Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878; Illustration of books -- Great Britain -- 19th century; Watercolor painting, British
With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped
away. She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person
was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles’s room; and
that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly
to Chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a
constable and doctor.
‘But won’t you take one look at him, first, miss?’ asked Mr. Giles,
with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that
he had skilfully brought down. ‘Not one little peep, miss?’
‘Not now, for the world,’ replied the young lady. ‘Poor fellow! Oh!
treat him kindly, Giles for my sake!’
The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a
glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then,
bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care
and solicitude of a woman.
CHAPTER XXIX -- HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE
HOUSE, TO WHICH OLIVER RESORTED
In a handsome room: though its furniture had rather the air of
old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance: there sat two ladies
at a well-spread breakfast-table. Mr. Giles, dressed with scrupulous
care in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them. He had
taken his station some half-way between the side-board and the
breakfast-table; and, with his body drawn up to its full height, his
head thrown back, and inclined the merest trifle on one side, his
left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust into his waist-coat,
while his left hung down by his side, grasping a waiter, looked like
one who laboured under a very agreeable sense of his own merits and
importance.
Of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years; but the
high-backed oaken chair in which she sat, was not more upright
than she. Dressed with the utmost nicety and precision, in a quaint
mixture of by-gone costume, with some slight concessions to the
prevailing taste, which rather served to point the old style
pleasantly than to impair its effect, she sat, in a stately manner,
with her hands folded on the table before her. Her eyes (and age
had dimmed but little of their brightness) were attentively upon her
young companion.
The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of
womanhood; at that age, when, if ever angels be for God’s good
purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety,
supposed to abide in such as hers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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