'But I'll do that blasted Joey in--' he mused.
I ran down the hill, shouting with laughter.
_You Touched Me_
The Pottery House was a square, ugly, brick house girt in by the wall
that enclosed the whole grounds of the pottery itself. To be sure, a
privet hedge partly masked the house and its ground from the pottery-yard
and works: but only partly. Through the hedge could be seen the desolate
yard, and the many-windowed, factory-like pottery, over the hedge could
be seen the chimneys and the outhouses. But inside the hedge, a pleasant
garden and lawn sloped down to a willow pool, which had once supplied the
works.
The Pottery itself was now closed, the great doors of the yard
permanently shut. No more the great crates with yellow straw showing
through, stood in stacks by the packing shed. No more the drays drawn by
great horses rolled down the hill with a high load. No more the
pottery-lasses in their clay-coloured overalls, their faces and hair
splashed with grey fine mud, shrieked and larked with the men. All that
was over.
'We like it much better--oh, much better--quieter,' said Matilda Rockley.
'Oh, yes,' assented Emmie Rockley, her sister.
'I'm sure you do,' agreed the visitor.
But whether the two Rockley girls really liked it better, or whether they
only imagined they did, is a question. Certainly their lives were much
more grey and dreary now that the grey clay had ceased to spatter its mud
and silt its dust over the premises.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149