FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   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   >>   >|  
r an explanation, and spying me (as indeed I was parting the branches to make it the more easy), half uttered and half swallowed down again a cry of surprise. The infernal gardener was erect upon the instant. "What's your wull, miss?" said he. Her readiness amazed me. She had already turned and was gazing in the opposite direction. "There's a child among the artichokes," she said. "The Plagues of Egyp'! _I'll_ see to them!" cried the gardener truculently, and with a hurried waddle disappeared among the evergreens. That moment she turned, she came running towards me, her arms stretched out, her face incarnadined for the one moment with heavenly blushes, the next pale as death. "Monsieur de Saint-Yves!" she said. "My dear young lady," I said, "this is the damnedest liberty--I know it! But what else was I to do?" "You have escaped?" said she. "If you call this escape," I replied. "But you cannot possibly stop there!" she cried. "I know it," said I. "And where am I to go?" She struck her hands together. "I have it!" she exclaimed. "Come down by the beech trunk--you must leave no footprint in the border--quickly, before Robie can get back! I am the hen-wife here: I keep the key; you must go into the hen-house--for the moment." I was by her side at once. Both cast a hasty glance at the blank windows of the cottage and so much as was visible of the garden alleys; it seemed there was none to observe us. She caught me by the sleeve and ran. It was no time for compliments; hurry breathed upon our necks; and I ran along with her to the next corner of the garden, where a wired court and a board hovel standing in a grove of trees advertised my place of refuge. She thrust me in without a word; the bulk of the fowls were at the same time emitted; and I found myself the next moment locked in alone with half-a-dozen sitting hens. In the twilight of the place all fixed their eyes on me severely, and seemed to upbraid me with some crying impropriety. Doubtless the hen has always a puritanic appearance, although (in its own behaviour) I could never observe it to be more particular than its neighbours. But conceive a British hen! CHAPTER VIII THE HEN-HOUSE I was half-an-hour at least in the society of these distressing bipeds, and alone with my own reflections and necessities. I was in great pain of my flayed hands, and had nothing to treat them with; I was hungry and thirsty, and had nothing to eat or
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

moment

 

garden

 
turned
 

gardener

 

observe

 

standing

 

refuge

 
thrust
 

advertised

 

visible


alleys

 

glance

 

windows

 
cottage
 
caught
 

sleeve

 

corner

 
compliments
 

breathed

 

twilight


CHAPTER
 

British

 
thirsty
 

conceive

 

neighbours

 

necessities

 

flayed

 

reflections

 

hungry

 
society

distressing

 

bipeds

 

behaviour

 
sitting
 

emitted

 
locked
 
puritanic
 

appearance

 

Doubtless

 
upbraid

severely

 
crying
 
impropriety
 

truculently

 

hurried

 

Plagues

 

artichokes

 
opposite
 
direction
 

waddle