"ElizabethGaskell-ThePoorClare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gaskell Elizabeth C)

tears, declared that she would never leave her; and it was Bridget,
who at last loosened her arms, and, grave and tearless herself, bade
her keep her word, and go forth into the wide world. Sobbing aloud,
and looking back continually, Mary went away. Bridget was still as
death, scarcely drawing her breath, or closing her stony eyes; till
at last she turned back into her cottage, and heaved a ponderous old
settle against the door. There she sat, motionless, over the gray
ashes of her extinguished fire, deaf to Madam's sweet voice, as she
begged leave to enter and comfort her nurse. Deaf, stony, and
motionless, she sat for more than twenty hours; till, for the third
time, Madam came across the snowy path from the great house, carrying
with her a young spaniel, which had been Mary's pet up at the hall;
and which had not ceased all night long to seek for its absent
mistress, and to whine and moan after her. With tears Madam told
this story, through the closed door--tears excited by the terrible
look of anguish, so steady, so immovable--so the same to-day as it
was yesterday--on her nurse's face. The little creature in her arms
began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with the cold.
Bridget stirred; she moved--she listened. Again that long whine; she
thought it was for her daughter; and what she had denied to her
nursling and mistress she granted to the dumb creature that Mary had
cherished. She opened the door, and took the dog from Madam's arms.
Then Madam came in, and kissed and comforted the old woman, who took
but little notice of her or anything. And sending up Master Patrick
to the hall for fire and food, the sweet young lady never left her
nurse all that night. Next day, the Squire himself came down,
carrying a beautiful foreign picture--Our Lady of the Holy Heart, the
Papists call it. It is a picture of the Virgin, her heart pierced
with arrows, each arrow representing one of her great woes. That
picture hung in Bridget's cottage when I first saw her; I have that
picture now.

Years went on. Mary was still abroad. Bridget was still and stern,
instead of active and passionate. The little dog, Mignon, was indeed
her darling. I have heard that she talked to it continually;
although, to most people, she was so silent. The Squire and Madam
treated her with the greatest consideration, and well they might; for
to them she was as devoted and faithful as ever. Mary wrote pretty
often, and seemed satisfied with her life. But at length the letters
ceased--I hardly know whether before or after a great and terrible
sorrow came upon the house of the Starkeys. The Squire sickened of a
putrid fever; and Madam caught it in nursing him, and died. You may
be sure, Bridget let no other woman tend her but herself; and in the
very arms that had received her at her birth, that sweet young woman
laid her head down, and gave up her breath. The Squire recovered, in
a fashion. He was never strong--he had never the heart to smile
again. He fasted and prayed more than ever; and people did say that
he tried to cut off the entail, and leave all the property away to
found a monastery abroad, of which he prayed that some day little
Squire Patrick might be the reverend father. But he could not do