Beggars on HorsebackJesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
General
Beggars on Horseback
Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
Fiction; Short stories, English
There is little to tell of the love of Senath and Manuel save that it
was swift, unspeakably dear, and put beyond the possibility of
fulfilment by the death of the man. The slight accident of a rusty nail
that ran into his foot, enhanced by the lack of cleanliness of the true
peasant, and Manuel, for such a trifling cause, ceased to be. They were
fated lovers; fated, having met, to love, and, so Senath told herself in
the first hours of her bitterness, fated never to grasp their joy. The
time had been so short, as far as mere weeks went, so infinitely long in
that they had it for ever. After the funeral in the moorland churchyard,
Senath went into her cottage and was seen of no one for many days. Then
she reappeared, and to the scandal of the world it was seen that she had
discarded her black. She went about her work silently as ever, but
seemed to shun meeting her fellow-creatures less than formerly. A bare
year after Manuel's death she had married Samuel Harvey.
No one wondered more than Sam himself how this had come about. If the
marriage had been a matter of several months earlier, the common and
obvious interpretation as to its necessity would have been current
everywhere, and Sam would have had his meed of half-contemptuous pity.
As it was, no one knew better than Sam that the other Harvey's wooing
had gone no further than that wonderful kiss to which middle-aged
people, who have missed the thing in their youth, can bring more
reverential shyness than any blushing youth or girl.
Had it been any other than Senath, folk would not have been so
surprised. A woman may get along very well single all her days if she
has never been awakened to another way of life, but give her a taste of
it and it is likely to become a thing that she must have. Yet few made
the mistake of thinking that that was how it was with Senath. A strongly
spiritual nature leaves its impress on even the most clayey of those
with whom it comes in contact, and all knew Senath to be not quite as
they were. Yet she married the red-necked Samuel Harvey, and they went
to live together at the Upper Farm. And, as to any superior delicacy,
Senath showed less than most. A few kind souls there were who thought,
with the instinctive tact of the sensitive Celt, that it might hurt her
to hear the name "Mrs. Harvey" which would have been hers had she
married Manuel. On the contrary, just as though she were some young
bride, elated at her position, she asked that even old friends should
call her by the new title.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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