Читать ««Дракула» и другие лучшие мистические истории на английском» онлайн - страница 49

I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church.

I went over and read, ‘Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, age 30.’ When I came back Mr. Swales went on,

‘But,’ I said, ‘surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?’

‘Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!’

‘To please their relatives, I suppose.’

‘To please their relatives, you suppose!’ This he said with intense scorn. ‘How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?’

The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read, ‘Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July 29,1873,falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. ‘He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Really, Mr. Swales, I don’t see anything very funny in that!’ She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely.

I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up, ‘Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favorite seat, and I cannot leave it, and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide.’

‘That won’t harm ye, my pretty, an’ it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin’ on his lap. That won’t hurt ye. Why, I’ve sat here off an’ on for nigh twenty years past, an’ it hasn’t done me no harm. Don’t ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn’ lie there either! It’ll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. There’s the clock, and’I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!’ And off he hobbled.

Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat, and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven’t heard from Jonathan for a whole month.

The same day. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly. They run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next to the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of donkeys’ hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here.