Pumpkins' Glow: 200+ Eerie Tales for Halloween. Джек Лондон

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СКАЧАТЬ and inexperienced girl, such as she was, could hope to succeed in her enquiries. And the midnight hour came at last, telling her that, giving the utmost latitude to the word day, it had gone at last, and she was left despairing.

      She lay the whole of that night sobbing, and only at times dropping into an unquiet slumber, during which painful images were presented to her, all, however, having the same tendency, and pointing towards the presumed fact that Mark Jngestrie was no more.

      But the weariest night to the weariest waker will pass away, and at length the soft and beautiful dawn stole into the chamber of Johanna Oakley, chasing away some of the more horrible visions of the night, but having little effect in subduing the sadness that had taken possession of her.

      She felt that it would be better for her to make her appearance below than to hazard the remarks and conjectures that her not doing so would give rise to, so, all unfitted as she was to engage in the most ordinary intercourse, she crept down to the breakfast-parlour, looking more like the ghost of her former self than the bright and beautiful being we have represented her to the reader. Her father understood what it was that robbed her cheek of its bloom: and although he saw it with much distress, yet he had fortified himself with what he considered were some substantial reasons for future hopefulness.

      It had become part of his philosophy - it generally is a part of the philosophy of the old - to consider that those sensations of the mind that arise from disappointed affections are of the most evanescent character; and that, although for a time they exhibit themselves with violence, they, like grief for the dead, soon pass away, scarcely leaving a trace behind of their former existence.

      And perhaps he was right as regards the greatest number of those passions; but he was certainly wrong when he applied that sort of worldly-wise knowledge to his daughter Johanna. She was one of those rare beings whose hearts are not won by every gaudy flatterer who may buzz the accents of admiration in their ears. No; she was qualified, eminently qualified, to love once, but only once; and, like the passion-flower, that blooms into abundant beauty once and never afterwards puts forth a blossom, she allowed her heart to expand to the soft influence of affection, which, when crushed by adversity, was gone forever.

      'Really, Johanna,' said Mrs Oakley, in the true conventicle twang, 'you look so pale and ill that I must positively speak to Mr Lupin about you.'

      'Mr Lupin, my dear,' said the spectacle-maker, 'may be all very well in his way as a parson; but I don't see what he can do with Johanna looking pale.'

      'A pious man, Mr Oakley, has to do with everything and everybody.'

      'Then he must be the most intolerable bore in existence; and I don't wonder at his being kicked out of some people's houses, as I have heard Mr Lupin has been.'

      'And if he has, Mr Oakley, I can tell you he glories in it. Mr Lupin likes to suffer for the faith; and if he were to be made a martyr tomorrow, I am quite certain it would give him a deal of pleasure.'

      'My dear, I am quite sure it would not give him half the pleasure it would me.'

      'I understand your insinuation, Mr Oakley; you would like to have him murdered on account of his holiness; but, though you say these kind of things at your own breakfast-table, you won't say as much when he comes to tea this afternoon.'

      'To tea, Mrs Oakley! haven't I told you over and over again that I will not have that man in my house!'

      'And haven't I told you, Mr Oakley, twice that number of times that he shall come to tea? and I have asked him now, and it can't be altered.'

      'But, Mrs Oakley-'

      'It's of no use, Mr Oakley, your talking. Mr Lupin is coming to tea, and come he shall; and if you don't like it, you can go out. There now, I am sure you can't complain, now you have actually the liberty of going out; but you are like the dog in the manger, Mr Oakley, I know that well enough, and nothing will please you.

      'A fine liberty, indeed, the liberty of going out of my own house to let somebody else into it that I don't like!'

      'Johanna, my dear,' said Mrs Oakley, 'I think my old complaint is coming on, the beating of the heart, and the hysterics. I know what produces it - it's your father's brutality; and just because Dr Fungus said over and over again that I was to be kept perfectly quiet, your father seizes upon the opportunity like a wild beast, or a raving maniac, to try and make me ill.'

      Mr Oakley jumped up, stamped his feet upon the floor, and, uttering something about the probability of his becoming a maniac in a very short time, rushed into his shop, and set to polishing spectacles as if he were doing it for a wager.

      This little affair between her father and her mother certainly had had the effect, for a time, of diverting attention from Johanna, and she was able to assume a cheerfulness she did not feel; but she had something of her father's spirit in her as regards Mr Lupin, and most decidedly objected to sitting down to any meal whatever with that individual, so that Mrs Oakley was left in a minority of one upon the occasion, which, perhaps, as she fully expected, was no great matter after all.

      Johanna went upstairs to her own room, which commanded a view of the street. It was an old-fashioned house, with a balcony in front, and as she looked listlessly out into Fore-street, which was far then from being the thoroughfare it is now, she saw standing in a doorway on the opposite side of the way a stranger, who was looking intently at the house, and who, when he caught her eye, walked instantly across to it, and cast something into the balcony of the first floor. Then he touched his cap, and walked rapidly from the street.

      The thought immediately occurred to Johanna that this might possibly be some messenger from him concerning whose existence and welfare she was so deeply anxious. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that with the name of Mark Ingestrie upon her lips she should rush down to the balcony in intense anxiety to hear and see if such was really the case.

      When she reached the balcony she found lying in it a scrap of paper, in which a stone was wrapped up, in order to give it weigh, so that it might be cast with certainty into the balcony. With trembling eagerness she opened the paper, and read upon it the following words: 'For news of Mark Ingestrie, come to the Temple-gardens one hour before sunset, and do not fear addressing a man who will be holding a white rose in his hand.'

      'He lives! he lives!' she cried. 'He lives, and joy again becomes the inhabitant of my bosom! Oh, it is daylight now and sunshine compared to the black midnight of despair. Mark Ingestrie lives, and I shall be happy yet.'

      She placed the little scrap of paper in her bosom, and then, with clasped hands and a delighted expression of countenance, she repeated the brief but expressive words it contained, adding, 'Yes, yes, I will be there; the white rose is an emblem of his purity and affection, his spotless love, and that is why his messenger carries it. I will be there. One hour before sunset, ay two hours before sunset, I will be there. Joy, joy! he lives, he lives! Mark Ingestrie lives! Perchance, too, successful in his object, he returns to tell me that he can make me his, and that no obstacle can now interfere to frustrate our union. Time, time, float onwards on your fleetest pinions!'

      She went to her own apartment, but it was not, as she had last gone to it, to weep; on the contrary, it was to smile at her former fears, and to admit the philosophy of the assertion that we suffer much more from a dread of those things that never happen than we do for actual calamities which occur in their full force to us.

      'Oh, that this messenger,' she said, 'had come but yesterday! what hours of anguish I should have been spared! But I will not complain; it shall not be said that I repine at present joy because it did not come before. I will be happy when I can; and, in the consciousness that I shall soon СКАЧАТЬ