A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIVJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIV
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Fiction
In the council of war, which ended in this determination, it must be
remarked that Rose Tracy took no part, though her sister Emily did.
Rose said not one word, but came a little behind the rest, and more
than once she looked at Chandos, with a long earnest gaze, then
dropped into silent thought.
CHAPTER VIII.
About two o'clock in the day, Chandos sat in the cottage, which was
destined to be his future abode for some time, with the gipsey-boy Tim
seated on a chair beside him. The old General had gone up to the house
to send off a servant to the village surgeon; and the two young ladies
had accompanied their uncle, promising to dispatch the housekeeper
immediately to aid Chandos in his task. The boy bore the pain, which
he undoubtedly suffered, exceedingly well. He neither winced nor
cried; but remained quite still in the chair, and only repeated, from
time to time, that he should like to go to his mother. Chandos soothed
and quieted him with great kindness, and was in the midst of a story,
which seemed completely to engage the little man's attention, when the
door suddenly opened; and a tall, thin old man entered, whose whole
dress and appearance, showed him at once to be an oddity. His head was
covered with what much better deserved the name of a tile, than that
which sometimes obtains it, in our good city of London. It was a hat
with enormous brims, and the smallest possible portion of crown, so
that it was almost self-evident that the organs of hope and
veneration, if the old gentleman had any, must be somewhat pressed
upon by the top of the shallow box into which he put them. From
underneath the shelter of this wide-spreading beaver, floated away a
thin wavy pigtail of white hair, bound with black ribbon, which, as
all things have their prejudices, had a decided leaning to his left
shoulder in preference to his right. He had on a coat of black, large,
easy, and wrinkled, but spotless and glossy, showing that its original
conception must have been vast, and that the disproportion between its
extent, and the meagre limbs it covered, was not occasioned by those
limbs having shrunk away from the garment, with which they were
endued. The breeches fitted better: and, indeed, in some parts must
have been positively tight; for a long line of snow-white cambric
purfled up, like the slashings of a Spanish sleeve, which appeared
between the top of the breeches and the remote silk waistcoat, showed
that the covering of his nether man maintained itself in position by
the grasp of the waistband round his loins. An Alderney cow can never
be considered perfect, unless the herd can hang his hat on her
haunch-bone, while he makes love to Molly, milking her; and the
haunch-bones of worthy Mr. Alexander Woodyard, Surgeon, &c. were as
favourable to the sustentation of his culottes, without the aid of
other suspenders. Waistcoat and breeches were both black; and so,
also, were the stockings and the shoes, of course. These shoes were
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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