'"
"Ay. That's it. Weel, jist put that on.--They canna do better than hear his
voice," he added, with a strange mixture of Scotch ratiocination.
I led the way home, and he accompanied me without further objection or
apology. After dinner, I proposed that we should go upon the downs, for the
day was warm and bright. We sat on the grass. I felt that I could not talk
to them as from myself. I knew nothing of the possible gulfs of sorrow in
their hearts. To me their forms seemed each like a hill in whose unseen
bosom lay a cavern of dripping waters, perhaps with a subterranean torrent
of anguish raving through its hollows and tumbling down hidden precipices,
whose voice God only heard, and God only could still. This daughter
_might_, though from her face I did not think it, have gone away against
her father's will. That son _might_ have been a ne'er-do-well at home--how
could I tell? The woman _might_ be looking for the lover that had forsaken
her--I could not divine. I would speak no words of my own.
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