Explore "The Deliverance" by Ellen Glasgow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A fortnight passed before Will came to Christopher's again, and then he stole over one evening in the shadow of the twilight. Things were no better, he said; they were even worse than usual; the work in the tobacco field was simply what he couldn't stand, and his grandfather was growing more intolerable every day. Besides this, the very dullness of the life was fast driving him to distraction. He had smuggled a bottle of whisky from the town, and last night, after a hot quarrel with the old man, he had succeeded in drugging himself to sleep. "My nerves have gone all to pieces," he finished irritably, "and it's nothing on earth but this everlasting bickering that has done it. It's more than flesh and blood can be expected to put up with."
His hand shook a little when he lighted a cigarette, and his face, which was burned red from wind and sun, contracted nervously as he talked. It was the wildness in his speech, however, the suppressed excitement which ran in an undercurrent beneath his words, that caused the other to turn sharply and regard him for a moment with gathered brows.