother being shut up in a black hole and trying for ever and ever to get out.
Monypenny had predicted that their presence must make a new man of him, but he was still unsociable and morose and sat as long as ever at the warping-mill, of which he seemed to have become the silent wheel. Tommy and Elspeth always dropped their voices when they spoke of him, and sometimes when his mill stopped he heard one of them say to the other, "Whisht, he's coming!"
"Not him," he answered, "I've cheated him bonny, he hasna a notion wha I am. Corp, would you like a good laugh?" "That I would." "Weel, then, I'll tell you wha he thinks I am. Do you ken a little house yont the road a bitty irae Monypenny?" "I ken no sic house," said Corp, "except Aaron's." "Aaron's the man as bides in it," Tommy continued hastily, "at least I think that's the name.
'Girls will be girls, said Merton; 'she wants society. 'Want must be her master then, said Mrs. Nicholson stolidly. 'But about the man of her choice, have you anything against him? 'No, but nothing for him: I never even saw him. 'Then where did Miss Monypenny make his acquaintance?
The Haggerty-Taggertys had straggled home hoarse as crows; every one of them went to bed that night with a stocking round his throat. Of Monypenny boys, Tommy could find none in the square but Corp, who, with another tooth missing, had been going about since six o'clock with his pockets hanging out, as a sign that all was over.
Nevertheless she had come now, and a soft word from him, such as he gave most readily to all who were in distress, would have drawn her pitiful tale from her, but he was in a grumpy mood, and had heard none of the rumors about her mother's being ill, which indeed were only common among the Monypenny children, and his first words checked her confidences.
He told her how the new town had been built northward and westward, in the days of the great Monypenny, whose statue now stares blindly out to sea. He was a man naturally interested in topography and generally "read up" the places he visited, but he had never before found a woman who cared to listen to that sort of stuff.
She had put the question to herself before not, indeed, before going to Monypenny but before calling on the Dominie and decided that she wanted to send Tommy to college, because she disliked him so much that she could not endure the prospect of his remaining in Thrums. Now, are you satisfied? She could scarcely take time to say good-evening to Mr. Cathro before telling him the object of her visit.
Word Of The Day