The Drakestone Author:Oliver Onions General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Original Publisher: Hurst and Blackett, limited Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com w... more »here you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: 16 CHAPTER II. THE HIRING. My grandfather, even with his stoop, stood two yards and two inches in height, but he was very lean and loosely shackled together in frame, and folk said he was double-jointed, which, however, is a thing I have not come across in medicine. He was of a serious and rather pale face, and of sober conversation. He dressed always in decent black, too good for a labourer, yet very distinct from the dress of the gentry, and his broad-brimmed hat was that of a parson. When he removed this hat he showed a high furrowed forehead that lifted up and down a pair of formidable grey brows. Save for a fringe of iron- grey whiskers that curled about his high stock of white linen he was clean shaven; his hair, also grey, gathered itself over his bony temples into two bosses, giving his head something the shape of that of a horned owl; and his voice was very deep and rumbling. As he now stood just within the kitchen door he muttered stormily under his breath: " ' I will make thy house as the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and as the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah '; who shall say it isn't a sign ? " " Eh, what's to do now, Pongo ?" Ailse cried. " Ford town's twenty miles away; this man kenned naught o' Undercliffe nor Undercliffe folk; he's a worthy labourer, wi' gifts o' prayer, but he kenned naught o' us. . . This day o' all days! 'Tis a signand a promise. ... As the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. -- Come hither, John; dost know them words ? To be sure; and ye shall see 'em fulfilled. . . . Two nights I ha' walked t' Moor, ...« less