WHY didn't you let
me give it him?"
"Because I couldn't bear it, so never think of it," she cried quickly.
And the children went to bed, miserably.
When William was growing up, the family moved from the Bottoms to a
house on the brow of the hill, commanding a view of the valley, which
spread out like a convex cockle-shell, or a clamp-shell, before it. In
front of the house was a huge old ash-tree. The west wind, sweeping from
Derbyshire, caught the houses with full force, and the tree shrieked
again. Morel liked it.
"It's music," he said. "It sends me to sleep."
But Paul and Arthur and Annie hated it. To Paul it became almost a
demoniacal noise. The winter of their first year in the new house their
father was very bad. The children played in the street, on the brim of
the wide, dark valley, until eight o'clock. Then they went to bed. Their
mother sat sewing below. Having such a great space in front of the house
gave the children a feeling of night, of vastness, and of terror. This
terror came in from the shrieking of the tree and the anguish of the
home discord.
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