FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172  
173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   >>   >|  
ine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine." In the next place, the building stood in a genuine cottage garden. It was close to the road. The southern boundary was plain oak paling, made of upright pieces which Hope had varnished so that the color was now a fine amber; the rest of the boundary was a quick-set hedge, in the western division of which stood an enormous oak-tree, hollow at the back. And the garden was fair with humble flowers--pinks, sweet-williams, crimson nasturtiums, double daisies, lilies, and tulips; but flower beds shared the garden with friendly cabbages, potatoes, onions, carrots, and asparagus. To this humble but pleasant abode Hope conducted his daughter, and insisted upon her lying down on the sofa in the sitting-room. Then he ordered the woman who kept the house for him to prepare the spare bedroom, which looked into the garden, and to cut some of the sweet-smelling flowers. He himself had much to say to his daughter, and, above all, to demand her explanation of the awkward circumstances that had been just revealed. But she had received a great shock, and, like most manly men, he had a great consideration for the weakness of women, and his paternal heart said, "Let her have an hour or two of absolute repose before I subject her to any trial whatever." So he opened the window to give her air, enjoining her most strictly not to move, and even to go to sleep if she could; and then he put on his shooting coat, with large inside pocket, to go and buy her a little wine--a thing he never touched himself--and what other humble delicacies the village afforded. He walked briskly away from his door without the least idea that all his movements were watched from a hiding-place upon his own premises, no other than the great oak-tree, hollow and open at the back, in which Leonard Monckton had bored two peep-holes, and was now ensconced there watching him. Hope had not gone many yards from his own door when he was confronted by one of those ruffians who, by their way of putting it, are the eternal butt of iniquitous people and iniquitous things, namely, honest men, curse them! and the law, confound it! This was no other than that Ben Burnley, who, being a miner, had stuck half-way between Devonshire and Durham, and had been some months in Bartley's mine. He opened on Hope in a loud voice, and dialect which we despair of conveying with absolute accuracy. "Mr. Hope, sir, they won't let me go down t'
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172  
173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
garden
 

humble

 

iniquitous

 
hollow
 
opened
 
daughter
 

flowers

 

absolute

 

boundary

 

enjoining


inside
 
hiding
 

watched

 

movements

 

premises

 

shooting

 

walked

 

briskly

 

afforded

 

delicacies


village
 

touched

 

strictly

 
pocket
 

Devonshire

 
Durham
 
months
 

Bartley

 

Burnley

 

accuracy


dialect

 

despair

 
conveying
 
confound
 

watching

 
confronted
 

ensconced

 

Monckton

 

Leonard

 

things


honest

 

people

 
ruffians
 

putting

 
eternal
 
williams
 

crimson

 

nasturtiums

 
double
 

western