Alas, we had to turn off onto an even smaller trail that was too overgrown of thicket brush and vegetation. I being the only visitor to come here and this the summer season, I had to stop to break branches, then spur the horses to push through the wood until at last Anne's cottage stared back at us.
The sight was a welcoming summons, comforting indeed, growing up out of a mature landscape. I believe so for the wall of ivy, its beds of rose flowers and box hedgerows, which gives Anne's cottage its only barrier from the goats who must be kept confined to their appointed grass field. An enchanting place, I do esteem, although its walls are warped and made wholly of mud and straw, and course oak beams ere hardened for the construction. The …show more content…
She would have us all in a hurry, digging about in the trunk at the foot of her bed. 'Twas Robert who found the book, Anne's prized possession. Be it of herbal remedies given to Elizabeth, the most deserving of it. Although, as Robert is her beneficiary, everything of Anne Claymore's be his inherited property, which is to include a small emerald medallion found in a wooden box therein.
I held in my hands Anne's Last Will and Testament written by her and signed in a red ink and seal. She owned very little, yet her affairs were concisely in order.
And of her expectations, Robert shall not fail her; I am sure of it, having made his promise to have considerations and courage, to become a fair and honourable man above all. This was her last wish, spoken with words that Robert shall remember, as will I.
For Anne was saying them still and would have said more, but for the sharp, sibilant sound to come up out of her throat. She lost her breath and I be aggrieved then as Elizabeth offered her what care she could, though 'twas in vain. At seven and fifty years, Anne died. Her mouth lay open of all the things she wished to say and her eyes unfluttered. I wondered then of what she did see, of what Anne is now privy to see.
I sobbed. And the boy too.
I thought not that Anne Claymore could die; I believed her somehow