J. S. Fletcher

“ When I woke again, just as suddenly, there was no sign of Getch. The morning sun was shining through the leadless window-places high up in the eastern wall, and I heard the crying of sea-birds and chatter of choughs, hovering around the parapet of the tower. Pepita was still fast asleep in her corner; her face, rosy-pink, half-buried in the crook of her arm; her breath coming softly and regularly. And over in his corner, half-buried in rugs and wrappings, his big bulk propped up against the angle of the wall, Uncle Joseph was asleep, too—asleep and snoring gently. ”

“ Time had healed the wound: she no longer experienced the pangs and sorrows of her first grief. Everything had been mellowed down into a soft regret, and the still living affection for the memory of a dead man kept her heart young.
That night Judith for once in a while had no thought of her dead lover—she was thinking of the boy whom Simpson was bringing to them. She remembered Lucy with wondering thoughts, trying to recall her as she was when Cyprian Damerel took her away to London and a new life. ”

“ He was now nearly sixty, a hale, hearty man, the biggest and cleverest farmer in those parts, rich, respected, made much of by the great folk, looked up to by the little; a man of influence and power. He was going down into the valley of life under a fine sunset and soft evening airs, and there were few who did not envy him a prosperous career and the prospect of a green old age. But Martin Nelthorp had always carried a trouble, a rankling sorrow in his breast, and he was thinking of it as he sat staring with sombre eyes at the dull red glare of the sullen cinders in the grate. ”

“ American tourists, sure appreciators of all that is ancient and picturesque in England, invariably come to a halt, holding their breath in a sudden catch of wonder, as they pass through the half-ruinous gateway which admits to the Close of Wrychester. Nowhere else in England is there a fairer prospect of old-world peace. There before their eyes, set in the centre of a great green sward, fringed by tall elms and giant beeches, rises the vast fabric of the thirteenth-century Cathedral, its high spire piercing the skies in which rooks are for ever circling and calling. ”

“ I could not have believed that any human being could be so callous, so brutal, so coldly indifferent to another's sufferings. I thought as I listened to him of all I had heard about that ancestor of his who had killed a man in cold blood in the old house at the bank—and I knew that Joseph Chestermarke would kill me with no more compunction, and no less, than he would show in crushing a beetle that crossed his path. ”

“ Altogether, the afternoon was drawing to its close when, rounding a bluff that had been in view before me for some time, I came in sight of what I felt sure to be Ravensdene Court, a grey-walled, stone-roofed Tudor mansion that stood at the head of a narrow valley or ravine—dene they call it in those parts, though a dene is really a tract of sand, while these breaks in the land are green and thickly treed—through which a narrow, rock-encumbered stream ran murmuring to the sea. ”

“ There is the awful feud ’twixt England, the modern spirit making toward progress and civilization, and Spain, the well-nigh worn-out retrogressive force that would dam the river of human thought. There is the spectacle of the Armada, baffled and beaten, and of the English war-ships under men like Drake and Frobisher, dropping like avenging angels upon some Spanish port and working havoc on the Spanish treasure galleons. There, too, are the figures of men like Grenville and Raleigh, born adventurers, leaders of men, who knew how to die as bravely and fearlessly as they had lived. ”

“ Grimsdale in the box, thought more than one keen-eyed observer, looked like a man that knows the importance of his own testimony. There was an expression in his eye, and about his lips, which seemed to indicate that all that had already taken place was nothing—what really was of importance was his story. He was the coolest hand, thought the barrister, that he had ever set eyes on; the sort of witness whom nothing whatever will move: whose testimony, once given, nothing will shake. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI THE BROWN HAND That was a summer morning of great beauty, by land and sea, and under any circumstances, I should have rejoiced in my surroundings. The sun was already well up in a cloudless sky, the deep blue of which was reflected in the lightly dancing waves all round me—dancing under the gentle stirrings of a soft wind that blew shoreward from the south and drove the surface waters to a long ripple of white against the dark outline of the mainland, three miles away. ”

“ It was some time before Barthorpe succeeded in getting an answer to his ring and knock; when at last the door was opened Burchill himself looked out upon him, yawning, and in a dressing-gown. And narrowly and searchingly as Barthorpe glanced at Burchill he could not see a trace of unusual surprise or embarrassment in his face. He looked just as any man might look who receives an unexpected caller. ”

“ It is the humour of a great nature—now exuberant even to the verge of mischief, now dry and caustic enough to suit an epigram-loving philosopher, now of a whimsical sort that makes it all the more charming. But it has a further quality which may not be overlooked—it is always kindly. Only a good-natured, sunny-tempered, laughter-loving man could or would have done all the things which are credited to Baden-Powell—things which have been done more for the pleasure which a great nature always feels in lightening life for others than for the mere desire of provoking laughter. ”

“ Save for the murmur of the river flowing at the edge of the garden beneath overhanging alders and willows, and the perpetual humming of the insects in tree and bush, the morning was very still and languorous, and sounds of a louder sort travelled far. And Miriam was suddenly aware of the clap-clap-clap of human, stoutly-shod feet flying down the narrow lane which ran by the side of the orchard. ”

“ All around stretched miles upon miles of solitude—nothing but the undulating moors, broken up by great masses of limestone rock and occasional clumps and coverts of fir and pine; nothing but the blue line of the hills in the west; nothing but the grey northern skies overhead; nothing but the cry of the curlew and the bleating of the mountain sheep. It was in the midst of this that he met his senior employer—at the corner of a thin spinney which ran along the edge of a disused quarry. Mallalieu, as Stoner well knew, was a great man for walking on these moors, and he always walked alone. ”

“ WE were turning out of the porch, where the scent of the jasmine hung thick and sweet on the night air, when the clinging silence was broken by a scream. It was a scream such as I had never heard before, have never heard since, and pray God I may never hear again: the scream of a human being in awful fear—and unmistakably the scream of a man. It clove the air with the speed of a bullet; its echo came for a sickening second from the wall of our house, and then there was silence, and Keziah clutching at the pillar of the porch.
“Merciful Heavens, Ben!” ”

“ Just as the heart of a strong man is purified and made stronger by sorrow, so the spirit of a nation is lifted up and set on a higher pedestal by the trials and the awfulness of war. Heaven help the people which emerges from a great struggle broken, sullen, despondent!—Heaven be thanked that from the blood of our fellows spilt in South Africa there have already sprung the flowers of new fortitude and new strength and new belief in our God-given destiny as the saviours of the world. ”

“ Look at me, Jasper. Even in this light it is not difficult to see how I am changed. I have gone through such woes and torments as you would scarcely credit. I have been in the hands of devils in human shape, and they have so worked their will upon me that there is hardly an inch of my body that is not marked and scarred. That was thy doing, Jasper,—thine and thy fellow-villain’s. ”

“ AS WE stood there watching, the long yellow light on the eastern horizon suddenly changed in color—first to a roseate flush, then to a warm crimson; the scenes round us, sky, sea and land, brightened as if by magic. And with equal suddenness there shot round the edge of the southern extremity of the cove, outlining itself against the red sky in the distance, the long, low-lying hulk of a vessel—a dark, sinister-looking thing which I recognized at once as a torpedo-destroyer. ”

“ And as we followed it further the valley narrowed until it seemed that we must be presently swallowed up in some cavernous opening of the rocky and mountainous mass which loomed in front.
The train suddenly slackened its slow speed; we rounded a sharp curve and ran into a small station on the smoke-blackened railings of which appeared a board bearing the name Wolverdale. Beyond the railings and across the black river, I saw grey roofs and grey walls and amongst them tall chimneys which poured out thick clouds of dun-coloured smoke as if in tribute to the hills which looked down on them. ”

“ And, in unconsciousness or semi-consciousness, she lay in her bed for a long time, hovering between life and death. One season had merged into another before Jeckie came to herself. Farnish and his younger daughter were at her bedside when her eyes first opened with full intelligence, and for a moment she believed that the old days at Applecroft were back again, and that they were all together. But in the next she remembered and realised, and after one quick glance at Rushie she turned her face to the wall with a gesture that seemed to implore silence. ”

“ At Oxford Lucian had lived the life of a book-worm and a dreamer: he was not a success in examinations, and he brought no great honour upon his tutor. In most respects he had lived apart from other men, and it was not until the publication of his first volume had drawn the eyes of the world upon him that he had been swept out of the peaceful backwater of a student’s existence into the swirling tides of the full river of life. Then had followed Lord Simonstower’s legacy, and then the runaway marriage with Haidee, and then four years of butterfly existence. ”

“ The morning came clear and bright after the storm, and the newly-risen sun—it was just four o'clock, and he was nicely above the horizon—was transforming the clustering raindrops on the firs and pines into glistening diamonds as I plunged into the thick of the woods. I had no other thought at that moment but of getting home and changing my clothes before going to Andrew Dunlop's to tell the news—when, as I crossed a narrow cut in the undergrowth, I saw, some distance away, a man's head slowly look out from the trees. ”