Prev | Current Page 33 | Next

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928

"The Woodlanders"

A lingering wind brought to her
ear the creaking sound of two over-crowded branches in the
neighboring wood which were rubbing each other into wounds, and
other vocalized sorrows of the trees, together with the screech of
owls, and the fluttering tumble of some awkward wood-pigeon ill-
balanced on its roosting-bough.
But the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded, and she could see
well enough for her purpose. Taking a bundle of spars under each
arm, and guided by the serrated line of tree-tops against the sky,
she went some hundred yards or more down the lane till she reached
a long open shed, carpeted around with the dead leaves that lay
about everywhere. Night, that strange personality, which within
walls brings ominous introspectiveness and self-distrust, but
under the open sky banishes such subjective anxieties as too
trivial for thought, inspired Marty South with a less perturbed
and brisker manner now. She laid the spars on the ground within
the shed and returned for more, going to and fro till her whole
manufactured stock were deposited here.


Pages:
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45