ow they can understand t'one t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?'
'We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all- for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.'
'And what good does it do you?'
'We mean to teach it some time- or at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money than we do now.'
'Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night.'
'I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?'
'Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no master but a lexicon.'
'It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.'
'Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?'
The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.
'Ah, childer!' said she, 'it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner.'
She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked sad now.
'But he is in a better place,' continued Hannah: 'we shouldn't wish him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had.'
'You say he never mentioned us?' inquired one of the ladies.
'He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father.
He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next day- that is, a fortnight sin'- and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, ch
本章未完，点击下一页继续阅读。