FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42  
43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   >>   >|  
want but a jerk of the elbow and here would have been you with the cold steel in your bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of golden cups! Did you suppose I hadn't wit enough to see that? and I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets, as safe as in a church; there are you, with your heart ticking as good as new; and here am I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honour--God strike me dead!" The old man stretched out his right arm. "I will tell you what you are," he said. "You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh, believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or after?" "Which you please," returned the poet, rising. "I believe you to be strictly honourable." He thoughtfully emptied his cup. "I wish I could add you were intelligent," he went on, knocking on his head with his knuckles. "Age! age! the brains stiff and rheumatic." The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle. "God pity you," said the lord of Brisetout at the door. "Good-bye, papa," returned Villon, with a yawn. "Many thanks for the cold mutton." The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched himself in the middle of the road. "A very dull old gentleman," he thought. "I wonder what his goblets may be worth?" A LEAF IN THE STORM, By Ouida The Berceau de Dieu was a little village in the valley of the Seine. As a lark drops its nest among the grasses, so a few peasant people had dropped their little farms and cottages amid the great green woods on the winding river. It was a pretty place, with one steep, stony street, shady with poplars and with elms; quaint houses, about whose thatch a cloud of white and gray pigeons fluttered all day long; a little aged chapel with a conical red roof; and great barns covered with ivy and thick creepers, red and purple, and lichens that were yellow in the sun. All around it were the broad, flowering meadows, with the sleek cattle of Normandy fattening in them, and the swe
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42  
43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Villon

 
stretched
 

returned

 
goblets
 

peasant

 

grasses

 
Berceau
 

valley

 

village

 

breaking


uncomfortable

 
mutton
 

closed

 

morning

 

ushered

 

thought

 

gentleman

 
people
 

heartily

 

middle


creepers

 

purple

 

lichens

 

covered

 

chapel

 
conical
 
yellow
 

Normandy

 
cattle
 

fattening


meadows
 

flowering

 

fluttered

 

winding

 
pretty
 

dropped

 

cottages

 

thatch

 
pigeons
 

houses


street

 
poplars
 

quaint

 

bowels

 

linking

 
honour
 

strike

 
impudent
 

disgraced

 

hearted