FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>   >|  
happened? It never occurred to him that it had happened here in this dale. But in all that life of Alexander's in the wider world there must needs have been relationships of lands established. Somewhere, something had happened to overcloud his day, to uncover ancestral resemblances, possibilities. Something, somewhere, and he had had news of it this autumn.... It happened that Strickland had never seen Glenfernie with Elspeth Barrow. Mrs. Grizel was not observant. So that her nephew came to breakfast, dinner, and supper, so that he was not averse to casual speech of household interests, so that he seemed to keep his health, so that he gave her now and then words and a kiss of affection, she was willing to believe that persons addicted to books and the company of themselves had a right to stillness and gravity. Alice stayed in Edinburgh; Jamie soldiered it in Flanders. Strickland wrote and computed for and with the laird, then watched him forth, a solitary figure, by the fir-trees, by the leafless trees, and down the circling road into the winter country. Or he saw firelight in the keep and knew that Alexander walked to and fro, to and fro, or sat bowed over a book. Late at night, waking, he saw that Glenfernie still watched. It was not Ian Rullock nor anything to do with him that had helped on this sharp alteration, this turn into some Cimmerian stretch of the mind's or the emotions' vast landscape. If Strickland had at first wondered if this might be the case, the thought vanished. Glenfernie, free to speak of Ian, spoke freely, with the relief of there, at least, a sunny day. It somewhat amazed and disquieted, even while it touched, the older man of quiet passions and even ways, the old strength of this friendship. Glenfernie seemed to brood with a mother-passion over Ian. To an extent here he confided in Strickland. The latter knew of the worry about Jacobite plots and the drawing of Ian into that vortex--Ian known now to be in Paris, writing thence twice or thrice during this autumn and early winter, letters that came to Glenfernie's hand by unusual channels, smacking all of them of Jacobite or High Tory transmissals. Strickland did not see these letters. Of them Alexander said only that Ian wrote as usual, except that he made no reference to sere leaves turning green or a dead staff budding. In the room with only the loophole windows, by the firelight, Alexander read over again the second of these letters.
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Glenfernie

 

Strickland

 

happened

 
Alexander
 
letters
 

Jacobite

 

winter

 

watched

 
firelight
 

autumn


passions
 

touched

 

friendship

 

confided

 

extent

 

mother

 

passion

 

strength

 
disquieted
 

thought


wondered

 

landscape

 

vanished

 

amazed

 

relief

 

freely

 

vortex

 

reference

 

leaves

 

turning


windows

 

loophole

 
budding
 

occurred

 

thrice

 

writing

 

drawing

 
emotions
 
transmissals
 

smacking


unusual

 
channels
 

Cimmerian

 

persons

 
addicted
 
uncover
 

affection

 

company

 

Edinburgh

 

soldiered