George Manville Fenn

“ And now I drooped, helpless and miserable; my remaining strength seemed to go away, and I hung down my head, and cried like a child. But that fit went off, and rousing up a little I looked about me; but only to see the moonlit, beautifully solemn mouth of the cave, with the silvery water rushing in. It looked beautiful and solemn to me, even then; while the hollow, deep, echoing, musical roar of the waves at the mouth, and in the lulls, the strange tinkling, mournful splash of the water dripping from the roof, farther in, where it was all dark, sounded dreadful to me. ”

“ I did not shout to Uncle Dick, for by stopping to listen now and then I could hear the rustling of the leaves and twigs as he went on, besides every now and then catching through the dim light a glimpse of his face.
Once or twice, when a beautiful bird sprang up between us, my heart began to beat more quickly, for I thought that if uncle was tempted to shoot at it he might hit me; but by degrees I grew more confident and walked boldly on, feeling that I had nothing to fear. ”

“ There could be no want of finish where Nature has worked, and here, where all harmonises to the eye, she has prepared, for the grand burst of harmony for the ear, that wondrous concert that surely begins on one particular undated morning in spring, when, as if moved by a single impulse, all bird-dom breaks forth into song—a song of praise so sweet and glorious that the heart seems to leap, ay, and does leap, back over the gulf of years, to feel as in childhood’s days, before rust, canker, and the world’s own wear had hardened it to what it is. ”

“ He wanted no explanation, for they were standing at the edge of a precipice, gazing down at another huge glacier, which glittered in the rays of the morning sun—a vast chaos of ice whose cracks and shadows were of a vivid blue; and as they gazed up towards the point where it suddenly curved round an immense buttress, there beyond, peak after peak, as far as eye could reach, stood out in the clear air, and all seeming to rise out of the fields and beds of snow which clung around them and filled every ravine and chasm running up from their feet. ”

“ She uttered these words so hopelessly, with such a wail of agony, that they seemed to echo along the archway, and to float off upon the night breeze, rising and falling, an utterance never to fade away, but to go on for ever and ever while this world lasts; to smite upon the sleeping ears of the cruel, the dissolute, and the profligate; to awaken here, perhaps, one sorrowful thought for wrong done, one thought of repentance; there, a desire to pause, ere it be too late, on the brink of some iniquity that should break a trusting woman’s heart. ”

“ This was Glynne’s belief; and, strong in her faith in self, she had planned to act in the future so that Alleyne should find her Lucy’s cordial friend—a woman who should win his reverence so that she would be for ever sacred in his eyes.
But she had not reckoned upon being thrown with him like this; and, as he stood before her, there came a hot flush of shame to fill her cheeks, her forehead and neck with colour, but only to be succeeded by a freezing sensation of despair and dread, which sent the life-blood coursing back to her very heart, leaving her trembling as if from some sudden chill. ”

“ All the time, perhaps, there has been a sharp breeze blowing high up in the air, the great wall of rock preventing its striking where you are, but no sooner are you in front of the opening than you feel its power.
Beside this, all may be calm elsewhere, while down the steep-sided valley a keen blast rushes, coming from far inland, high up on the moor, where it has perhaps behaved like a whirlwind, and having finished its wild career there, has plunged down into the combe to make its escape out to sea. ”

“ Oh, sir, shut yourself up for a month in a dirty room in a close court, where you can hardly breathe—live from hand to mouth, and p’raps not have enough—and then go out into the bright sunshine and on the breezy hills, with the green, shady woods there, and the sparkling stream there—the bees humming about on the heath bells, and all pure, and bright, and golden with the furze and broom—and then feel how it all comes over you, choking like, as if you were so happy you must cry, for it’s all too sweet and beautiful to bear! ”

“ So high was the wind without that the candle flames were at times wafted to and fro.
Horace North had left the bedside, and was standing with his foot upon the fender, gazing down into the tiny glowing caverns in the fire, where the cinders fell together from time to time with a peculiar musical sound—the sound that strikes a watcher’s ear so strangely in the long hours of the night.
His thoughts were wild, and a tempest was raging in his breast as furious as that without. Love had made its first attack upon a strong man, and the wound was rankling. ”

“ How the eyes sparkle! How tense is every nerve! How strong each muscle! The ice looks like steel. Your skates are steel, and your legs feel the same as stroke, whish! stroke, whish! stroke! stroke! stroke! stroke! away you go, gathering power, velocity, confidence, delight, at the unwonted exercise, till you feel as if you could go on for ever, and begin wishing that the whole world was ice, and human beings had been born with skates to their toes instead of nails.
Some such feelings as these pervaded the breasts of Dick Winthorpe and Tom Tallington as they glided along homeward on that night. ”

“ Here Vine paused again and again to watch the lantern in the lugger, and listen for the rattle of oars in the rowlocks, the oars of the boat conveying his son to the men who would at once hoist the sails and bear him away to a place of safety. But the dim light of the horn lantern rose and fell, there was no rattle of oars, not even the murmur of a voice: nothing but the sucking, gasping noises at their feet, as the tide swirled by like the race of waters from some huge mill. ”

“ Their journey might have been upon some peaceful lake, whose left-hand shore was one succession of cocoa-nut groves; and beyond that, rocky jungle, full of ridge and hollow, mound of verdure, and darksome glade and chasm, down which trickled streams of water, such as had risen in the heights which culminated in the smoking cone of the volcano, while here and there the streams gave marked traces of their sources by sending up faint clouds of steam.
Mark felt as he lay back in the stern and gazed at the glorious panorama that he could watch the various phases of beauty in the landscape for ever. ”

“ A town began to spring up rapidly, with warehouses and stores; for the mountain was no longer standing in solitary silence in the middle of the great plain. The hum of industry was ever to be heard; the picks of the miners were constantly at work; the great stamps that had been erected loudly pounded up the ore; and the nights that had been dark and lonely out there in the plains were now illumined, and watched with wonder by the roving Apachés, when the great silver furnaces glowed and roared as the precious metal was heated in the crucibles before being poured into the ingot-making moulds. ”

“ The sun streams through the tinted windows in golden and ruddy glories piercing the sombre twilight of the church with rays whereon dance myriad motes of dust—dust perhaps mingled with that of the generations of the past. Jared is looking over the heads of many people anxiously towards the chancel; and now seems to come a strange rushing sound, and a dull creak, creak, which makes the towering old instrument to shudder. But that is only Ichabod Gunnis, grown tall and out of leathers, toiling away at the long handle of the bellows till the little weight tells that the wind-chest is full. ”

“ To a casual observer there does not seem much the matter, for he smiles as he speaks cheerily to his companion; but somehow his lip seems to be quivering, and he stops at the last step to give one look round, and not at the dull brick and mortary street, but upwards at the bright sky flecked with fleecy clouds, and there is an agony of longing in that look, which tells of the panting of the soul for health, and of a shadow hovering above him which seems to hide the future from his hopeful gaze. ”

“ The time had been short, but too long for the patience of the man-of-war, for before the skipper had opened his mouth to give his order to the steersman, another puff of white smoke darted from the sloop’s bows, there was a heavy thud, and a cannon ball came skipping over the heaving sea like a flat stone thrown by a clever boy across the waters of a pond—dick, duck and drake fashion—while a thrill ran through all on board as they watched the shot pass right in front of the schooner’s bows and give its final splash as it disappeared far away. ”

“ How long that time of utter nothingness lasted, she could not tell; but she woke again to a strange feeling of oppression and misery; her breath came thick and short, and she could not recall where she was. It was as if her intellect had received some fearful stroke which had robbed her of her reflective powers. But thought came suddenly, and she knew all.
A bitter sob rose to her lips, and she could have cried for help, but in dread she checked that cry, and her heart beat triumphantly, for a voice, whose breath touched her cheek, whispered her name, and she knew that he lived. ”

“ At one time it is ruddy like wine, at another time rich orange or amber, and a few hours after intensely blue, as if the sky had fallen or joined it then and there. Only in storm time is it thick and muddy, as it is in other parts of our coast, and even then it is not long before it settles down once more to its crystal purity.
“Ahoy-ay! Ahoy-ay!”
A musical chorus, softened by distance as it came off the sea, awakened Dick Temple from dreams of boats and mines, and rocks, and caves full of cuttle-fish, crabs, and seals, so big that they seemed monsters of the deep. ”

“ Archy Raystoke’s sense of weariness rapidly passed off, as the oars splashed, and the boat glided softly out of the waters of the cove, between the two huge corners of rock which guarded the entrance, and then began to dance up and down as she reached out into the tideway. After the darkness of the old quarry, with its faint odour of spirits, the night seemed comparatively like noonday, and the pure, brisk air that fanned his cheek delicious. ”

“ We cocked our guns and stepped cautiously on, to find ourselves at the edge of an opening where no less than five of the lovely birds we sought were perched, each on a dead bough, with plumage absolutely glittering in the sun-rays, which shot through, just as the flashing scale of the humming-bird sends forth its gleams of broken light.
Every now and then one darted out into the full sunshine in chase of butterfly or beetle, its loose tail-feathers spreading out comet-like and waving in the clear air. ”

“ Brace did not once turn his head to the right so as to see—there was no need to do so, for he was conscious of the ever-nearing presence of a glassy descending sheet dimly seen through a dense cloud of mist, which glittered and flashed, and as it rose, rolling over and over like the smoke from a slow fire, it emitted colours of the most brilliant hues—glorious refulgent colours, reflections of the sunshine, while with ever-increasing force there came that dull awful roar. ”

“ All this was momentary; and there the rope kept on vibrating and the anchor jarred as Scoodrach descended; while, as Max pressed the stock down, and it rose and fell like a spring beneath his foot, he kept his eyes fixed upon the edge of the cliff, where the rope seemed to end, when there was a dull twang, as if the string of some gigantic instrument had snapped, and, to his horror, the rope rose from the top of the cliff as if alive, and struck and coiled round him with a stinging pain. ”

“ For, after a furious gallop, the chariot had dashed up to Copse Hall covered with mud, the horses in a foam and ready to drop, while, springing up more like, a madman than one in possession of his full senses, Charley had leaped out, and almost forced his way to Ella’s side, to fall sobbing on his knees as he clasped her thin transparent hand, a faint smile welcoming his coming, as, with her soul seeming to leap from her longing eyes, she vainly strove to turn towards him. ”

“ The water had come tumbling down from somewhere high up the peak, and felt quite icy as they lay down upon their faces amongst the stones and scooped it up out of a little moss-grown rock-pool for a few minutes, before rising up to dry their faces, feeling bright and elastic once more and wonderfully ready for the evening meal, the preparations for which sent forth another scent far more attractive than that which came from the ferns which grew in every crevice of the rocks, and the pines whose aromatic resin shed a fainter perfume now that the heat of the sun had died away. ”

“ His words gave me energy, and we set off, crawling slowly, now upwards, now downwards, feeling every foot of the way, lest some new peril should lie in our path. The roar of the torrent rose and fell as we crept away, till by slow degrees it became fainter, fading to quite a soft murmur; but still no new horror assailed us. The dread darkness was forgotten in the hope that shed a light into our hearts, as foot by foot we progressed through what was sometimes a narrow passage, sometimes a wide vault, as we could tell by the echoing of our voices from its arched roof. ”

“ Neat, well-kept walks led up to the fort and the resident’s house, which daily grew brighter and more picturesque, with its ornamented reed-woven walls, and carefully thatched roof of attap. The broad verandah, with its punkahs, was made gay with beautiful creepers, climbing the pillars of palm and bamboo, and festooning the edges, some of these being jasmines of great size and beauty; while rough rotan baskets hung at intervals, full of moss and dead wood, on which flourished the wonderful orchids and pitcher-plants that were the delight of the ladies of the residency. ”

“ It was filled with bristling, gnarled oak, and the walls beneath were draped with Nature’s curtains, formed of the long strands of small-leaved ivy; and there, if you liked, you could look down, to the left, upon a lovely garden, the mossy roofs of mill and house, all to the left; while to the right you looked up the zig-zag gorge with its closed-in, often perpendicular walls, to see the glancing waters of the stream, and far up, the great plunging fall, flashing with light when the sun was overhead, deep in shadow as it passed onward towards the west. ”

“ The moon shone; the sky was of a deep blue; the stars gemmed the vast arch like diamonds; ay, and, like the most lustrous of jewels, shone again the snow and frost from the pure white earth, while from far away came the northern breeze humming over woodland, down, and lea, turning everything to ice with its freezing breath, so that river and brook forgot to flow, and every chimney sent up its incense-like smoke, rising higher and higher in the frosty air.
The bells had been ringing, and the ringers had shut up the belfry-door. ”

“ At that moment the dull, distant murmur of water beating against an obstacle grew louder, as the fog rolled away from the ship off to the north, and five minutes later the crew burst into a loud cheer; for, flashing from the waters and dazzling their eyes, the sun burst through the now iridescent mist, and so quickly that it was hard to realise the truth that astern, and to southward, the sea was sparkling like some wondrous stretch of sapphire blue, while the yards, stays, and ropes of the ship, which were hung with great mist-drops, glittered like diamonds in the glorious light. ”

“ One evening when the moon hung high in air, waiting the fading of day before shedding her pale light, Jean sat in his usual place in the window, dreaming of scenes of which he had read, and thinking himself in some sweet woodland home, forgetting the presence of squalor and misery, and even of the cages, as he listened to the twittering of the many birds hung around his head. There was a brightness in his eye and a smile upon his lip, for he was gazing across the court at just such a scene as once almost spellbound the curate. ”

“ It seemed to Jack as he stood gazing forward that they were gliding on between two vast purply black basins studded with stars, which were larger and brighter than any he had seen before, while deeper and deeper in the wondrous depths there were more and more, till the farthest off seemed like clusters and patches of frosted gold.
There was not a breath of air when they went on deck after dinner, and with the exception of the throbbing and humming of the engine and propeller, and soft whish of the sea as it was divided and swept along the sides, all was wonderfully still. ”

“ To one ignorant of the horrors that lurked behind, it was one grand display of armed men, with their armour glittering and standards on high, marching in different bodies as if to take part in some glorious pageant to be held in the mighty, rugged amphitheatre whose walls were mountains and whose background was formed by the piled-up masses of ice and snow, here silvery, there dazzling golden in the blaze of the afternoon sun, and farther back beauteous with the various azure tints, from the faintest tinge to the deepest purple, in the rifts and chasms far on high. ”

“ For as I lay there I could picture the little river winding in and out among the great trees of the primeval forest, and see it here black as night flowing sluggishly beneath the drooping moss-hung trees, there dancing in the sunshine that rained down from above, and then on and on in amongst the mysterious shades where in all probability the foot of man had never trod. ”

“ He had gone on for a long time in his ordinary dowdy plumage, till one fine spring day the dull feathers began to drop out, and there was a flash here and a gleam there—a bit of blue, a bit of gold, a bit of purple and violet, and golden green and ruddy bronze—and he was strutting along in the sunshine in the full panoply of his gorgeous feathers, from the tuft on his head to the grand argus-eyed train which slants from the back, and is carried so gingerly that the tips may not be sullied by the dirt; all which makes him feel that he is a bird right glorious to behold. ”