Kingdom Lost Read Online Free PDF

his head off some day,” said Austin gloomily.
    â€œThen you would be hanged,” said Valentine with extreme solemnity.
    Austin burst out laughing.
    â€œYou are a funny kid!”
    â€œNow you’re not angry any more.”
    â€œAren’t I?”
    â€œNot too angry to talk to me. Let’s sit on the rail and talk. I want to know all about everything.”
    â€œYou can’t sit on the rail—it’s not safe.” Then, as she laughed, “Look here, if there’s any tommyrot of that sort, I’m off!”
    Valentine sighed.
    â€œI think you’re very domineering. May I lean on the rail?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThank you, dear Austin! How kind you are to me!”
    Her face, turned up to him, was a dim oval framed in ruffled curls. It was no physical sense that told him that there was sparkling malice in her eyes.
    Next moment she was leaning on the rail, her face to the breeze. Darkness had fallen; the water slipped by them in a black wash just flecked with foam; the sky above was deeply, darkly blue, with a powder of stars coming out upon it; the west had a line of dying fire. The island was lost.
    â€œTell me about people,” said Valentine.
    â€œWhat d’you want to know?” He spoke indulgently now.
    â€œEvery single thing—every single thing you can think of.”
    â€œThat’s a pretty tall order! You see, I don’t know what you know.”
    â€œWell,” said Valentine in a considering voice, “I’ve read the Bible and Shakespeare, and Edward said they were enough to give you a liberal education and plumb the depths of human nature. That’s what Edward said .”
    â€œIt sounds a bit high-brow,” said Austin.
    â€œWhat’s high-brow?”
    â€œBrainy—serious—intense—frightfully intellectual, you know.”
    He saw the dark head nod.
    â€œI don’t like Shakespeare very much—such dreadful things seem to happen to the people. But I like the way they talk.”
    â€œBut, good Lord, you were reading Matthew Arnold out loud when I found you! He’s high-brow if you like.”
    â€œThat,” said Valentine, “that was because Edward made me promise faithfully that I would read aloud every day if anything happened to him; because he said, if I didn’t, I should forget how to talk, and turn into a real desert-island savage. So I read all the books we had one after the other, and I had just got to Matthew Arnold. But I do like him all the same. He feels like things look just before the sun comes up out of the sea—you know, all still, and the colour hasn’t come into them yet, and it’s so beautiful that you want to cry.” She spoke in a soft, breathless way.
    â€œWhat other books did you have?”
    â€œThere were a lot of novels. Edward called them trash. And there was a book about wild animals, with pictures. So I know what lions and tigers and bears and elephants and walruses look like. But I don’t know what a cat looks like, or a dog, or a horse, or a cow. Edward tried to draw them, but he said they didn’t come out very like.”
    Austin really laughed this time.
    â€œNeither Barclay nor I can draw for toffee!”
    â€œI don’t want any more drawn cats—I want real ones—and pigs, and donkeys, and hedgehogs, and birds. I want birds dreadfully . And I want people most of all. I haven’t ever seen a lady. Think of that!”
    â€œYou mustn’t say lady—you must say woman.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œIt’s not done.”
    â€œEdward said lady.”
    â€œWell—er—you know—Edward was, not to put too fine a point upon it, a bit prehistoric.”
    â€œPeople don’t say lady now?”
    â€œNo, they don’t.”
    â€œI see. What else don’t they do?”
    â€œWell—”
    â€œWhat sort of clothes do they wear? I want to know that dreadfully. You see