Scarlet Sails / Алые паруса. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Menners kept a tavern and shop and was considered a wealthy man. Mary went to see him at six o’clock in the evening. It was close to seven when the neighbour woman met her on the road to Liss. Mary had been weeping and was very upset. She said she was going to town to pawn her wedding ring. Then she added that Menners had agreed to lend her some money but had demanded her love in return. Mary had rejected him.

“There’s not a crumb in the house,” she had said to the neighbour.

“I’ll go into town. We’ll manage somehow until my husband returns.”

It was a cold, windy evening. In vain did the neighbour try to talk the young woman out of going to Liss when night was approaching. “You’ll get wet, Mary. It’s beginning to rain, and the wind looks as if it will bring on a storm.”

It was at least a three hours’ brisk walk from the seaside village to town, but Mary did not heed her neighbour’s advice. “I won’t be an eyesore to you any more,” she said. “As it is, there’s hardly a family I haven’t borrowed bread, tea or flour from. I’ll pawn my ring, and that will take care of everything.” She went into town, returned and the following day took to her bed with a fever and chills; the rain and the evening frost had brought on double pneumonia, as the doctor from town, called in by the kind-hearted neighbour, had said. A week later there was an empty place in Longren’s double bed, and the neighbour woman moved into his house to care for his daughter. She was a widow and all alone in the world, so this was not a difficult task. “Besides,” she added, “the baby fills my days.”

Longren went off to town, quit his job, said goodbye to his comrades and returned home to raise little Assol. The widow stayed on in the sailor’s house as a foster mother to the child until she had learned to walk well, but as soon as Assol stopped falling when she raised her foot to cross the threshold, Longren declared that from then on he intended to care for the child himself and, thanking the woman for her help and kindness, embarked on a lonely widower’s life, focusing all his thoughts, hopes, love and memories on the little girl.

Ten years of roaming the seas had not brought him much of a fortune. He began to work.