Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/306

290 him—Misther Garon, the timper of him’s that awful, awful! No conshideration, and that ugly-hearted, got whin a soldier b’y! The things he does—my, my, the things he does!" She threw up her hands with an air of distraction.

"Well, and what does he do, Madame?" asked the Avocat simply.

"An’ what he says, too—the awful of it! Ah, the bad sour heart in him! What’s he lyin’ in his bed for now—an’ the New Year comin’ on, whin we ought to be praisin’ God an’ enjoyin’ each other’s company in this blessed wurruld? What’s he lying betune the quilts now fur, but by token of the bad heart in him! It’s a wicked cowld he has, an’ how did he come by it? I’ll tell ye, Misther Garon. So wild was he, yesterday it was a week, so black mad wid somethin’ I’d said to him and somethin’ that shlipped from me hand at his head, that he turns his back on me, throws opin the dure, shteps out into the shnow, and shtandin’ there alone, he curses the wide wurruld—oh, dear Misther Garon, he cursed the wide wurruld, shtandin’ there in the snow! God forgive the black heart of him, shtandin’ out there cursin’ the wide wurruld!"

The Avocat looked at the Sergeant’s wife musingly, the fingers of his hands tapping together, but he did not speak: he was becoming wiser all in a moment as to the ways of women.

"An’ now he’s in bed, the shtrappin’ blasphemer, fur the cowld he got shtandin’ there in the snow cursin’ the wide wurruld. Ah, Misther Garon, pity a poor woman that has to live wid the loikes o’ that!"

The Avocat still did not speak. He turned his face away and looked out of the window, where his eyes could see the little house on the hill, which to-day had