FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   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   >>   >|  
vertaken them, and come sharp round corners on to them, but I never heard them speak to one another. I have asked the young men themselves whether they ever said anything to their sweethearts, and those young men have answered, "No; that they didn't know as they did." So that I am inclined to believe that they are contented with that silent utterance of the heart which is so superior to the silly whisperings one hears on dark ottomans in drawing-rooms. But the Vicar had a strong dislike to lovers' walks. He was a practical man, and had studied parish statistics for some years, so that his opinion is entitled to respect. He used to ask, why an honest girl should not receive her lover at her father's house, or in broad daylight, and many other impertinent questions which we won't go into, but which many a west-country parson has asked before, and never got an answer to. Of all pleasant places in the parish, surely one of the pleasantest for a meeting of this kind was the old oak at the end of Hawker's plantation, where George met Nelly a night we know of. So quiet and lonely, and such pleasant glimpses down long oaken glades, with a bright carpet of springing fern. Surely there will be a couple here this sweet May evening. So there is! Walking this way too! George Hawker is one of them; but we can't see who the other is. Who should it be but Mary, though, with whom he should walk, with his arm round her waist talking so affectionately. But see, she raises her head. Why! that is not Mary. That is old Jewel's dowdy, handsome, brazen-faced grandaughter. "Now I'm going home to supper, Miss Jenny," he says. "So you pack off, or you'll have your amiable mother asking after you. By-the-bye, your sister's going to be married, ain't she?" He referred to her eldest sister--the one that the Vicar and the Doctor saw nursing a baby the night that old Jewel died. "Yes," replied the girl. "Her man's going to have her at last; that's his baby she's got, you know; and it seems he'll sooner make her work for keeping it, than pay for it hisself. So they're going to be married; better late than never." George left her and went in; into the gloomy old kitchen, now darkening rapidly. There sat Madge before the fire, in her favourite attitude, with her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee. "Well, old woman," said he, "where's the old man?" "Away to Colyton fair," she answered. "I hope he'll have the sense to stay the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

George

 

sister

 
parish
 

married

 

pleasant

 

Hawker

 

answered

 

supper

 

mother

 
amiable

brazen

 
talking
 
sweethearts
 
affectionately
 
raises
 

handsome

 

referred

 

grandaughter

 

favourite

 

attitude


kitchen

 

darkening

 

rapidly

 

Colyton

 

gloomy

 

replied

 

Doctor

 

nursing

 
sooner
 

hisself


keeping

 

eldest

 

daylight

 

vertaken

 
father
 
receive
 

superior

 
utterance
 
impertinent
 

country


parson
 
contented
 

questions

 

silent

 

whisperings

 

statistics

 

drawing

 

studied

 

practical

 

strong