FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45  
46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >>   >|  
the old butler removed his defences, remarking only, "I thocht ye were that man." But his master was not there; he was staying, it appeared, at the house in Murrayfield; and though the butler would have been glad enough to have taken his place and given all the news of the family, John, struck with a little chill, was eager to be gone. Only, the door was scarce closed again, before he regretted that he had not asked about "that man." He was to pay no more visits till he had seen his father and made all well at home; Alan had been the only possible exception, and John had not time to go as far as Murrayfield. But here he was on Regent Terrace; there was nothing to prevent him going round the end of the hill, and looking from without on the Mackenzies' house. As he went he reflected that Flora must now be a woman of near his own age, and it was within the bounds of possibility that she was married; but this dishonourable doubt he dammed down. There was the house, sure enough; but the door was of another colour, and what was this--two door-plates? He drew nearer; the top one bore, with dignified simplicity, the words, "Mr. Proudfoot"; the lower one was more explicit, and informed the passer-by that here was likewise the abode of "Mr. J. A. Dunlop Proudfoot, Advocate." The Proudfoots must be rich, for no advocate could look to have much business in so remote a quarter; and John hated them for their wealth and for their name, and for the sake of the house they desecrated with their presence. He remembered a Proudfoot he had seen at school, not known: a little, whey-faced urchin, the despicable member of some lower class. Could it be this abortion that had climbed to be an advocate, and now lived in the birthplace of Flora and the home of John's tenderest memories? The chill that had first seized upon him when he heard of Houston's absence deepened and struck inward. For a moment, as he stood under the doors of that estranged house, and looked east and west along the solitary pavement of the Royal Terrace, where not a cat was stirring, the sense of solitude and desolation took him by the throat, and he wished himself in San Francisco. And then the figure he made, with his decent portliness, his whiskers, the money in his purse, the excellent cigar that he now lit, recurred to his mind in consolatory comparison with that of a certain maddened lad who, on a certain spring Sunday ten years before, and in the hour of churc
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45  
46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Proudfoot

 

Terrace

 

struck

 

Murrayfield

 
butler
 

advocate

 

quarter

 

birthplace

 

remote

 

tenderest


Houston

 

seized

 

memories

 
business
 
remembered
 
school
 

wealth

 

presence

 

desecrated

 

abortion


member

 

urchin

 

despicable

 
climbed
 

stirring

 

excellent

 
whiskers
 
portliness
 

Francisco

 
figure

decent
 

recurred

 
Sunday
 

spring

 
consolatory
 

comparison

 

maddened

 
estranged
 

looked

 

deepened


moment

 
solitary
 

desolation

 

solitude

 
throat
 

wished

 

pavement

 

absence

 
visits
 

father