A Crooked Path. Mrs. Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ she sought, and on reaching it she found the door held open by a little smutty girl, the very lowest type of slavey, with unkempt hair, and a rough holland apron of the grimiest aspect. On the top step stood a stout woman, fairly well dressed in a large shawl and a straw bonnet largely decorated with crushed artificial flowers; a very red, angry face appeared beneath it, with watery eyes and a coarse, half-open mouth. All this Katherine saw, but hardly observed, so strongly was her attention attracted to a figure that stood a few paces within the entrance—a tall, thin old man, bent and leaning on a stick. He was wrapped in a long dressing-gown of dull dark gray, evidently much worn; slippers were on his feet, and a black velvet skull-cap on his head, from under which some thin straggling locks of white hair escaped. His thin aquiline features and dark sunken eyes were alight with an expression of malignant fury; one long claw-like hand was outstretched with a gesture of dismissal, the other grasped the top of his stick. "Begone, you accursed drunken thief!" he was almost screaming in a shrill voice. "I would take you to the police, court if there was anything to be got out of you; but it would only be throwing good money away after bad. Get you gone to the ditch where you'll die! You guzzling, muzzling fool, to leave my house without a shilling after all your pilfering!"

      While he uttered these words with frightful vehemence, the woman he addressed kept up a rapid undercurrent of reply.

      "Living with a miserable screwy miser like you would make a saint drink! Do you think people will serve you for nothing, and not pay themselves somehow? The likes of you are born to be robbed—and may your last crust be stole from you, you old skinflint!" With this last defiance, she turned and threw herself hastily into the cab, which crawled away as if horse and driver were equally rheumatic.

      "Shut the door," said the old man, hoarsely, as if exhausted.

      "Please, sir, there's a lady here," said the little slavey. Katherine, who was as frightened as if she were face to face with a lunatic, had a terrible conviction that this appalling old man was her uncle. How should she ever address him? What an unfortunate time to have fallen upon!

      "What do you want?" asked the old man, fiercely, frowning till his shaggy white eyebrows almost met over his angry black eyes.

      "I want to see Mr. John Wilmot Liddell."

      "Then you see him! Who are you?"

      "Katherine Liddell, your niece."

      "My niece!" with inexpressible contempt and disbelief, "Well, niece or not, you may serve a turn. Can you read?"

      "Yes, of course."

      "Come, then—come in." He turned and walked with some difficulty to the door of the front parlor. Half bewildered, Katherine followed mechanically, and the small servant shut the front door, putting up the chain with a good deal of noise.

      The room to which Katherine was so unceremoniously introduced was of good size, covered with a carpet of which no pattern and very little color were left. The furniture was old-fashioned and solid; a dining-table covered with faded green baize was in the middle, and a writing-table with several drawers was placed near the fireplace, beside which stood a high-backed leather arm-chair, old, worn, dirty. A wretched fire was dying out in the grate, almost choked by the red ashes of the very cheapest coal.

      An odor of dust long undisturbed pervaded the atmosphere, and the dull damp weather without added to the extreme gloom. Indeed the door of this apartment might well have borne Dante's inscription over the entrance to a warmer place.

      Mr. Liddell went with feeble rapidity across to where a large newspaper lay upon the floor, and resting one hand on the writing-table, stooped painfully to raise it.

      "There! read—read the price-list to me. I am blind and helpless, for that jade has hid my glasses. I know she has. I cannot find them anywhere, and I must know how Turkish bonds are going. Read to me. I'll hear what you have to say after." He thrust the paper into her hand, and sat down in the high-backed chair.

      Poor Katherine felt almost dazed. She took a seat at the other side of the table, and began to look for the mysterious list. The geography of the mighty Times was unknown to her, and even in her mother's humbler penny paper the City article was a portion she never glanced at. While she turned the wide pages, painfully bewildered, the old man "glowered" at her.

      "I don't think you know what you are looking for," he cried, impatiently.

      "I do not indeed! If you will show it to me——"

      He snatched it from her, and pointed out the part he wished to hear. "Read from the beginning," he said.

      Katherine obeyed, her courage returning as she found herself thus strangely installed within the fortress she feared to attack. She stumbled occasionally, and was sharply set upon her feet, in the matter of figures, by her eager hearer. At last she came to Turkish six per cents.

      "Eighty-seven to eighty-eight and a quarter."

      "Ha!" muttered the old man, "that's an advance! good! nothing to be done there yet. Now read the railway stocks."

      Katherine obeyed. When she came to "Florida and Teche debentures, sixty-two and a half to sixty-five and three-fourths," she was startled by a sort of shrill shout. "Ay! that's a rise! Some rigging design there! I must write—I must. Where, where has that——harridan hid my glasses? Why, it is almost twelve o'clock! the boy will be here for the paper immediately. And the post! the post! I must catch the post. Can you write?"

      "Oh yes! Shall I write for you?"

      "You shall! you shall! here's paper"—rising and opening an ancient blotting-book, its covers all scribbled over with tiny figures, the result of much calculating, he hastily set forth writing materials, his lean, claw-like, dirty hands trembling with eagerness. "Hear, hear, write fast."

      Katherine, growing a little clearer, and amazed at her own increasing self-possession, drew off her gloves, and taking the rusty pen offered her, wrote at his dictation:

      "To Messrs. Rogers & Stokes, Corbett Court, E. C.:

      "Gentlemen—Sell all my Florida shares if possible to-day, even if they decline a quarter.

      "I am yours faithfully—"

      "Now let me come there!" he exclaimed. "I'll let no one sign my name. I'll manage that. There? there! Direct an envelope. Oh Lord! I haven't a stamp—not one! and its ten minutes' walk to the post-office."

      "I think—I believe I have a stamp," said Katherine, drawing her slender purse from her pocket and opening it.

      "Have you?" eagerly. "Give it to me. Stick it on! Go! go! There is a pillar just outside the left-hand gate there; and mind you come back. I will give you a penny. Ah, yes, you shall have your penny?"

      "I hope you will hear me when I return," she said, appealingly, as she left the room.

      "Ay, ay; but go—go now."

      When Katherine returned she found the old man, with the half-opened door in his hand, waiting for her.

      "Were you in time?" he asked, eagerly.

      "Oh yes, quite. I saw the postman coming across the road to empty the box as I was dropping the letter in."

      "That's well. I will rest a bit now, and СКАЧАТЬ