Once Aboard the Lugger-- The History of George and his MaryHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
General
Once Aboard the Lugger-- The History of George and his Mary
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Fiction; Humorous stories
Just as she galloped up they took off their hats. Someone who had been
on his knees stood upright--she saw the stain of wet earth where he had
been kneeling; forgot the dented hat; wondered if he knew of the Marvel
Cleaning Pad that had done so wonderfully with Dad's breeches when he
took a toss last Friday.
Dad...! Of course...! It was to see Dad that she was here.
Somebody tried to dissuade her ... better wait till they brought him
home ... could do no good--now.
“Why? Why not see him? Let me pass, Mr. Saunders.”
Well, the filly lay across him ... he had begged them not to move her
because of the pain.... Better come away.
She pushed through them.... Yes, better perhaps not to have seen ... all
crumpled up....
Recollecting, she could feel distinctly in her knees the creepy damp as
the moisture of the marshy ground penetrated her skirts, bending over
the twisted face.
III.
Thereafter a blank of days in which events must have occurred but
to which memory brought no lamp until the faint crunch as the coffin
touched the earth seven feet down....
Multitudinous papers after that. Wearying, sickening masses of
documents; interminable writing of signature; interminable making of
lists. And then the word LOT. “Lot I,” “Lot 2,” “Lot 50,” “Lot 200”--a
hammerlike word to thump the brain at night, frightening sleep,
producing grotesque nightmares, as “Lot 12, a polished oak coffin,
finished plain, brass Handles.”
No! No! That was not to be sold!--leaden hands holding her down;
stifling hands at her mouth to stay her shouting “Stop!”
Then sudden consciousness--only a dream! Bolt upright in bed staring
into the darkness. A dream? How much of it a dream? Was it all a dream?
The fevered brain would fetch her from her bed, groping to Dad's
room, striking a match--no familiar form upon the bed; a big white
ticket--“Lot 56.”
Back to the hot, crumpled couch, there, tossing, to lie attempting a
grasp, a realisation of what it all meant....
IV.
A dark little office in Dublin.... So much the “Lots” had fetched, so
much the balance at the bank; no investments, it was to be feared; no
insurance, my dear Miss Humfray; so much the bills and other claims on
the estate.... “Don't wish to be bothered with figures? Of course not,
my dear.... And then we come to the balance--I'm afraid a few pounds,
practically nothing....”
V.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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