Illustrations of political economy, Volume 6 (of 9)Martineau, Harriet
History
Illustrations of political economy, Volume 6 (of 9)
Martineau, Harriet
Didactic fiction, English; Political fiction, English; Social problems -- Fiction
"Mrs. Storey would make even them look different, I fancy: for, as to
these towers,--some are white, standing on a yellow sand, with a dark
blue sky behind, and the sea a darker blue still,--which you know it is
sometimes. And then she makes a shadow from a cloud come over the tower,
and the sea all streaked with different colours; and then it is the turn
of the sails at sea to be white,--and a bird, perhaps, hovering over the
dark parts. Once she went out when the moon was near the full, the
Lieutenant himself carrying her cloak and her sketch-book that time, and
she wanting nothing besides but her case of pencils. From that sketch
she made a beautiful picture of a grey sea, with the foam white in the
moonlight; and in that case, the tower was quite black on the side of
the shadow, and so was the guard on watch, as you saw him between you
and the surf."
"I wish she had painted my poor boy, ma'am; or that he had lived to
carry her table. It would have made him so proud! But you say she was
sorry for what happened to him?"
"Everybody was sorry. Father, for one, has never got over it. But the
lady was on the beach when--when----"
"I know what you mean, my dear. Go on."
"Well; she looked so,--you can't think. Father was quite pale when he
came out from among the crowd of children that had got about the mouth
of the cavern; but he was nothing to her, in the comparison."
"Indeed! Well--my dear----"
"O! so white, and so grieved, more than frightened. She beckoned father
to her, to settle what to do till some of the guard could come; and then
she called the children after her, and went away, to take them away,
though she could hardly walk."
"Dear me!" was all that escaped from nurse, who could not prevent its
being seen through her emotion that she was flattered by this tale: and
she did not attempt to conceal her gratification at hearing what a crowd
attended the funeral, and how the people gathered to read and hear read
the proclamation of reward for the detection of the murderers. And all
this interest was about her son! Nothing could ever make up to her, she
told Rebecca, for his body being hidden for a time, as it was. It would
have been such a consolation to her to know that he made as beautiful a
corpse as she had often said he would. Those who had seen how her boy
looked when he was asleep might be sure that he would look better when
he was dead than ever he did when he was alive.
While Rebecca was meditating what she could say by way of consolation
for Nicholas not having made so beautiful a corpse as might have been
expected from him, certain sounds from the other side of the room
attracted her attention, and half diverted poor nurse's.
"So the Lieutenant said of him.... O! no need to start, ma'am, at Mr.
Brown's rapping his fiddle. He is never really in a passion, though he
pretends anger, to keep the young folks in order."
"But they have done something to make him angry. Hark! what a rattling
in the fiddle!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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