DOI article:
Balfour, Marie Clothilde: "Sub tegmine fagi"
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26393#0211
By Marie Clothilde Balfour 207
noises from the miserable hut where Pete Macara lived, since he
came to the town a month or two back to work—when it pleased
him—in the quarry. Pete Macara was a perfectly lovely villain,
whose face was the colour of ancient ivory, carved into a mask of
the vilest sort of wisdom. From the top of his curly black head
to the tips of his slender fingers, he was beautiful as a black
panther and as vicious, and the eyes of him were limpid pools of
iniquity. He had a wife, whom we saw but seldom, till the latter
days, and whom we found perplexing ; a small, frail, white thing,
with a gentle frightened face, who sometimes forgot to speak
vulgarly, and whose soft hands were but newly roughened by
work.
Pete swore at her, we knew, and beat her we suspected ; and
therefore John and Big Tom stopped uneasily when they heard a
cry rising from the hut, and glued their eyes to the narrow slit of
bare window-pane beneath the rag that served as curtain. They
did not look long before the cry sharpened to a shriek, and there
was a dull thud, and a loud curse, which came from gentle John
Elliott’s mouth, that was wont to whisper hoarsely “Be canny.”
And big Tom Jamieson hurled his great shoulders at the door,
whereat the lock, as was to be expected, gave way obediently.
Pete Macara leapt to the threshold, and instantly met with a
shaking that made his bones rattle and his skin crack ; while John
pushed past them, and bent over the bundle of clothes that was
huddled upon the floor, and whence there came a small crawling
worm of something red and sticky.
Tom went on shaking Pete at intervals, till he dropped him on
the floor, and swore at him comfortably. It took a good deal of
plain speech to ease big Tom when once his huge body woke up
to anger. The other gathered himself together, and surveyed the
scene sulkily, but with a wicked satisfaction twitching at his lips ;
and
noises from the miserable hut where Pete Macara lived, since he
came to the town a month or two back to work—when it pleased
him—in the quarry. Pete Macara was a perfectly lovely villain,
whose face was the colour of ancient ivory, carved into a mask of
the vilest sort of wisdom. From the top of his curly black head
to the tips of his slender fingers, he was beautiful as a black
panther and as vicious, and the eyes of him were limpid pools of
iniquity. He had a wife, whom we saw but seldom, till the latter
days, and whom we found perplexing ; a small, frail, white thing,
with a gentle frightened face, who sometimes forgot to speak
vulgarly, and whose soft hands were but newly roughened by
work.
Pete swore at her, we knew, and beat her we suspected ; and
therefore John and Big Tom stopped uneasily when they heard a
cry rising from the hut, and glued their eyes to the narrow slit of
bare window-pane beneath the rag that served as curtain. They
did not look long before the cry sharpened to a shriek, and there
was a dull thud, and a loud curse, which came from gentle John
Elliott’s mouth, that was wont to whisper hoarsely “Be canny.”
And big Tom Jamieson hurled his great shoulders at the door,
whereat the lock, as was to be expected, gave way obediently.
Pete Macara leapt to the threshold, and instantly met with a
shaking that made his bones rattle and his skin crack ; while John
pushed past them, and bent over the bundle of clothes that was
huddled upon the floor, and whence there came a small crawling
worm of something red and sticky.
Tom went on shaking Pete at intervals, till he dropped him on
the floor, and swore at him comfortably. It took a good deal of
plain speech to ease big Tom when once his huge body woke up
to anger. The other gathered himself together, and surveyed the
scene sulkily, but with a wicked satisfaction twitching at his lips ;
and