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Updated: June 13, 2025
It stuck in his ribs, and in scorn of the writer, and sceptical of her penning it, he tugged to pull it out, and broke the shaft, but left the rankling arrow-head: she had traced the lines, and though tyranny racked her to do that thing, his agony followed her hand over the paper to her name, which fixed and bit in him like the deadly-toothed arrow-head called asp, and there was no uprooting it.
To see, to doubt, to search, to torture myself and make myself miserable, to pass entire days with my ear at the keyhole, and the night in a flood of tears, to repeat over and over that I should die of sorrow, to feel isolation and feebleness uprooting hope in my heart, to imagine that I was spying when I was only listening to the feverish beating of my own pulse; to con over stupid phrases, such as: "Life is a dream, there is nothing stable here below;" to curse and blaspheme God through misery and through caprice: that was my joy, the precious occupation for which I renounced love, the air of heaven, and liberty!
All Hetty's farmer's instincts revived in full force; and, only a few days after Father Antoine's conversation with her, he found her one morning superintending the uprooting of these stumps, and making preparations for grading the land. As he watched her active movements, energetic tones, and fresh open face, he fell into a maze of wondering thought.
Deep in his heart he knew he feared the grim struggle that lay before him, the uprooting of the old "system," the antagonism, the necessary compromises, the slow result. His age, or rather his youth, would be a heavy weapon against him. How could he hope to make his voice heard above the dictates of a dozen committees of men intent on their personal interests?
These impressions, floating vaguely in the upper currents of the mind, were simultaneous with a thousand thoughts and anxieties, and gusts of bitter fear and grief. What would be the end of it all? This uprooting from the old home it wrung one's heart to think of it. Scarcely could the thought be faced.
Steadily, fiercely, irresistibly it bore down upon them, while the crash of falling, snapping, and uprooting trees mingled with the dire artillery of that sweeping storm like the musketry on a battle-field. "Follow me, lads!" shouted Joe, turning his horse and dashing at full speed towards a rocky eminence that offered shelter. But shelter was not needed. The storm was clearly defined.
His two engrossing objects if objects, indeed, he may be said to have possessed were extortion and the uprooting of the last vestiges of civilization and law; his instruments, the dagger and the lash; his amusement, the torture of unwitting offenders; his serious occupation, the shuffling of cards.
Presently, however, loud peals of thunder burst from the sky; the lightning darted along the ground and among the trees with a crackling noise, which made his horse start from side to side. Down came the rain like a water-spout, and the wind sprung up and blew in fierce gusts, tearing off huge branches of the trees, and now and then uprooting the trees themselves.
People began to twit her about the progress of those "Russian lessons." It became quite a scandal. Signor Malipizzo was more annoyed than any one else. He hated the whole brood of Russians, and had formed various projects for uprooting the association from the island. His friend the Commissioner thoroughly endorsed these views. Often he declared that something must be done about it.
"But I have always been what you call settled," she answered, and added very simply "As soon as I took in that we should always be eternally uprooting, I made up my mind that the only way was to live as if we should never move at all. You see, everything would have gone to bits if I had let myself realise the contrary, and I think I should have gone crazy into the bargain."
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