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It was a long and winding way, but the woman continued to talk and laugh so cheerfully that I tried to forget her toil. I had bidden my guide take me to the best inn; it was the Leone, a little place which looked from the outside like an ill-kept stable, but was decent enough within. The room into which they showed me had a delightful prospect.
Died Dec. 15, 1890." Perched upon the ill-kept grave, we smoked for an hour under the flying moon. A dog howled somewhere off in the gloomy waste. That night the Erinnyes, in the form of a swarm of mosquitoes, attacked us lying in our boat. The weary Kid rolled and swore till dawn, when a light wind sprang up astern.
Europeans, accustomed to see carriages, dog-carts and all kinds of horse-drawn conveyances circulating freely on macadamised roads, find it difficult to realise that, in the oldest civilised empire in existence, there are, outside the treaty-ports, not only no macadamised roads, but not even roads that could possibly be compared with our most out-of-the-way and most ill-kept country lanes, and that consequently there are neither carriages nor dogcarts, but only springless tumbrils, which, covered with a wain, discharge the functions of the celestial cab, and plough through deep mud with their massive wheels, or jolt over stone causeways to the intense discomfort of luckless occupants.
The marks of neglect were visible on every side, in flower-bushes straggling beyond the borders, in the ill-kept turf, and in the broken windows that were incongruously patched with paper or stuffed with rags. A thicket of trees, mostly evergreen, fenced the place round and secluded it from the eyes of prying neighbours.
For my part, I think a disorderly, ill-kept home, a sordid, uninviting table, has driven more husbands from domestic life than the unattractiveness of any overworked woman.
On the other side an ill-kept road overgrown with bunches of rough grass wound up the cypress and olive clad hill. At the very top stood the house which somewhat pretentiously named itself a château. It was built of the beautiful mottled stone of the country, brown and gray, veined and splashed with green, purple, yellow, and rose pink.
From beyond the ill-kept garden they heard the tramp of men and a low, continuous sound, like the threatening moan of the wind. On the verandah reigned a complete and awestruck silence. Colonel Carmichael bent over the unconscious man. "This is the beginning," he said somberly. "How did it happen?" "A native must have been lying in wait for him," Travers answered. "He struck at him with this."
These came to him, vaguely, and their existence seemed explained. They were because Celia was. And so, in the musty loft of an ill-kept stable, Bobby entered another portion of the beautiful heritage that was some day to be his. Next week was Bobby's birthday. He received many gifts, but as usual, saved the biggest package until the last.
Some premonition of this might give her a fellow feeling. He came to a stand before a little child sitting on an ill-kept doorstep. Smiling at her kindly, he waited for her first expression to see how he appeared in the eyes of innocence. Not so bad a man, it seemed, though his naturally plain countenance was not relieved by the seaman's cap and knitted shirt he wore.
The ill-kept garden, with the tennis-ground, that never got beyond the stage of being dug up, and the rank grass behind the bamboo fence, were flooded with the soft light, every tattered detail of its ugliness showing as clearly as though it was noon. The night was very still, and the soft, scented air blew coolly round our faces.
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