"Dickens, Charles - The Haunted Man And The Ghost's Bargain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickens Charles)

it, and it were all said in unbounded and unqualified assent.

The Chemist pushed his plate away, and, rising from the table,
walked across the room to where the old man stood looking at a
little sprig of holly in his hand.

"It recalls the time when many of those years were old and new,
then?" he said, observing him attentively, and touching him on the
shoulder. "Does it?"

"Oh many, many!" said Philip, half awaking from his reverie. "I'm
eighty-seven!"

"Merry and happy, was it?" asked the Chemist in a low voice.
"Merry and happy, old man?"

"Maybe as high as that, no higher," said the old man, holding out
his hand a little way above the level of his knee, and looking
retrospectively at his questioner, "when I first remember 'em!
Cold, sunshiny day it was, out a-walking, when some one - it was my
mother as sure as you stand there, though I don't know what her
blessed face was like, for she took ill and died that Christmas-
time - told me they were food for birds. The pretty little fellow
thought - that's me, you understand - that birds' eyes were so
bright, perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in the
winter were so bright. I recollect that. And I'm eighty-seven!"

"Merry and happy!" mused the other, bending his dark eyes upon the
stooping figure, with a smile of compassion. "Merry and happy -
and remember well?"

"Ay, ay, ay!" resumed the old man, catching the last words. "I
remember 'em well in my school time, year after year, and all the
merry-making that used to come along with them. I was a strong
chap then, Mr. Redlaw; and, if you'll believe me, hadn't my match
at football within ten mile. Where's my son William? Hadn't my
match at football, William, within ten mile!"

That's what I always say, father!" returned the son promptly, and
with great respect. "You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of
the family!"

"Dear!" said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked at
the holly. "His mother - my son William's my youngest son - and I,
have sat among em' all, boys and girls, little children and babies,
many a year, when the berries like these were not shining half so
bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of 'em are gone;
she's gone; and my son George (our eldest, who was her pride more
than all the rest!) is fallen very low: but I can see them, when I
look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those days; and