FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   >>   >|  
"Not a word more of her, I charge thee!" said Tressilian. "I do well remember the night you speak of--one of the few happy evenings my life has known." "She is gone, then," said the smith, interpreting after his own fashion the sigh with which Tressilian uttered these words--"she is gone, young, beautiful, and beloved as she was!--I crave your worship's pardon--I should have hammered on another theme. I see I have unwarily driven the nail to the quick." This speech was made with a mixture of rude feeling which inclined Tressilian favourably to the poor artisan, of whom before he was inclined to judge very harshly. But nothing can so soon attract the unfortunate as real or seeming sympathy with their sorrows. "I think," proceeded Tressilian, after a minute's silence, "thou wert in those days a jovial fellow, who could keep a company merry by song, and tale, and rebeck, as well as by thy juggling tricks--why do I find thee a laborious handicraftsman, plying thy trade in so melancholy a dwelling and under such extraordinary circumstances?" "My story is not long," said the artist, "but your honour had better sit while you listen to it." So saying, he approached to the fire a three-footed stool, and took another himself; while Dickie Sludge, or Flibbertigibbet, as he called the boy, drew a cricket to the smith's feet, and looked up in his face with features which, as illuminated by the glow of the forge, seemed convulsed with intense curiosity. "Thou too," said the smith to him, "shalt learn, as thou well deservest at my hand, the brief history of my life; and, in troth, it were as well tell it thee as leave thee to ferret it out, since Nature never packed a shrewder wit into a more ungainly casket.--Well, sir, if my poor story may pleasure you, it is at your command, But will you not taste a stoup of liquor? I promise you that even in this poor cell I have some in store." "Speak not of it," said Tressilian, "but go on with thy story, for my leisure is brief." "You shall have no cause to rue the delay," said the smith, "for your horse shall be better fed in the meantime than he hath been this morning, and made fitter for travel." With that the artist left the vault, and returned after a few minutes' interval. Here, also, we pause, that the narrative may commence in another chapter. CHAPTER XI. I say, my lord, can such a subtilty (But all his craft ye must not wot of me, And some
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Tressilian
 

artist

 

inclined

 

shrewder

 

ungainly

 
casket
 
packed
 

ferret

 
Nature
 

liquor


cricket

 

looked

 
pleasure
 

command

 
curiosity
 

intense

 
convulsed
 
illuminated
 

history

 

promise


remember

 

deservest

 

features

 

narrative

 

commence

 

interval

 

returned

 

minutes

 

chapter

 

CHAPTER


subtilty

 
travel
 

leisure

 

morning

 

fitter

 
meantime
 

charge

 
Flibbertigibbet
 

attract

 
unfortunate

fashion
 

harshly

 
interpreting
 
silence
 

minute

 

proceeded

 
sympathy
 

sorrows

 
uttered
 

unwarily