And she'll pe telling you, Malcolm--peware of tat voman;
for ta voman was thinking pad thoughts; and tat will pe what make
her shutter and shake, my son, as she'll pe coing py."
CHAPTER XII: THE CHURCHYARD
On Sundays, Malcolm was always more or less annoyed by the obtrusive
presence of his arms and legs, accompanied by a vague feeling that,
at any moment, and no warning given, they might, with some insane
and irrepressible flourish, break the Sabbath on their own account,
and degrade him in the eyes of his fellow townsmen, who seemed all
silently watching how he bore the restraints of the holy day. It
must be conceded, however, that the discomfort had quite as much
to do with his Sunday clothes as with the Sabbath day, and that
it interfered but little with an altogether peculiar calm which
appeared to him to belong in its own right to the Sunday, whether
its light flowed in the sunny cataracts of June, or oozed through
the spongy clouds of November. As he walked again to the Alton,
or Old Town in the evening, the filmy floats of white in the lofty
blue, the droop of the long dark grass by the side of the short
brown corn, the shadows pointing like all lengthening shadows
towards the quarter of hope, the yellow glory filling the air and
paling the green below, the unseen larks hanging aloft--like
air pitcher plants that overflowed in song--like electric jars
emptying themselves of the sweet thunder of bliss in the flashing
of wings and the trembling of melodious throats; these were indeed
of the summer but the cup of rest had been poured out upon them;
the Sabbath brooded like an embodied peace over the earth, and
under its wings they grew sevenfold peaceful--with a peace that
might be felt, like the hand of a mother pressed upon the half
sleeping child.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110