The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish StoryOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Scotland -- Fiction
Next to Cosmo, sitting idly on a chair, watching how a stream of
confined sunshine came in overhead, at the side of the blind, was
Huntley, the eldest son. He was very dark, very ruddy, with close curls
of black hair, and eyes of happy hazel-brown. Heretofore, Huntley
Livingstone’s principal characteristic had been a total incapacity to
keep still. For many a year Marget had lamented over him, that he would
not “behave himself,” and even the Mistress had spoken her mind only too
often on the same subject. Huntley would not join, with gravity and
decorum, even the circle of evening visitors who gathered on unfrequent
occasions round the fireside of Norlaw. He had perpetually something on
hand to keep him in motion, and if nothing better was to be had, would
rummage through lumber-room and family treasury, hunting up dusty old
sets of newspapers and magazines, risking the safety of precious old
hereditary parchments, finding a hundred forgotten trifles, which he had
nothing to do with. So that it was rare, even on winter evenings, to
find Huntley at rest in the family circle; it was his wont to appear in
it at intervals bringing something with him which had no right to be
there--to be ordered off peremptorily by his mother with the intruding
article; to be heard, all the evening through, knocking in nails, and
putting up shelves for Marget, or making some one of the countless
alterations, which had always to be made in his own bed-chamber and
private sanctuary; and finally, to reappear for the family worship,
during which he kept as still as his nature would permit, and the family
supper, at which Huntley’s feats, in cutting down great loaves of bread,
and demolishing oat-cakes, were a standing joke in the household. This
was the old Huntley, when all was well in Norlaw. Now he sat still,
watching that narrow blade of sunshine, burning in compressed and close
by the side of the blind; it was like his own nature, in those early
days of household grief.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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