The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
After clear sunny days the dews fall more heavily; and now, as the sun
set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous haze--a dim mist rose
around. The young man seated himself beside her, and tried to draw the
child to his breast. Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed
him aside with jealous arms. He profaned the grave! He understood her
with his deep poet heart, and rose. There was a pause.
Leonard was the first to break it.
"Come to your home with me, my child, and we will talk of _him_ by the
way."
"Him! Who are you? You did not know him?" said the girl, still with
anger. "Go away--why do you disturb me? I do no one harm. Go--go!"
"You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he sees you yonder!
Come!"
The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and his face
softened and soothed her.
"Go!" she said very plaintively, and in subdued accents. "I will but
stay a minute more. I--I have so much to say yet."
Leonard left the churchyard, and waited without; and in a short time
the child came forth, waved him aside as he approached her, and
hurried away. He followed her at a distance, and saw her disappear
within the inn.
CHAPTER V.
"Hip--hip--Hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young
traveller as he reached the inn door--a sound joyous in itself, but
sadly out of harmony with the feelings which the child's sobbing on
the tombless grave had left at his heart. The sound came from within,
and was followed by thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses. A
strong odor of tobacco was wafted to his olfactory sense. He hesitated
a moment at the threshold. Before him on benches under the beech-tree
and within the arbor, were grouped sundry athletic forms with "pipes
in the liberal air." The landlady, as she passed across the passage to
the tap-room, caught sight of his form at the doorway, and came
forward. Leonard still stood irresolute. He would have gone on his
way, but for the child; she had interested him strongly.
"You seem full, ma'am," said he. "Can I have accommodation for the
night?"
"Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, "I can give you a
bedroom, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile. The two parlors
and the tap-room and the kitchen are all chokeful. There has been a
great cattle-fair in the neighborhood, and I suppose we have as many
as fifty farmers and drovers stopping here."
"As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bedroom you are kind enough to
give me; and if it does not cause you too much trouble to let me have
some tea there, I should be glad; but I can wait your leisure. Do not
put yourself out of the way for me."
The landlady was touched by a consideration she was not much
habituated to receive from her bluff customers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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