She wished
that he might be racked with rheumatism, burned up with gout, tortured
with every conceivable painful disease. She wished him dead and
crumbling to dust in his coffin.
After tea she came back to the window and stayed there till nightfall.
Little by little the street became dim and vague. Two or three futile
oil lamps were lighted, and the shop fronts shone brightly, but all
the rest grew dark, like a river or a canal instead of a street. One
heard voices, and then people showed themselves momentarily as they
passed through the lamplight.
While she watched them passing, her thoughts drifted into generalized
sadness.
The shutters went up at the saddler's, and she saw Mr. Allen for a
moment--a long, thin man, looking too tall for the frame of the
lamplit doorway. Mr. Allen used to have a fine business but he was
spoiling it by his folly. It had been his custom to go to neighboring
meets of hounds and ask the young gentlemen if the saddles he had made
for them were satisfactory, insinuate his fingers between saddle-tree
and hunter's withers to see if there was plenty of room, and generally
render himself obsequiously agreeable. That was good for trade. But
then the hunting gradually fascinated him, and he followed on foot
throughout the season, halloaing hounds to wrong foxes, standing on
banks and frightening horses, being a nuisance to the gentlemen, and
coming home to boast that although he was fifty he had walked
twenty-seven miles in the day.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153