Stanley John Weyman

“ He must die. He must die, and leave these pleasant things, this goodly room, that future of which he had dreamed. Another man would lie warm in the chamber he had prepared; another would be Syndic and bear his wand. The years of stately plenty which he had foreseen, were already as last year's harvest. No wonder that the sheen of portrait and panel, the pride of echoing oak, were fled; or that the eyes with which he gazed on the things about him were dull and lifeless.
Dull and lifeless at one moment, and clouded by the apathy of despair; at another bright with the fierce fever of revolt. ”

“ But it goes hard with him who has once turned back from the foe. The evening light, glancing cold on the burnished pike-points of a group of archers who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his heart. Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of shouting thousands, but in this darkening street, with an enemy laughing from the window, death with no revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she would be safe, such a death could be compassed only by pure love—the love of a child for a parent, of a parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the world! ”

“ After this it fared with us as it fares at last with the driftwood that chance or the woodman's axe has given to a forest stream in Heritzburg. After rippling over the shallows and shooting giddily down slopes--or perchance lying cooped for days in some dark bend, until the splash of the otter or the spring freshet has sent it dancing on in sunshine and shadow--it reaches at last the Werra. It floats out on the bosom of the great stream, and no longer tossed and chafed by each tiny pebble, feels the force of wind and stream--the great forces of the world. ”

“ It was Fulbert. As the men, of whom some were saddling--for the light was beginning to appear--pressed forward to look, the steward crawled out of the gloom about the brook, and, raising himself on one hand, made painful efforts to speak. He looked like a dead man risen; nor did the uncertain light of the lanthorns take from the horror of his appearance. Probably he had been left for dead, for the smashing blow of some blunt weapon had beaten in one temple and flooded his face and beard with blood. The Abbess, faint and sick, appalled by this first sign of her handiwork, hid her eyes. ”

“ The glare of the burning house threw a light as strong as that of day on the scene before us; on the line of savage frenzied faces that confronted us, and the great pile of wreckage that stood about and bore witness to their fury. But for a moment the light failed to show us to them; we were in the shadow of the wall, and it was not until we had advanced some paces that the ominous silence was broken, and the mob, with a howl of rage, sprang forward, like bloodhounds slipped from the leash. ”

“ His eyes looked askance, like the eyes of a beast in a snare—seeking a weapon, or a throat! To be butchered thus! To be butchered thus!
Perhaps Colonel John, notwithstanding his calm courage, had the same thought, and found it bitter. Death had been good in the face of silent thousands, with pride and high resolve for cheer. Or in the heat of a fight for the right, where it came unheeded and almost unfelt. But here on the bog, in the mist, unknown, unnoticed, to perish and be forgotten in a week, even by the savage hands that took their breath! ”

“ How long I hung at the window, at one time stunned and stricken down by the catastrophe that had befallen me, and at another feeling frantically for the ladder which I had over and over again made sure was not there, I know no more than another; but only that after a time, first suspicion and then rage darted lightning-like through the stupor that clouded my mind, and I awoke to all the tortures that love outraged by treachery can feel; with such pangs and terrors added as only a faithful beast, bound and doomed and writhing under the knife of its master, may be supposed to endure. ”

“ I forced myself to speak, though I was trembling all over like a man in an ague. ‘No, Mademoiselle, there is no one here,’ I muttered. ‘There is no one here.’ And then I let my head fall on my breast, and I stood before her, the statue of despair. Had she felt a grain of suspicion, a grain of doubt, my bearing must have opened her eyes; but her mind was cast in so noble a mould that, having once thought ill of me and been converted, she could feel no doubt again. She must trust all in all. ”

“ She might count on two hours of daylight, and her spirits rose. As the emerald green of the lower hills shone the brighter for the patches of snow, harbingers of winter, which flecked them, so her spirits rose the higher for troubles overpast or to come. She felt no fear, no despondency, none of the tremours with which she had entered on her night adventure. A gaiety of which she did not ask herself the cause, a heart as light as her feet and as blithe as the black-bird’s note, carried her on. She who had awakened that morning in a prison could have sung and caroled as she walked. ”

“ London had paraded itself before my mind--though my mind should have known better--not as a town of cold streets and dreary alleys and shops open from seven to four with perhaps here and there a vacant place for an apprentice; but as a gilded city of adventure and romance, in which a young man of enterprise, whether he wanted to go abroad or to rise at home, might be sure of finding his sword weighed, priced, and bought up on the instant, and himself valued at his own standard. ”

“ Ingleborough had no cap on, Penighent stood up hard and sharp against the blue sky. The summer sunshine, unrelieved by a single cloud or so much as a wreath of mist, fell hotly on the open moor, where the larks sank and the bees hummed, and the boy's heart rose in sympathy with the life about him. Feeling an unwonted lightness and cheerfulness, he started to climb the fell at the back of the house, following the right bank of the hollow in which the yew-trees grew. ”

“ Slowly the footsteps and voices receded along the lane; slowly, until silence swallowed them, and on the quivering strained senses of the two who remained behind, descended the gentle influence of twilight and the sweet scent of the new-mown hay on which they lay.
La Tribe turned to his companion, his eyes shining. "Our soul is escaped," he murmured, "even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are delivered!" His voice shook as he whispered the ancient words of triumph.
But when they came to look in the nest at Tignonville's feet there was no egg! ”

“ At one time, pacing the floor in a fit of rage and indignation, she was ready to dash herself against the door, or scream and scream and scream until some one came to her. At another the recollection of Pomeroy's sneering smile, of his insolent grasp, revived to chill and terrify her; and she hid in the darkest corner, hugged the solitude, and, scarcely daring to breathe, prayed that the silence might endure for ever. ”

“ Suddenly the din and tumult flashed to a louder note; as when hounds on the scent give tongue at sight. I turned quickly from the house, recalled to a sense of the position and peril. The iron bar was yielding to the pressure. Slowly the left wing of the gate was sinking inwards. Through the widening chasm I caught a glimpse of wild, grimy faces and bloodshot eyes, and heard above the noise a sharp cry from Croisette—a cry of terror. Then I turned and ran, with a defiant gesture and an answering yell, right across the forecourt and up the steps to the door. ”

“ On dark days it broke the fringe of woodland and stood up, gloomy and forbidding, the portal of a Doubting Castle. On bright days, with its hundred diamond panes a-glitter in the sunshine, it seemed to be the porch of a fairy palace, the silent home of some Sleeping Beauty. At all times it imposed itself upon men below and spoke of something beyond, something unseen, greater, mysterious.
To Mary Audley, who saw it at its best, the very stains of the plaster glorified by the morning light, it was a thing of joy. ”

“ Only in moments of forgetfulness could the Dean now walk in his Close of Bicester with the grace of old times.
But on this particular morning the sunshine was so pleasant, the wind so balmy, that he walked halfway across the Close as if the river of Lethe flowed fathoms deep over Mr. Swainson's plot. Then it chanced that his eyes in a heedless moment rested upon the enclosure: and he saw that a man was at work in it, and he paused. The Dean knew Mr. Swainson too well to trust him. ”