How clearly he
remembered
his first meeting with Mary.
Yeats
Just now she was trying
to remember whether she used to buy her wool for knitting at Miss
Peter's or from Mrs. Macallough's at the bridge. One or other sold
it a halfpenny a skein cheaper. She never knew what went on inside
her son's mind, she had always her own fish to fry. Blessed are the
unsympathetic. They preserve their characters in an iron bottle while
the most of us poor mortals are going about the planet vainly searching
for any kind of a shell to contain us, and evaporating the while.
Sherman began to mount the hill to the vicarage. 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.
to remember whether she used to buy her wool for knitting at Miss
Peter's or from Mrs. Macallough's at the bridge. One or other sold
it a halfpenny a skein cheaper. She never knew what went on inside
her son's mind, she had always her own fish to fry. Blessed are the
unsympathetic. They preserve their characters in an iron bottle while
the most of us poor mortals are going about the planet vainly searching
for any kind of a shell to contain us, and evaporating the while.
Sherman began to mount the hill to the vicarage. 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.
