Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

“ When the fever wrenched her arms and lips as she stood by the wash-tub, she set her teeth and said, "I can stand it. I can match all this with contempt. He can kill, but that's not beating me."
Her mother, a large and pale-faced woman of sixty, with an apparently thoughtful contraction of the lips, in reality due to a habit of carrying pins in her mouth, watched Naomi anxiously during this period of her life. And Long Oliver watched her too, though secretly, with eyes screwed up after the fashion of men who have followed the sea. ”

“ William set down his plane, picked up an odd scrap of wood and cut out the skewers with his pocket-knife; while Naomi watched with a smile on her face. Whether or no William had recovered her soul, as he promised, she had certainly given her heart into his keeping. The love of such a widow, he found, is as the surrender of a maid, with wisdom added. ”

“ The first building passed by the westerly road as it descends into Tregarrick is a sombre pile of some eminence, having a gateway and lodge before it, and a high encircling wall. The sun lay warm on its long roof, and the slates flashed gaily there, as Farmer Lear came over the knap of the hill and looked down on it. He withdrew his eyes nervously to glance at the old couple beside him. At the same moment he reined up his dun-coloured mare. ”

“ Two miles and more to the north, and just under the rim of the horizon, straggle the cottages of a few tin-streamers, with their backs to the wind. These look down across an arable country, into which the women descend to work at seed-time and harvest, and whence, returning, they bring some news of the world. But Woon Gate lies remoter. It was never more than a turnpike; and now the gate is down, the toll-keeper dead, and his widow lives alone in the round-house. She opened the door to me--a pleasant-faced old woman of seventy, in a muslin cap, red turnover, and grey gown hitched very high. ”

“ They never dreamed of connecting themselves with other towns and a larger world, but of aggrandisement by means of a railway that should run from Tregarrick to nowhere in particular, and bring the intervening wealth to their doors. They planned a railway that should join Tregarrick with Cuckoo Valley, and there divide into two branches, the one bringing ore and clay from the moors, the other fetching up sand and coal from the sea. Surveyors and engineers descended upon the woods; then a cloud of navvies. The days were filled with the crash of falling timber and the rush of emptied trucks. ”

“ There were eight trucks, seven of them laden with granite, and an engine, with a prodigiously long funnel, bearing the name _The Wonder of the Age_ in brass letters along its boiler.
"Now," said one of the twins, while the other raked up the furnace, "you can ride in the empty truck with the lovers, or on the engine along with us--which you like."
I chose the engine. We climbed on board, gave a loud whistle, and jolted oil. Far down, on our right, the river shone between the trees, and these trees, encroaching on the track, almost joined their branches above us. ”

“ Nor, when he entered the kitchen, hitched this hat upon a peg in the wall--where its brim accurately fitted a sort of dull halo in the whitewash--did he appear to want any welcome from her. He was a long-jawed man of sixty-five, she a long-jawed woman of sixty-one; and they understood each other's ways, having kept this small and desolate farm together for thirty years--that is, since their father's death.
A cold turnip-pasty stood on the table, with the cider-jug that Job Lear regularly emptied at supper. These suggested no small-talk, and the pair sat down to eat in silence. ”

“ Neot, who towered at his side upon a flea-bitten grey.
"The parish seems to be deserted," said he: "not a man nor woman can I see, nor a trace of smoke above the chimneys."
St. Neot tightened his thin lips. In his secret heart he was mightily pleased.
"Eight in the morning," he answered, with a glance back at the sun. "They'll be all abed, I'll warrant you."
St. Petroc muttered a threat.
They entered the village street. Not a soul turned out at their coming. Every cottage door was fast closed, nor could any amount of knocking elicit an answer or entice a face to a window. ”

“ I stepped out upon the verandah and looked down on the harbour at my feet, where already the vessels were hanging out their lamps in the twilight. I had looked down thus, and at this hour, a thousand times; and always the scene had something new to reveal to me, and much more to withhold--small subtleties such as a man finds in his wife, however ordinary she may appear to other people. And here, in the next room, was a man who, in half-a-dozen hours, felt able to describe Troy, to deck her out, at least, in language that should captivate a million or so of breakfasting Britons. ”

“ If you hung forward over the bulwarks you stared down into your own face. The sailors grumbled and cursed and panted as they huddled forward under a second awning that was rigged up to give them shade rather than coolness; for coolness was not to be had.
On the second afternoon of the calm I happened to pass this awning, and glanced in. Pretty well all the men were there, lounging, with shirts open and chests streaming with sweat; and in their midst on a barrel, sat Johnny, with a flushed face.
The boatswain--Gibbings by name--was speaking. ”

“ She is greater artist than I, but I shall help her. They shall dance better this time, her harlequin and columbine. Why? Because they shall dance to my music--the music that I shall make here, on this spot, under the stars. _Tiens!_ I shall play as if possessed. I feel that. I bet you. It is because I have found an artist--an artist in Gantick. O-my-good-lor! It makes me expand!"
He had pulled off his greasy hat, and stood bowing and smiling, showing his white teeth and holding up his flageolet, that the woman might see and be convinced. ”

“ The time was four o'clock, or thereabouts, and a young couple sat on a bench by the inn-door, drinking cocoa out of one cup. Above their heads and along the house-front a vine-tree straggled, but its foliage was too thin to afford a speck of shade as they sat there in the eye of the westering sun. The man (aged about one-and-twenty) wore the uncomfortable Sunday-best of a mechanic, with a shrivelled, but still enormous, bunch of Sweet-William in his buttonhole. The girl was dressed in a bright green gown and a white bonnet. ”

“ O, happy Registrar! O, happy, happy Registrar! You will never get into those elastic-sides again. Your feet swell as they tap the swelling earth, and at each tap the flowers push, the sap climbs, the speck of life moves in the hedge-sparrow's egg; while, far away on the downs, with each tap, the yellow van takes bride and groom a foot nearer felicity. It is hard work in worsted socks, for you smite with the vehemence of Pan, and Pan had a hoof of horn.
* * * * * The Registrar's mother lived in the fishing-village, two miles down the coombe. ”

“ Stooping, I saw half-a-dozen pins gleaming in its brown depths.
"A love-charm."
The schoolmaster nodded.
"Thomasine Slade has been wishing for a husband. I see no sin in that. When she looked up and saw you coming down the lane--"
I paused. The schoolmaster said nothing. He was leaning over the well, gloomily examining the pins.
"--your aspect was enough to scare anyone," I wound up lamely.
"I wish," the schoolmaster hastily began, "I wish to Heaven I had the gift of humour! I lose my temper and grow positive. I'd kill these stupid superstitions with ridicule, if I had the gift. ”

“ He closed the Bible hastily; rammed it back, upside down, in its place; then took it out again, and stood holding it in his two hands and trembling. He was living in sin: he was minded to sin yet deeper. And yet what had he done to deserve Naomi in comparison with the unspeakable tribulations this simple mariner had suffered? Sure, God must have preserved the fellow with especial care, and of wise purpose brought him through shipwreck, famine, and madness home to his lawful wife. ”

“ It quickened the whole copse. The oak-saplings rubbed their old leaves one on another, as folks rub their hands, feeling life and warmth; the chestnut-buds groped like an infant's fingers; and the chorus broke out again, the thrush leading--"_Tiurru, tiurru, chippewee; tio-tee, tio-tee; queen, queen, que-een_!"
In a moment or two he broke off suddenly, and a honey-bee shot out of an anemone-bell like a shell from a mortar. For a new sound disconcerted them--a sound sharp and piercing. The Registrar had finished his whistle and was blowing like mad, moving his fingers up and down. ”

“ This morning the new minister climbed into the van with his carpet-bag. He is off to some Conference or other, and will be back again the day after to-morrow. Ten minutes after he had gone his father and mother shut up the shop and went out together. They mean to take a whole holiday and hear all the news. It was pitiful to see their fumbling haste as they helped one another to put up the shutters; and almost more pitiful to mark, as they hurried down the street arm in arm, their conscientious but feeble endeavour to look something more staid than a couple of children just out of school. ”

“ I had started at daybreak to fish up the stream that runs down the valley in curves roughly parallel to the railway embankment; and coming within sight of the station, a little before noon, I put up my tackle and strolled towards the booking-office. The water was much too fine for sport, and it seemed worth while to break off for a pipe and a look at the 12.26 train. Such are the simple pleasures of a country life.
I leant my rod against the wall, and was setting down my creel, when, glancing down the platform, I saw an old man seated on the furthest bench. ”

“ Be your wickedness deep as hell, an' I'll reach down a hand to the roots and pluck it up: be your salvation stubborn as Death, I'll wrestle wi' the Lord for it. If I sell my own soul for't, yours shall be redeemed!"
He slammed down his fist on the rickety deal table, which promptly collapsed flat on the floor, with its four legs splayed under the circular cover.
"Bein' a carpenter--" Geake began to stammer apologetically, and in a totally different tone.
For a second--two seconds--the issue hung between tears and laughter. An hysterical merriment twinkled in Naomi's eyes. ”

“ It seemed that in a few more years Nature would cover this scar of 1834, and score the return match against man. Hails, engine, officials, were already no better than ghosts: youth, and progress lay in the pushing trees, the salmon leaping against the dam below, the young man and maid sitting with clasped hands and amatory looks in the hindmost truck.
At the end of three miles or so we gave an alarming whistle, and slowed down a bit. The trees were thinner here, and I saw that a high-road came down the hill, and cut across our track some fifty yards ahead. ”

“ In these days he and Naomi rarely spoke to each other beyond exchanging a "Good-morning" when they met on the stairway, nor did he show any friendliness beyond tapping at her mother's door and inquiring about her once a day whenever she happened to be down with the fever. I have made researches and find that the rest of the house was tenanted at that time by a working block-maker, with his wife and four children; a widow and her son just returned from sea with an injured spine; a young couple without children. ”

“ A lot of folks had driven down overnight to Tregarrick to witness the day's sad doings, and there wasn't a chaise to be had in the town for love or money.
"What do I want with a chaise?" said Dan'l, for of course he was in his own country now, and everybody knew him. "For the love of God, give me a horse that'll take me into Tregarrick before seven and save Hughie's life! Man, I've got a reprieve!" ”

“ As we ran into Newton Abbot Station, he came over to my side of the carriage and scanned the small crowd upon the platform. Suddenly his pink cheeks flushed to crimson. The train was slowing to a standstill, and while he hesitated with a hand on the door, a little old man came trotting down the platform--a tremulous little man, in greenish black broadcloth, eloquent of continued depression in some village retail trade. ”

“ Austell and back before Naomi's return? The distance was too great to be walked in the time; and besides, the coffin must be ready by nightfall. He had promised it; he was known for a man of his word; and owing to the morning's interruption it would be a tough job to finish, at the best. There was no help for it; and--so easy is the descent of Avernus--Geake's unaccustomed wits were already wandering in a wilderness of improbable falsehoods, when he heard the sound of wheels up the road, and Long Oliver came along in Farmer Lear's red-wheeled trap and behind Farmer Lear's dun-coloured mare. ”

“ Across the atmosphere there reigned that hush which people wonder at on Sundays, forgetting that nature is always still and that nine-tenths of the week's hubbub is made by man. Down the pale sky came a swallow, with another in chase: their wings were motionless as they swept past the doorway, but the air whizzed with the speed of their flight, and in a moment was silent again. Then from the upper room a man's voice began to roar out upon the stillness. ”