Читать книгу The Valley of Squinting Windows онлайн

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Yet they were not settled a month at the cottage in the valley when Ned came from Garradrimna one night a changed man. Larry Cully, a loafer of the village, had attacked him with the whole story.... Was this the kind of people among whom she had brought him to live, and was this a fact about her? She confessed her share, but, illtreat her how he would, she could not tell him what had been done with the child.

Henceforth he was so different, settling gradually into his present condition. He could not go about making inquiries as to the past of his wife, and the people of the valley, gloating over his condition, took no pains to ease his mind. It was more interesting to see him torture himself with suspicion. They hardly fancied she had told him all. It was grand to see him drinking in his endeavors to forget the things he must needs be thinking of.

Thus had Mrs. Brennan lived with her husband for eighteen years, and no other child had been born to them. His original occupation of plumber's laborer found no opportunity for its exercise in the valley, but he sometimes lime-washed stables and mended roofs and gutters. For the most part, however, she kept him through her labor at the machine.