Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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“How am I to look, then?”

“More natural like.”

The farmer stood for a few moments after this silent and thoughtful.

Presently he drew a chair beside Jane’s and sat down. Upon this the girl was about to rise when he motioned her to keep her seat.

She looked surprised, but said nothing.

There they both sat for a short time without exchanging a word. Presently Richard Ashbrook broke the silence, which was becoming painful and perplexing to both.

“Ye must know,” began the farmer, “that I ha’ something to say to ye. That be why I came here. I don’t want to open old wounds afresh, but there is a reason for yer droopin’ and droopin’ as ye have been for ever so long a time, and I mean to know what it be.”

“I s’pose you can guess?”

“Maybe I can; but I want to have it from yer own lips.”

“Oh, sir, ye don’t want me to tell ’ee more than ye already know?”

“Ye’ve mourning for one that be dead and gone. Is that it?”

The girl nodded her head.

“I knew it—​I could ha’ sworn it. Well, Jane, it is no discredit to ye; still at the same time, gell, thee knows that the wisest and the best of us cannot recall the dead to life, and to cherish a hopeless sorrow is neither wise or discreet. I don’t wish to pain ye, but I tell ye plainly that you are altogether wrong. You are young, and although yer have gone through a deal o’ trouble that is no reason why you should let the past embitter your life.”