Читать книгу Lark Rise to Candleford онлайн

83 страница из 141

One man worked with the field women or in the same field. He was a poor, weedy creature, getting old and not very strong and they had put him upon half-pay. He was known as 'Algy' and was not a native, but had appeared there suddenly, years before, out of a past he never mentioned. He was tall and thin and stooping, with watery blue eyes and long ginger side-whiskers of the kind then known as 'weepers'. Sometimes, when he straightened his back, the last vestiges of a military bearing might be detected, and there were other grounds for supposing he had at some time been in the Army. When tipsy, or nearly so, he would begin, 'When I was in the Grenadier Guards . . .' a sentence that always tailed off into silence. Although his voice broke on the high notes and often deteriorated into a squeak, it still bore the same vague resemblance to that of a man of [Pg 52] culture as his bearing did to that of a soldier. Then, instead of swearing with 'd——s' and 'b——s' as the other men did, he would, when surprised, burst into a 'Bai Jove!' which amused everybody, but threw little light on his mystery.