Old age had come almost
suddenly
upon him.
Yeats
He was happy.
Because
he was happy he began to run. Soon the steepness of the hill made him
walk. He thought about his love for Mary Carton. Seen by the light of
this love everything that had happened to him was plain now. He had
found his centre of unity. His childhood had prepared him for this
love. He had been solitary, fond of favourite corners of fields, fond
of going about alone, unhuman like the birds and the leaves, his heart
empty. How clearly he remembered his first meeting with Mary. They were
both children. At a school treat they watched the fire-balloon ascend,
and followed it a little way over the fields together. What friends
they became, growing up together, reading the same books, thinking the
same thoughts!
As he came to the door and pulled at the great hanging iron
bell-handle, the fire-balloon reascended in his heart, surrounded with
cheers and laughter.
III
He kept the servant talking for a moment or two before she went for
Miss Carton. The old rector, she told him, was getting less and less
able to do much work.
Old age had come almost suddenly upon him.
He seldom moved from the fireside. He was getting more and more
absent-minded. Once lately he had brought his umbrella into the
reading-desk. More and more did he leave all things to his children--to
Mary Carton and her younger sisters.
When the servant had gone, Sherman looked round the somewhat gloomy
room. In the window hung a canary in a painted cage. Outside was a
narrow piece of shaded ground between the window and the rectory wall.
The laurel and holly bushes darkened the window a good deal. On a
table in the centre of the room were evangelistic books with gilded
covers. Round the mirror over the mantelpiece were stuck various parish
announcements, thrust between the glass and the gilding. On a small
side-table was a copper ear-trumpet.
How familiar everything seemed to Sherman! Only the room seemed smaller
than it did three years before, and close to the table with the
ear-trumpet, at one side of the fireplace before the arm-chair, was a
new threadbare patch in the carpet.
Sherman recalled how in this room he and Mary Carton had sat in winter
by the fire, building castles in the air for each other. So deeply
meditating was he that she came in and stood unnoticed beside him.
he was happy he began to run. Soon the steepness of the hill made him
walk. He thought about his love for Mary Carton. Seen by the light of
this love everything that had happened to him was plain now. He had
found his centre of unity. His childhood had prepared him for this
love. He had been solitary, fond of favourite corners of fields, fond
of going about alone, unhuman like the birds and the leaves, his heart
empty. How clearly he remembered his first meeting with Mary. They were
both children. At a school treat they watched the fire-balloon ascend,
and followed it a little way over the fields together. What friends
they became, growing up together, reading the same books, thinking the
same thoughts!
As he came to the door and pulled at the great hanging iron
bell-handle, the fire-balloon reascended in his heart, surrounded with
cheers and laughter.
III
He kept the servant talking for a moment or two before she went for
Miss Carton. The old rector, she told him, was getting less and less
able to do much work.
Old age had come almost suddenly upon him.
He seldom moved from the fireside. He was getting more and more
absent-minded. Once lately he had brought his umbrella into the
reading-desk. More and more did he leave all things to his children--to
Mary Carton and her younger sisters.
When the servant had gone, Sherman looked round the somewhat gloomy
room. In the window hung a canary in a painted cage. Outside was a
narrow piece of shaded ground between the window and the rectory wall.
The laurel and holly bushes darkened the window a good deal. On a
table in the centre of the room were evangelistic books with gilded
covers. Round the mirror over the mantelpiece were stuck various parish
announcements, thrust between the glass and the gilding. On a small
side-table was a copper ear-trumpet.
How familiar everything seemed to Sherman! Only the room seemed smaller
than it did three years before, and close to the table with the
ear-trumpet, at one side of the fireplace before the arm-chair, was a
new threadbare patch in the carpet.
Sherman recalled how in this room he and Mary Carton had sat in winter
by the fire, building castles in the air for each other. So deeply
meditating was he that she came in and stood unnoticed beside him.
