Читать книгу The Perfect World. A romance of strange people and strange places онлайн

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The two boys stared at each other in perplexity. The vicar laughed. “None of the women have been frightening you with their child’s stories yet?”

“No!” said both boys together, “what is it?”

“Oh, there’s a legend connected with this place, that any strangers in Marshfielden will bring disaster on themselves and perhaps on the place, if they take up their abode here”

“Why?”

“A curse was laid on the place by a monk in Henry the Eighth’s time, when the Priory here was dismantled”

“Oh, is that all?” said Alan lightly “We are not afraid of old wives’ tales like that!”

But Molly Murlock, who was in the kitchen with Mary Slater, heard the words, and her brow clouded. Drawing her child closer, she muttered as she said good night to Mary—

“‘Curse’ or no ‘Curse,’ I’d rather be dead, than live to see strangers come here”

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The two men had now been working for three months at the mine, and the villagers had become used to the sight of strangers in Marshfielden. Indeed, as the weeks sped by, and nothing uncanny happened, they began gradually to forget the “Curse” in connection with the two young Forsyths.