Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates / Серебряные коньки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Picture, then, the consternation among all the good people when it was announced by “somebody who was there and ought to know,” that the postboy had that very morning handed Higgs a foreign-looking letter, and the man had “turned as white as the wall, rushed to his factory, talked a bit with one of the head workmen, and without bidding a creature good-bye, was off bag and baggage, before you could wink[455], ma’am.” Mistress Scrubbs, his landlady, was in deep aflfiction. The dear soul became quite out of breath while speaking of him. “To leave lodgin’s in that suddent way, without never so much as a day’s warnin’, which was what every woman who didn’t wish to be trodden underfoot, which thank hevving wasn’t HER way, had a perfect right to expect; yes, and a week’s warnin’ now you mention it, and without even so much as sayin’ ‘Many thanks, Mistress Scrubbs, for all past kindnesses,’ which was most numerous, though she said it who shouldn’t say it; leastwise she wasn’t never no kind of person to be lookin’ for thanks every minnit. It was really scanderlous, though to be sure Mister ’iggs paid up everythin’ to the last farthin’ and it fairly brought tears to my eyes to see his dear empty boots lyin’ there in the corner of his room, which alone showed trouble of mind for he always stood ’em up straight as solgers, though bein’ half-soled twice they hadn’t, of course, been worth takin’ away.”

Whereupon her dearest friend, Miss Scrumpkins, ran home to tell all about it. And, as everybody knew the Scrumpkinses, a shining gossamer of news was soon woven from one end of the street to the other.

An investigating committee met that evening at Mrs. Snigham’s – sitting in secret session over her best china[456]. Though invited only to a quiet “tea,” the amount of judicial business they transacted on the occasion was prodigious. The biscuits were actually cold before the committee had a chance to eat anything. There was so much to talk over, and it was so important that it should be firmly established that each member had always been “certain sure that something extraordinary would be happening to that man yet,” that it was nearly eight o’clock before Mrs. Snigham gave anybody a second cup.

Broad Sunshine

One snowy day in January Laurens Boekman went with his father to pay his respects[457] to the Brinker family.

Raff was resting after the labors of the day; Gretel, having filled and lighted his pipe, was brushing every speck of ash from the hearth; the dame was spinning; and Hans, perched upon a stool by the window, was diligently studying his lessons. It was a peaceful, happy household whose main excitement during the past week had been the looking forward to this possible visit from Thomas Higgs.

As soon as the grand presentation was over, Dame Brinker insisted upon giving her guests some hot tea; it was enough to freeze anyone, she said, to be out in such crazy, blustering weather. While they were talking with her husband she whispered to Gretel that the young gentleman’s eyes and her boy’s were certainly as much alike as four beans, to say nothing of a way they both had of looking as if they were stupid and yet knew as much as a body’s grandfather.

Gretel was disappointed. She had looked forward to a tragic scene, such as Annie Bouman had often described to her, from storybooks; and here was the gentleman who came so near being a murderer, who for ten years had been wandering over the face of the earth, who believed himself deserted and scorned by his father – the very young gentleman[458] who had fled from his country in such magnificent trouble, sitting by the fire just as pleasant and natural as could be!

To be sure, his voice had trembled when he talked with her parents, and he had met his father’s look with a bright kind of smile that would have suited a dragon-killer bringing the waters of perpetual youth to his king, but after all, he wasn’t at all like the conquered hero in Annie’s book. He did not say, lifting his arm toward heaven, “I hereby swear to be forever faithful to my home, my God, and my country!” which would have been only right and proper under the circumstances.