United States or Tokelau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Eighteen at most save for the sadness in your eyes that now and then surprises me if it be sadness that I read there." "Perhaps it is the wisdom I have learned a knowledge that means sadness, Euan. Do my eyes betray it, then, so plainly?" "Sometimes," I said, A faint sound from below arrested our attention. Lois whispered: "It is Mrs. Rannock weeping. She often weeps like that at night.
I had also travelled from Edinburgh by Grief, Rannock, Dalwhiny, Fort Augustus, Inverness, through east Ross and Caithness, to the Pentland-Frith or Orkney islands, without seeing one block of granite in its place.
But my lantern still glimmered, and I went up to the splintered door and rapped. Lois opened it, her knitting gathered in her hand, and stood aside for me to enter. At first, so dusky was the room that I perceived no other occupant beside ourselves. Then Lois said: "Mrs. Rannock, Mr. Loskiel, of whom I spoke at supper, is to be made known to you."
But for the last two nights I had not found Lois waiting for me, nor did Mrs. Rannock seem to know whither she had gone, which caused me much uneasiness. The third evening I went to find her at Mrs. Rannock's before the after-glow had died from the coppery zenith, and I encountered her moving toward the Spring path, just entering the massed elder bloom.
Rannock, but she sobbed in her sleep all night and I could not close my eyes, So I thought of the Spring Waiontha, and the next instant was on my way there, feeling the path with naked feet through the starlight, and dropped my clothing from me in the darkness and sank into the cool, sweet pool. Oh, it was heaven, Euan! I would you might come also."
Rannock crossing the clearing in the distance, laden with wash from the fort; and I briefly acquainted my handsome companion with her tragic history. Then, coming to the door, I knocked. A lovely figure opened for us.
They seemed ashamed, but told me, As I moved on, I said carelessly, partly turning: "Where is the Spring Waiontha?" "On the Lake Trail, sir first branch of the Stoney-Kill." "Is there a house there?" "Rannock's." "A path to find it?" "A sheep walk only. Rannock is dead. The destructives murdered him when they burned Cherry Valley. Mrs. Rannock brings us eggs and milk."
And with a quick and winning gesture she offered me her hand; and I took it firmly in my clasp, and fell a-trembling so I could not find a word to utter. "Come to me to-night, Euan," she said. "I lodge yonder. There is a poor widow there a Mrs. Rannock who took me in. They killed her husband in November. I am striving to repay her for the food and shelter she affords me.
Word Of The Day