The Battle of Life / Битва жизни. Книга для чтения на английском языке

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over that common Philosopher’s stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist’s researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross and every precious thing to poor account.

�Britain!’ cried the Doctor. �Britain! Holloa!’

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious acknowledgment of �Now then![5 - Now then! – (разг.

) Ну!]’

�Where’s the breakfast table?’ said the Doctor.

�In the house,’ returned Britain.

�Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?’ said the Doctor. �Don’t you know that there are gentlemen coming? That there’s business to be done this morning, before the coach comes by? That this is a very particular occasion?’

�I couldn’t do anything, Dr. Jeddler, till the women had done getting in the apples, could I?’ said Britain, his voice rising with his reasoning, so that it was very loud at last.

�Well, have they done now?’ replied the Doctor, looking at his watch, and clapping his hands. �Come! make haste! where’s Clemency?’

�Here am I, Mister,’ said a voice from one of the ladders, which a pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. �It’s all done now. Clear away, gals. Everything shall be ready for you in half a minute, Mister.

’

With that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as she did so, an appearance sufficiently peculiar to justify a word of introduction.

She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of tightness that made it comical. But, the extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner, would have superseded any face in the world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else’s arms, and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion, is to offer the mildest outline of the reality.

To say that she was perfectly content and satisfied with these arrangements, and regarded them as being no business of hers, and that she took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her equanimity.