The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 11

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Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон. The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 11

PART XI

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER. VI

CHAPTER VII

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The next day, on the outside of the "Cambridge Telegraph," there was one passenger who ought to have impressed his fellow-travellers with a very respectful idea of his lore in the dead languages; for not a single syllable, in a live one, did he vouchsafe to utter from the moment he ascended that "bad eminence" to the moment in which he regained his mother earth. "Sleep," says honest Sancho, "covers a man better than a cloak." I am ashamed of thee, honest Sancho, thou art a sad plagiarist; for Tibullus said pretty nearly the same thing before thee,—

So, then, wrapped in my great-coat and my silence, I performed my journey; and on the evening of the second day I reached the old-fashioned brick house. How shrill on my ears sounded the bell! How strange and ominous to my impatience seemed the light gleaming across the windows of the hall! How my heart beat as I watched the face of the servant who opened the gate to my summons!

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I whispered my father and went out. My mother was standing in the hall, and I saw by the lamp that she had dried her tears, and that her face, though very sad, was more composed.

"Sisty," she said, in a low voice which struggled to be firm, promise me that you will tell me all,—the worst, Sisty. They keep it from me, and that is my hardest punishment; for when I don't know all that he—that Austin suffers, it seems to me as if I had lost his heart. Oh, Sisty, my child, my child, don't fear me! I shall be happy whatever befalls us, if I once get back my privilege,—my privilege, Sisty, to comfort, to share! Do you understand me?"

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