The Tenants of Malory, Volume 2Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
General
The Tenants of Malory, Volume 2
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Mystery fiction
This gentleman, whose dress was in the cheap and striking style, and
whose jewellery was conspicuous, was high-shouldered, with a very
decided curve, though not exactly a hunch. He was small, with rather
long arms. His hair, whiskers, and beard were glossy black, and his
features Jewish. He switched and twirled a black walking-cane, with
silver knobs on it, in his hand, and he had two or three rings on his
fingers.
His luggage had gone on to the "George," and whenever opportunity
occurred along that solitary road he renewed his inquiries about
Malory, with a slight peculiarity of accent which the unsophisticated
rustics in that part of the world had never heard before.
By this time it was evening, and in the light of the approaching sunset,
he might now, as the view of the sea and the distant mountains opened,
have enjoyed a pleasure for which, however, he had no taste; these
evening glows and tints were to him but imperfect light, and he looked
along the solemn and shadowy hills as he would have run his eye along
the shops in Cheapside--if with any interest, simply to amuse himself
with a calculation of what they might be worth in money.
He was now passing the pretty church-yard of Llanderris. The gray
head-stones and grass-grown graves brought home to him no passing
thought of change and mortality; death was to him an arithmetical
formula by which he measured annuities and reversions and policies. And
now he had entered the steep road that leads down with an irregular
curve to Malory.
He looked down upon the grand old wood. He had a smattering of the value
of timber, and remembered what a hit Rosenthal and Solomons had made of
their purchase of the wood at East Milton, when the railway was about to
be made there; and what a nice bit of money they had made of their
contract for sleepers and all sorts of other things. Could not Jos.
Larkin, or some better man, be found to get up a little branch line from
Llwynan to Cardyllian? His large mouth almost watered as he thought of
it; and how that eight or nine miles of rail would devour every inch of
timber that grew there--not a branch would be lost.
But now he was descending toward Malory, and the banks at the right hand
and the left shut out the view. So he began to descend the slope at his
leisure, looking up and about him and down at the worn road for material
for thought, for his mind was bustling and barren.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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