[My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell]@TWC D-Link book
My Lady Ludlow

CHAPTER VIII
18/39

As the old man looked sadly on the white, baked lips, and the flushed cheeks, contorted with suffering even in his sleep, Clement gave a sharp cry which disturbed his miserable neighbours, all slumbering around in uneasy attitudes.

They bade him with curses be silent; and then turning round, tried again to forget their own misery in sleep.

For you see, the bloodthirsty canaille had not been sated with guillotining and hanging all the nobility they could find, but were now informing, right and left, even against each other; and when Clement and Jacques were in the prison, there were few of gentle blood in the place, and fewer still of gentle manners.

At the sound of the angry words and threats, Jacques thought it best to awaken his master from his feverish uncomfortable sleep, lest he should provoke more enmity; and, tenderly lifting him up, he tried to adjust his own body, so that it should serve as a rest and a pillow for the younger man.

The motion aroused Clement, and he began to talk in a strange, feverish way, of Virginie, too,--whose name he would not have breathed in such a place had he been quite himself.


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