Читать книгу White Narcissus онлайн

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'Are they from the Lethen side?' asked the latter.

'Certainly they're from Lethen's. That old man's past farming, if he ever was any good at it. Can't even keep up his fences. Why he ever stays on—But then you must remember. Bet he'd seem as old when you were a kid as he does now.'

'I remember how impressive he appeared, with his young brown face and his white hair. I hadn't seen anyone like him; and when I got to know him a little better he never quite became commonplace.'

'Quite a character.' Mrs. Hymerson smiled, as though she knew and wished to take the flavour from what her husband was about to express. 'And you know, he knows more than you'd think, too. They say he was well educated when he was young....'

'Appear distinguished, I guess he does, appear,' burst in the rapid accents of Carson Hymerson. 'That's all he does, is appear, the old fraud, don't I know him, know him like a book! I guess I ought to, hmph!' The man drew up his right shoulder and twisted his head aside in a grimace of cynic humour. 'Why, when I and he was on the school-board, there never was any peace, but he'd be thinking up ideas. And you couldn't do anything with him, once he got an idea in his head. Crazy, that's what he is, crazy, and he don't know it.' The last few swift words came in a lower tone, for he was not unaware of Richard Milne's reception of them, a hardening of the mouth.