Читать книгу The Valley of Squinting Windows онлайн

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One morning he encountered old Marse Prendergast upon the road. She was gathering a few green sticks from the hedge-rows. She seemed to be always looking for the means of a fire, and, to John Brennan, there appeared something that touched him greatly in the spectacle of this whining old woman, from whom the spark of life was so quickly fading, having no comfort, even on a summer day, but just to be sitting over a few smoldering sticks, sucking at an old black pipe and breaking out into occasional converse with herself. She who had given birth to strong sons and lovely daughters sitting here in her little cabin alone. Her clutch was gone from her to America, to the streets, and to the grave.

John Brennan felt the pity of her, although he did not notice that the curtsey she gave him from the ditch was an essential portion of her contempt for the son of Nan Byrne (the cheek of him going on for to be a priest!), or that when she addressed him as Mr. Brennan it was in derision.

"And glory be to God, sure we'll soon have to be calling you Father Brennan!" she repeated, as if silently marveling at the impossibility of the combination of words.