Читать книгу Hands Up! онлайн

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My mother opened the letter, and one in her handwriting dropped out. She let it fall, looking puzzled, and there it lay—for her strained face held our gaze. She read the letter, let it fall, sat down on the seat before the door and stared into vacancy. My father cried out:

"What? What? What? Not that! Not that! Not that!"

He had an intuitive sense, or quickness of perception, of the kind called Celtic. He lifted the letter and read it. But he had little need to do so. He had known, looking on my mother, that it was to tell of the death of my elder brother; and his jaw went tight. Slowly, stiffly, his head rose and he looked up at the sky and, in a voice I shall never forget, he said:

"Oh, God! And he was a man! He was a man! I shall never forgive you—God!"

"Oh, John! John! Come to me!" cried my mother. "John!" (my father's name) "take care John!"

But my father was walking to and fro in the yard at a quick step as if on a quarter-deck. He walked to the gate that led to the road down hill; he walked to the gate that led to the moors; to and fro, to and fro.