And I suppose that just
lately he may have been getting a bit better in his head, for he runned
down to join the children that day when I come to Ashacombe, as you
remember; and for all that he was a bit frightened then, he was so took
up with your little lady that I hadn't the heart to keep mun from going
to look at her, though I was always hid not very far from mun. It was
me that your servant saw in the woods the day Jan brought the
bullfinch; but Lord, Lord, I never thought that it would have come to
this."
She stopped, and pulling the clothes aside looked sadly at the sick
man's face. "See there," she said in a hard, changed voice, "that's
how he looked often when we was marching back to Corinner. I thought
that I should never get mun back alive then, but I did hope never to
see mun look so again. And though he can't spake I know what he's
a-thinking. He thinks that the sarjint's come for mun, and it's a
killed the heart within mun."
CHAPTER XIV
There was a long silence when Lucy Dart came to the end of her story.
There were parts of it that struck home to Lady Eleanor, for was not
she also the widow of a soldier who had been killed in action? But
what moved her and Colonel George above all was the change in the
woman's face. While she was talking of her young days her features
were softer; but as she neared the end of her story they grew harder
and harder until they assumed an expression of worn, dogged despair, as
though she still felt the stress of those terrible days in the retreat
to Corunna.
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