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

"Don't you?" said she, coming a step closer, and changing her
imprecatory cry for a whisper which made the gamekeeper's lad,
following Mr. Gisborne, creep all over. "You shall live to see the
creature you love best, and who alone loves you--ay, a human
creature, but as innocent and fond as my poor, dead darling--you
shall see this creature, for whom death would be too happy, become a
terror and a loathing to all, for this blood's sake. Hear me, O holy
saints, who never fail them that have no other help!"

She threw up her right hand, filled with poor Mignon's life-drops;
they spirted, one or two of them, on his shooting-dress,--an ominous
sight to the follower. But the master only laughed a little, forced,
scornful laugh, and went on to the Hall. Before he got there,
however, he took out a gold piece, and bade the boy carry it to the
old woman on his return to the village. The lad was "afeared," as he
told me in after years; he came to the cottage, and hovered about,
not daring to enter. He peeped through the window at last; and by
the flickering wood-flame, he saw Bridget kneeling before the picture
of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, with dead Mignon lying between her and
the Madonna. She was praying wildly, as her outstretched arms
betokened. The lad shrunk away in redoubled terror; and contented
himself with slipping the gold piece under the ill-fitting door. The
next day it was thrown out upon the midden; and there it lay, no one
daring to touch it.

Meanwhile Mr. Gisborne, half curious, half uneasy, thought to lessen
his uncomfortable feelings by asking Sir Philip who Bridget was? He
could only describe her--he did not know her name. Sir Philip was
equally at a loss. But an old servant of the Starkeys, who had
resumed his livery at the Hall on this occasion--a scoundrel whom
Bridget had saved from dismissal more than once during her palmy
days--said:-

"It will be the old witch, that his worship means. She needs a
ducking, if ever a woman did, does that Bridget Fitzgerald."

"Fitzgerald!" said both the gentlemen at once. But Sir Philip was
the first to continue:-

"I must have no talk of ducking her, Dickon. Why, she must be the
very woman poor Starkey bade me have a care of; but when I came here
last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her to-morrow.
But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of
her being a witch--I've a pack of hounds at home, who can follow the
scent of a lying knave as well as ever they followed a dog-fox; so
take care how you talk about ducking a faithful old servant of your
dead master's."

"Had she ever a daughter?" asked Mr. Gisborne, after a while.