- end_line
- 14124
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 14043
- text
- posthumous work of a poor fellow--fine lad he was, too--a friend of
mine. Yes, here I have been doing all this, while you still are
hammering away at that one poor plaguy Inferno! Oh, there's a secret in
dispatching these things; patience! patience! you will yet learn the
secret. Time! time! I can't teach it to you, my boy, but Time can: I
wish I could, but I can't."
There was another knock at the door.
"Oh!" cried Millthorpe, suddenly turning round to it, "I forgot, my boy.
I came to tell you that there is a porter, with some queer things,
inquiring for you. I happened to meet him down stairs in the corridors,
and I told him to follow me up--I would show him the road; here he is;
let him in, let him in, good Delly, my girl."
Thus far, the rattlings of Millthorpe, if producing any effect at all,
had but stunned the averted Pierre. But now he started to his feet. A
man with his hat on, stood in the door, holding an easel before him.
"Is this Mr. Glendinning's room, gentlemen?"
"Oh, come in, come in," cried Millthorpe, "all right."
"Oh! is that _you_, sir? well, well, then;" and the man set down the
easel.
"Well, my boy," exclaimed Millthorpe to Pierre; "you are in the Inferno
dream yet. Look; that's what people call an _easel_, my boy. An _easel_,
an _easel_--not a _weasel_; you look at it as though you thought it a
weasel. Come; wake up, wake up! You ordered it, I suppose, and here it
is. Going to paint and illustrate the Inferno, as you go along, I
suppose. Well, my friends tell me it is a great pity my own things aint
illustrated. But I can't afford it. There now is that Hymn to the Niger,
which I threw into a pigeon-hole, a year or two ago--that would be fine
for illustrations."
"Is it for Mr. Glendinning you inquire?" said Pierre now, in a slow, icy
tone, to the porter.
"Mr. Glendinning, sir; all right, aint it?"
"Perfectly," said Pierre mechanically, and casting another strange,
rapt, bewildered glance at the easel. "But something seems strangely
wanting here. Ay, now I see, I see it:--Villain!--the vines! Thou hast
torn the green heart-strings! Thou hast but left the cold skeleton of
the sweet arbor wherein she once nestled! Thou besotted, heartless hind
and fiend, dost thou so much as dream in thy shriveled liver of the
eternal mischief thou hast done? Restore thou the green vines! untrample
them, thou accursed!--Oh my God, my God, trampled vines pounded and
crushed in all fibers, how can they live over again, even though they be
replanted! Curse thee, thou!--Nay, nay," he added moodily--"I was but
wandering to myself." Then rapidly and mockingly--"Pardon,
pardon!--porter; I most humbly crave thy most haughty pardon." Then
imperiously--"Come, stir thyself, man; thou hast more below: bring all
up."
As the astounded porter turned, he whispered to Millthorpe--"Is he
safe?--shall I bring 'em?"
"Oh certainly," smiled Millthorpe: "I'll look out for him; he's never
really dangerous when I'm present; there, go!"
Two trunks now followed, with "L. T." blurredly marked upon the ends.
"Is that all, my man?" said Pierre, as the trunks were being put down
before him; "well, how much?"--that moment his eyes first caught the
blurred letters.
"Prepaid, sir; but no objection to more."
Pierre stood mute and unmindful, still fixedly eying the blurred
letters; his body contorted, and one side drooping, as though that
moment half-way down-stricken with a paralysis, and yet unconscious of
the stroke.
His two companions, momentarily stood motionless in those respective
attitudes, in which they had first caught sight of the remarkable change
that had come over him. But, as if ashamed of having been thus affected,
Millthorpe summoning a loud, merry voice, advanced toward Pierre, and,
tapping his shoulder, cried, "Wake up, wake up, my boy!--He says he is
prepaid, but no objection to more."
- title
- Chunk 3