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Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family
Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family
Part 1, Chapter I.
Part 1 – The Rectory Folk.
Hot Water in Lawford
“Eh? What?”
“I say, why don’t you give it up quietly?”
“Speak up; I’m a little hard of hearing.”
“I say, why don’t you give it up quietly?” roared the speaker to a little bent old man, with a weak, thin, piping voice, and a sharp look that gave him somewhat the air of a very attenuated sparrow in a severe frost, his shrunken legs, in tight yellow leather leggings, seeming to help the idea.
“Don’t shout at me like that, Master Portlock. I arn’t deaf, only a trifle hard of hearing when I’ve got a cowd – just a trifle, you know.”
“Have you got a cold?” asked the man addressed, a sturdy-looking, fresh-coloured, middle-aged man, with a very bluff manner, and a look of prosperity in his general appearance that made him seem thoroughly adapted to his office. In fact, he was just the man that a country clergyman would be glad to elect at a vestry meeting for vicar’s churchwarden. “Eh?”
“I – say – have – you – got – a – cold? Hang him, how deaf he is!”
“Oh, no! oh, no!” chirped the little old man, sharply; “I’m not deaf. Just a little thick i’ the ears. Yes; I’ve got a cowd. It’s settled here – just here,” he piped, striking himself upon his thin chest with the hand that held his stick. “A bad cowd – a nasty cowd as keeps me awake all night, doing nowt but cough. It’s that stove, that’s what it is, Master Portlock.”
“Nonsense, man! It would keep the cold off.”
“Eh?”