Arthur Quiller-Couch

“ You won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead nor alive, shall frighten the secret out of me.'
"'I wish to gracious you would, parson,' said my father.
"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock back upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by force, nobody will ever separate those twain." ”

“ From the knoll you looked straight along the main street; with a field-gun you could have swept it clean from end to end, and, what's more, you wouldn't have hurt a soul. The place was dead empty—not so much as a cur to sit on the sidewalk—and the only hint of life was the laughing and banjo-playing indoors. You could hear that plain enough. Every second house in the place was a saloon, and every saloon seemed to have a billiard-table and a banjo player. ”

“ She moved about examining everything—the lantern, the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you—you—you?" Kisses here, of course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble? ”

“ But careful patching and repairing had kept the building to all appearance as stout as ever; and any doubts of its stability were dispelled in a moment by a glance at Master Simon, the landlord. Master Simon's age by parish register fell short of forty, but he looked at least ten years older: a slow man with a promising stomach and a very satisfactory balance at the bank; a notable breeder of pigeons and fisher of eels. He could also brew strong ale, and knew exactly how salmon should be broiled. He had heard that the world revolves, and decided to stand still and let it come round to him. ”

“ And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed up—drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars riding their horses, all lean and shadowy. ”

“ The three knights now, seeing the sweat upon his white face and the looks he cast towards them, would have broken in and freed him: but they, too, were by enchantment held there in the doorway. So, with their eyes starting, they must needs stay there and watch; and while they stood the boards became as molten brass under Sir Dinar's feet, and the hag slowly withered in his embrace; and still the music played, and the other dancers cast him never a look as he whirled round and round again. ”

“ THE BISHOP OF EUCALYPTUS.
A DOCTOR'S STORY.
"O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hill-top, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour."—R. L. Stevenson. ”

“ Rumours flew about that a diversion would be made by sending an army into the Duchy to draw the troops thither while the invaders directed their main strength upon London. Quiet villagers, therefore, dwelt for the while in a constant apprehension, fearing to go to bed lest they should awake at the sound of the trumpet, or in the midst of the French troops; scarcely venturing beyond sight of home lest, returning, they should find the homestead smoking and desolate. Each man had laid down the plan he should pursue. ”

“ With that she laughed, as if pacified, and asked of their affairs; and being told that they rode in search of the Sancgrael, she laughed again, saying—
"Silly knights all, that seek it before you be bearded! For three of you must faint and die on the quest, and you, sir," turning to Sir Dinar, "must many times long to die, yet never reach nearer by a foot."
"Let it be as God will," answered Sir Dinar. "But hast thou any tidings, to guide us?" ”

“ And then, glancing up, he saw the Doctor coming from the town along the shore-wall, and read evil news at once. For many of the Die-hards stopped the Doctor to question him, and stood gloomy as he passed on. It was popularly said in the two Looes, that "if the Doctor gave a man up, that man might as well curl up his toes then and there."
Catching sight of his Captain on the platform, the Doctor bent his steps thither, and they were slow and inelastic.
"Tell me the worst," said Captain Pond.
"The worst is that he's no better; no, the worst of all is that he knows he's no better. ”

“ It is wonderful!"
"War is a fearful thing," commented Captain Pond, whose mind moved less nimbly than the Doctor's.
"Dash it all, Pond! Can't you see that I'm putting the argument on a peace footing? I tell you that in five years of peace any ordinary Company of the same size would have lost at least fifteen men."
"Then all I can say is that peace is a fearful thing, too."
"But don't you see that at this moment you're commanding the most remarkable Company in the Duchy, if not in the whole of England?"
"I do," answered Captain Pond, flushing. "It's a responsibility, though. ”

“ Master Simon had fine sport in the short days, and the inn might take care of itself, which it was perfectly well able to do. Its foundations rested on sunken piles of magnificent girth—"as stout as myself," said Master Simon modestly—and on these it stood so high that even the great flood of 'fifty-nine had overlapped the kitchen threshold but once, at the top of a spring tide with a north-westerly gale behind it ”

“ For himself, he had no inclination to marry. But sometimes, as he shaved his chin of a morning, the reflection in his round mirror would suggest another. Was he not neglecting a public duty?
Now there dwelt down at Ponteglos a Mistress Prudence Waddilove, a widow, who kept the "Pandora's Box" Inn on the quay—a very tidy business. Master Simon had known her long before she married the late Waddilove; had indeed sat on the same form with her in infants' school—she being by two years his junior, but always a trifle quicker of wit. ”

“ Four or five days of it have been known to finish a man; and in those times a lighthouse- keeper had three months of duty straight away, and only a fortnight on shore. Now he gets only a fortnight out there, and six weeks to recover in. With all that, they're mostly fit to start at their own shadow when the boat takes them off.
But on the lightship we fared tolerably. To begin with, we had the lantern to attend to. You'd be surprised how much employment that gives a man—cleaning, polishing, and trimming. ”

“ Finding the first young farmer satisfactory, she espoused him at the end of the month, and turned her back on "Flowing Source." And Tom the tap-boy fulfilled her prophecy and ran away to sea. And the old inn leaned after him until its timbers creaked. And the autumn floods rose and covered the meadows.
Master Simon sat and smoked, and made his own bed, and accomplished some execrable cookery in the intervals of oiling his duck-gun. Even duck-shooting becomes a weariness when a man has to manage gun and punt single-handed. ”

“ Mistress Prudence stood in her doorway on the quay, as Master Simon had left her. In the room above, the waitress blew out her candle, drew up the blind, and opened her window to the moonlight.
"Selina!" the mistress called.
Selina thrust out her head.
"What's that coming down the river?"
A black, unshapely mass was moving swiftly down towards the quay.
"I think 'tis a haystack," Selina whispered, and then, "Lord save us all, there's a man on it!"
"A man?" cried the widow, shrilly. "What man?" ”

“ I couldn't wait there with my eye on the boat; so I crossed to the other side of the ship and stood staring at the Lighthouse away on the sky-line, and whispered: "Come quickly!" But the wind had moved a couple of points to the east and then fallen very light, and the boat must creep towards us close-hauled. After a long while my father spoke again:
"That will be Old John steerin' her. I reckoned so: he've got her jib shakin'—that's it: sail her close till she strikes the tide-race, and that'll fetch her down, wind or no wind. Halloa!— Lad, lad! 'tis all right! ”

“ It might satisfy Master Simon to sit and watch the salmon passing up in autumn towards their spawning beds, and rubbing, as they went, their scales against his landing-stage to clear them of the sea-lice; to watch them and their young passing seaward in the early spring ”

“ My father filled a pipe and said, "Don't be a fool."
"I see your hand shaking," said I.
Said he, "That's with the cold. At my age the cold takes a while to leave a man's extremities."
"But," I went on in an obstinate way, "suppose she is dead?"
My father answered, "She is a well-built woman. The Lord is good."
Not another word than this could I get from him. That evening—the wind now coming easy from the south, and the swell gone down in a wonderful way—as I was boiling water for the tea, we saw a dozen fishing-boats standing out from the Islands. ”

“ He kept pigeons of every sort—tumblers, pouters, carriers, Belgians, dragons... the subdivisions, when you came to them, were endless. But the carriers were by no means his show-birds. He kept them mainly for the convenience of Ann the cook. Ann had a cunning eye for a pigeon, and sometimes ventured a trifle of her savings on a match; and though in his masculine pride he never consulted her, Master Simon always felt more confident on hearing that Ann had put money on his bird. ”

“ I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys.
"'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way—'tis all Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask me," he wound up.
"'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?"
My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and now he answered Old John:
"'Tis once in a way, sure enough, that a boat can lay alongside the Gunnel. ”

“ Joby by this time was wishing his eyesight to botheration; but before he could say a word, a breeze came about the pinnacles, and he was spinning around on the cock's back—spinning around widdershins— clutching the bird's neck and holding his breath.
"And now," the cock said, as they came to a standstill again, "I think you can see a hole in a ladder as well as any man." ”

“ The Primrose, sir, was a handsome vessel—for her size, one of the handsomest in the King's service—and newly fitted out at Plymouth Dock. So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of brass-work, ship's instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels of stores not much spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as they could carry, and started for home, meaning to make a second journey before the preventive men got wind of their doings and came to spoil the fun. ”

“ Captain Bill they call me. I was one of the first settlers in Eucalyptus. I've seen it high, and I've seen it low. And I'm going to be the last man to quit; that's the captain's place. And when I say this or that is public opinion in Eucalyptus, it's got to be. I drink to your health, Doctor.'
"'Thank you,' said I. 'Then I may count on your silence? The poor chap is so powerfully set on crossing the Rockies and getting to close quarters with some real wickedness, that to tell him the truth might shorten the few days he has left.'
"Captain Bill smiled grimly. ”

“ But the trumpet was evidently an old cavalry trumpet, and the threads of its parti-coloured sling, though frayed and dusty, still hung together. Around the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish, I could hardly trace a royal coat-of-arms, and a legend running—Per Mare per Terram—the motto of the Marines. ”

“ But how am I to thank you?"
"By playing the Dead March upon the cornet-a-piston and teaching others to do the like."
"That seems a singular way of showing one's gratitude. But why the Dead March, monsieur? And, excuse me, there is more than one Dead March. I myself, par exemple, composed one to the memory of my adored Philomene but a week before Hippolyte came with his so sad proposition." ”