FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105  
106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>   >|  
his friends. He was to leave by the evening's boat; and the Cottage was for the present to be deserted, except by Margery. Mr. Strafford was admitted with, if possible, even less hesitation than usual to Christian's room. Every one understood now that the prisoner was entirely innocent, and in the revulsion of feeling, every one was disposed to treat with all tenderness and honour as a martyr the very man who, if he had never been falsely accused, they would probably have regarded only with disgust or contempt. Not that there was room for either feeling _now_. It was as if this man's history had been written from beginning to end, and then the ink washed from all the middle pages. What memory he had left, went back to the days when he had been a pupil of the Jesuit priests, and the traces of that time remained with him, and were evident to all. But all was blank from those days to these, when he lay in the wintry sunshine dying, and scarcely conscious that he was dying in a prison. When a voice out of that forgotten past spoke to him, his recollection seemed to revive for a moment, and he answered in English or in Ojibway, as he was addressed. At other times, if he began to speak at all, it was in French, the most familiar language of his boyhood, and sometimes scraps of the old priestly Latin would come to his lips as he lay half dozing, and dreaming perhaps of his life in the mission-school, and the time when he was to have been a teacher of his own people. Chiefly, however, he lay quite silent, and seemed neither to see nor to hear what took place around him. His face, where the hand of death was already visible, had more of its original beauty than Mr. Strafford had ever seen on it before; and as he came near to the bedside, he for the first time began to comprehend, what had always till now been an enigma to him, why Mary Wynter had loved and married her husband. Christian roused himself little when he perceived his visitor, and Mr. Strafford seized the opportunity of speaking to him on the subject of his imprisonment, as a step towards the great news he had to tell. "You will be glad," he said, "when you can go away from here. It will be very soon now, perhaps." "No," was the answer. "I do not want to go now. If they could take away a large piece of that wall," he went on dreamily, "so that I could breathe and see the sky, that is all I care for now." "You would like, however, to know that you _can_ go
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105  
106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Strafford

 

Christian

 

feeling

 
bedside
 
people
 

comprehend

 
deserted
 

Wynter

 

school

 

teacher


enigma
 

beauty

 

original

 

Margery

 

silent

 
Chiefly
 

visible

 

married

 

admitted

 
friends

answer

 
breathe
 

dreamily

 

evening

 

seized

 

opportunity

 

speaking

 
subject
 

visitor

 

perceived


husband

 

roused

 

mission

 

imprisonment

 

Cottage

 

present

 

dozing

 

washed

 

middle

 

written


understood

 

beginning

 

memory

 

remained

 

evident

 

traces

 
priests
 

Jesuit

 

history

 

falsely