![]() I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region and there again I found it waiting for me. It murmured and I understood that it desired to confess something. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. Though I was angry with old Cotter for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from his unfinished sentences. I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect." "It's bad for children," said old Cotter, "because their minds are so impressionable. "But why do you think it's not good for children, Mr. My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table. Cotter might take a pick of that leg mutton," he added to my aunt. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. That's what I'm always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take exercise. "That's my principle, too," said my uncle. My idea is: let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be. "What I mean is," said old Cotter, "it's bad for children. "I wouldn't like children of mine," he said, "to have too much to say to a man like that." He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. "God have mercy on his soul," said my aunt piously. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you and they say he had a great wish for him." "The youngster and he were great friends. I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. "Well, so your old friend is gone, you'll be sorry to hear." He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. "I have my own theory about it," he said. Tiresome old fool! When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms but I soon grew tired of him and his endless stories about the distillery. He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark of his: Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. He had often said to me: "I am not long for this world," and I had thought his words idle. ![]() If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. ![]() Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. THERE was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. This online edition was created and published by Global Grey on the 21st February 2023.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |