J. H. Pearce

“ He was no more like the clear-eyed, whistling young farmer who had gone a-wooing Dorcas among the rustling wheat-fields, than the wrinkled tree, with its heart rotted out of it, is like the green young sapling in the bravery of its spring.
Ever watching hungrily to see Misfortune seize his rival and set her teeth thirstily in the very pulse of his life, Elijah held aloof from commerce with his neighbours, sour and discontented, and wishing each day to end, in the hope that on [106] the morrow he might see the evil he desired. ”

“ The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him, melting into the darkness; and the cabs and 'buses, still astir in the streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom.
Preston lay back, weary in every joint, a drowsy numbness settling on his pulse. He had faith in his driver: he would bring him safely home. ”

“ The Showman rattled the coins as he pocketed them, and flinging aside the canvas admitted them to the booth.
The interior was enveloped in a dim obscurity; hardly deep enough to be counted as darkness, but oppressive enough to slow the pulses of both. There was, however, at one end of the booth a large disc projected on the obscurity: a pale, empty, weirdly-lighted circle, which they stared at dumbly, with wonder in their eyes. ”

“ The disc became obscured, as if their eyes were blurred mistily.
The woman gulped down something: and the man clenched his teeth.
There was a sudden exquisite clarity in the pictures. They were looking at a cluster of white-washed cottages, with tall thatched roofs and with great stone chimneys: a lonely little hamlet drowsing in the sun. White-winged ducks were quacking in the roadway, a grey-coated donkey was grazing beside a hedge, and the threadlets of smoke, that mounted lazily above the roofs, rose up into a sky of the most exquisite purity, spacious, high, and cloudlessly blue. ”

“ Sir Edward lay motionless among the cushions of his chair.
"I should like . . . if you will allow me. . . ." he began feebly. [140]
"I can allow you only one choice: and that a peremptory one. Will you go with me instantly—I think you know me—or shall I call for you again on any terms I care to fix?"
"Will your terms be as pitiless. . . ."
"You shall hear them, if you please."
Sir Edward sank deeper among the soft cushions: his whole life concentrated in the watchful stare with which he fixed his eyes on his visitor's face. ”

“ And his lips hovered caressingly around her just-disclosed shoulder.
"Very well, I will accept the pledge," said she.
He was beginning again to kiss her fondlingly.
"You are a man of honour, are you not?" asked she; showing her even white teeth, and dimpling her rose-leaf cheeks temptingly.
"Certainly. I hope so."
"Then let me have your soul."
"But that would mean death for me! Do you desire me to die, my love?" ”

“ Sir Edward lay back lazily in his chair, with a letter in a woman's handwriting crumpled at his feet.
"She must make the best of it now," said he, gazing at the fire. "She is not worse off than others, come to that." And he lolled among the cushions, gazing into the fire, with a hard and cruel look on his countenance, on which the stamp of sensuality was unmistakably impressed. ”

“ Many mornings did I steal out long before the sunrise in order to watch the stars die out in the dawning and the red bars glow in the palpitating east. And when, standing among the firs in the windy plantation, I saw the huge sun rear its head and flood the world with splendour, and heard the birds sing jubilantly, almost breathless with delight, I have fancied I felt the breath of [43] the Beloved One on my cheek and Her heart beating wildly and tremulously against my own. ”

“ And off strolled the pedlar, whistling as he went.
The young man leaned his head dejectedly on his hand.
"How can I get back my soul?" he moaned.
"Why not live without one?" croaked a voice above his shoulder.
He looked up, and saw a sooty old raven peering down at him.
"Live without a soul! You'll never miss it," croaked the raven. ”

“ To be a tree is to be in touch with Nature nakedly; to be stripped of the disguises that have gathered about the man, and to be thrown back blankly into the narrowest groove of life. The student felt the wind and the sun on his branches, and the birds [68] sang joyously, nestling among his leaves ”

“ Some eight months after—in the time of blackberries—some youngsters, questing among the ferns on the hillside, stumbled across the fogou and crept in to explore it.
They rushed down the hillside screaming with terror; and, when safe among the cottages, began to babble incoherently that there was a ghost up yonder in the [108] "owld hunted fogou," they had seen its face—and it was white—so white!
The villagers began to have an inkling of the truth, and went toiling up through the ferns in a body. ”

“ If the great Soul Maker, who manufactures them by the million, allows neither picking nor choosing, beyond the casual dip of chance, do you think that a mere pedlar in souls, like myself, can do business on a basis which he has found [164] unprofitable? Pooh, man, get back your soul if you can, or else you may do without one, as far as I am concerned. ”

“ A nature so contented, and so little given to fault-finding, would be the typical one for the Black Advocate's household, said the Doom's-man, humorously contemplating Dick. "Take him away with you," said he to the Black Advocate: "the man will give you no trouble, as you know.
"But that restless, fault-finding fellow there," and he indicated Rick with a movement of his forefinger, "it would [132] need a faultless abode like yours to satisfy him," and he signed to the silent White Advocate at his side. "Take him, he is yours," said the Doom's-man solemnly. ”

“ And the Visitor looked at him with a glance of quiet intelligence which Sir Edward somehow felt powerless to resent.
"I was thinking. . . ."
"Of going with me? Quite right!" replied the Visitor. "With me you shall [139] go: unless we can come to terms together. In which case, possibly, I may leave you behind for a time."
Sir Edward ceased to smoke: and his hands trembled on his knees.
But he made no movement, and uttered no protest. Before the glance of his visitor he quailed and was dumb.
"Ruth Medwin, I presume, must bear her disgrace as best she can? ”

“ When John Penberthy heard the terrible news he took the blow as a man might take a sentence of death—in grim silence, and with a sullen despair which nothing might henceforth banish or relieve. The roof-tree of his hopes was broken [90] irretrievably, and he gazed down blankly at the ruin around his feet.
About three days after Silas was drowned, John was one afternoon out fishing for bait, and happened to be keeping rather close to the cliff-line, when he perceived a little seal emerge from a zawn [M] and come swimming, as with a settled purpose, towards the boat. ”

“ I have not been reared by a philosopher for nothing. [159] This crystal ball"—and she held out to him a tiny globe of crystal—"put your lips to it and pawn your soul to its keeping. I will warrant you, it will hold it as safely as I could." ”

“ When the sunrise splashed across the fragmentary panes of glass that here and there remained in their frames, the farmer would stand still at his ploughing on the hill-slope and glance up at the great Argus-eyed building—that had now, however, more sockets than eyes—and a world of memories, of legends and superstitions, would buzz, with strange bewilderment, through his brain. ”

“ Here is a man—alive by no fault of his own, and poor, even to starvation, through absolute want of work: and yet you begrudge him the necessaries of life! If he tries to commit suicide, you pillory and chastise him, and if he tries to keep life in him out of the superfluities of others, you pass on him this monstrous sentence! ”

“ Iss, I'd risk more [5] than that," he added darkly: letting the words ooze out as if under his breath.
At that moment his pick detached a piece of rock which came crashing down on the floor of the level, splintering into great jagged fragments as it fell.
He started back with an exclamation of uncontrollable surprise. The falling rock had disclosed the interior of a cavern whose outlines were lost in impenetrable gloom, but which here and there in a vague fashion, as it caught the light of the candle flickering in his hat, seemed to sparkle as if its walls were crusted with silver. ”

“ You have not yet lived; and you have certainly not laboured. Rest is for those who have laboured and grown weary. In [148] that rest that you desire you would have an empty mind for showman, and of its meagre entertainment you would tire as speedily as a child. Live first, and watch the puppets of memory play afterwards. The fields of amaranth will wait for you however long you live. ”

“ The lady brought him a most desirable fortune to start with, and after some years made him a present of twins: so that Dick was now a notable man among his acquaintances, and had the ambition to become a bigger man still, by-and-by: a Common Councilman certainly, and an Alderman perhaps!
Meanwhile Rick had developed into a musty savant: a fellow whose tastes, if you might call them such, were of the most outré order—in advance of everything that was sober, respectable, and conventional ”

“ He turned round, half inclined to retreat; but, as he turned, his eyes chanced to travel to the sea, where he could still discern the fishing-boats riding at their nets; and the idea of 'Miah out there thinking of Dorcas made him clench his teeth grimly, as if he had received a blow.
He swung round on his heels sharply and determinedly, savagely trampling the [102] ferns beneath his feet, and strode forward into the pitch-black mirk. ”

“ Why, the man must be mad, to have such irregular fancies! It was a pity laws against opinions were not oftener put in force: then—a click of the guillotine, and the world would have peace!
Rick listened grimly, and made a note of the imagery. "You will remember it better in black and white," said he.
In the course of years Dick became a churchwarden and a philanthropist (he took the infection very mildly and in its most agreeable form) , and a highly [126] respected gambler on, or rather member of, the Stock Exchange. ”

“ Presently the singing dwindled and became fainter: the air grew hot beneath the aromatic fir-boughs: and when, in the distance, the flood of dazzling sunlight dashed redly on the window-panes of the village cottages, I knew I must descend from the haunted hill-top and return to the more prosaic details of life. ”

“ In heaven there are neither archbishops nor bishops, as such. If they pass the gates at all, it is merely as men who have done their duty. Do you think you will pass the gates on that score, your Grace? ”

“ Presently there went a whisper through the tiny hamlet that Elijah Trevorrow was a bit touched here—the villagers tapping their brows significantly as they spoke.
"He do talk as ef Hate es a woman, an' he've seed her. Up in that owld fogou he've mit her, he do say. An' he's all'ys sayin' she ha'nt keeped her word to un. Whatever do 'a mayne, weth 'es gashly owld tales?"
'Miah, whose name had got mixed up in the tale, one day called at the lonely farmhouse, in order to see Elijah and reason with him if he could. ”

“ And then he remembered that up on yonder moors—whose ferns and granite boulders he could see plainly in the moonlight—there was a "gashly owld fogou," [N] where, if a man went at midnight prepared to boldly summon Hate and to "turn a [99] stone" [O] in her honour, his hatred would be accomplished for him "as sure as death."
"An' I'll go there, ef I die for it!" said he grimly to himself.
The village was asleep, and all its cottages were smokeless. There was no one stirring anywhere in the cove. ”

“ The hump-back seized the proffered hand in an instant, covering the grimy fingers with his own lean claws.
"Oh, le'go! le'go!" shouted Joel.
The hump-back grinned; his black eyes glittering.
"I waan't be niggardly to'ee, cumraade," said he. "Every drop o' blood you choose to shed for the purpose shall turn into a golden suvrin for'ee—there!" ”

“ An' by-an'-by the stranyer wormed out of un how 'a was all'ys troubled in 'es mind 'cause 'a cudn' onderstaand what the birds was sayin'.
[32] "I'd give anything in the world," says the bucca-davy, [I] "ef I cud onnly larn to spayke weth they."
"Aw, es it so, me dear," said the stranyer: "well, I'll tayche'ee to talk to they, sure 'nuff, ef thee'll come up to that owld Quoit weth me."
"What must I pay'ee?" axed the youngster, bowld-like. For he'd heerd o' cureyus bargains o' this kind, an' 'a dedn' want to risk 'es sawl. ”

“ Wance upon a time there was a youngster in Zennor who was all'ys geekin' [B] into matters that warn't no use in the world. Some do say 'a was cliver, too, weth it all, an' cut out that there mermaid in the church [C] what the folks do come from [30] miles round to see. Anyway, 'a warn't like 'es brawthers an' sesters, an' 'es folks dedn' knaw what to maake of un, like. ”