Various

“ The pheasant from the cover skulks hastily away, and in the sun shines as a pearl of great price. His ruby head he cannot hide—it is too lovely. It sets off as a coronet his kingly robes. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ An irresistible habit attends the luckless bird; he peers from the herbage, and the sun catches the treacherous colours, denouncing the retreat of this majestic park glory. There is an unspeakable mellowness. Insect and bird, both are loth to frolic; they are not now so fond of being seen, eluding the watchful eye ”

“ As he hurried back to his office, Mr Blackford was able at last to realise the immensity of the good luck which had befallen him in this extraordinary manner. Twenty-five thousand pounds, all invested in sound Stock Exchange securities! Good-bye to the strife for bread; to the trap-net of petty pecuniary embarrassments which meets and deadens effort at every struggle; to the haunting care which makes hard the nightly pillow and drives away slumber before the dawn; to the hand-to-mouth existence, and the thousand-and-one daily degradations of a struggling professional man. ”

“ Kittiwakes from the rocky heights wander, by the aid of their beautiful wings, over the park round the copse, circling, screaming with angry voice, with a majesty, an aristocratic air, no flurried haste. These wings are seasoned by the salt of the ocean. They move over the reefs, the shoals, the surface-swells of the landscape; but their gaze pierces not the crest of the earth, but is thrown back tauntingly, while their eyes search pleadingly. ”

“ Again the participating musical stumble of the blackbird comes from the tree-branch on the copse margin—a male voice, a bass, with variations of chattering fluency. Late insects linger at the outskirts, and roam the extent of the park. The insect hum rises from the herbage here and there; a bee, trapped by the spider’s snare, hums, buzzing vengeance on the fisher casting his silken net there. In the bushes, a slight fluttering—a leaf floats unheard to the ground, to increase the mouldy earth. ”

“ All nature claps its hands in pride and ecstasy.
With a hurried Cha, cha, cha, cha! the blackbird leaves the stone wall—a cock-bird, black as jet—to attend his lady on the park’s surface. A rollicking sprightliness characterises his movements; his tone is sharp, full of intricacies, hard to interpret. In autumn, when the nests are empty, how delightful to walk through the copse—a clump of dwarfed trees, everything in repose. ”

“ When the cuckoos meet here in the gushing summer day, when the down-pouring of the golden rays from the clear sky parches the pebbly brook, and curls up the grass of the park, then the combination of pride, blitheness, and mid-day fervour of breezes modified, refined by the park trees, disperse in the quiet inclosure, and mingling in space with the warm air, vanish, as it were, in an unanswerable manner. ”

“ Nora leapt up at the word with another sudden access of wild energy. ‘Breathing!’ she cried—‘breathing, doctor! Then he’ll live still. He’ll get better again, will he, my darling?’
‘Now ye’re jumping at conclusions a second time most unwarrantably,’ Macfarlane answered, with true Scotch caution. ‘I will not say positively he’ll get better again, for that’s a question that rests entirely in the hands of the Almighty. But I do say the man’s breathing—not a doubt of it.’
The discovery inspired them all at once with fresh hope for Mr Dupuy’s safety. ”

“ There it sits, a brown, dark, spotted-like creature, with long arrow-like body, lengthy ocean-steamer-formed bird, a true migrant, a sailor on the winds, a voyager across the oceans; an outlaw, a bohemian, living by the way, dropping its egg in the nest of some absent one, leaving the care of its offspring to another; an ichneumon in feathers. Cuck-oo, cuck-oo! The sound comes from the bushes out there. ”

“ Visitors to the International Exhibition at Edinburgh who have watched with wonder and admiration the deft fingers of the silk-winder as she winds the delicate straw-coloured threads from the cocoon, may be interested to know something of the rise and progress of the manufacture of this, the most beautiful and costly of all our textile fabrics. ”

“ His visitor could have furnished him with a better reason—namely, that no other lawyer had ever been found capable of putting up with his insolence and tyranny. But Mr Blackford had plenty of self-control, and could bear a good deal where anything was to be got by doing so.
The soft-hearted gentleman smote the coals violently, fulminating subdued anathemas the while with a dreadful grin. The solicitor, knowing his man, remained perfectly quiet; and presently Mr Franklin spoke again, abruptly, but in a quieter tone. ”

“ The daisy, dandelion, clover, and the tints of many grasses, cut out lovely patterns before your eyes; the primrose makes a golden margin, the bushes raise the edge. In the language of flowers, the surface holds communion. Above the long rank growth on the ditch-side, the sorrel loves to dwell, and thistles keep watch over their lowly neighbours.
A transient glimpse of a pretty bird in the depths of the bushes rivets the attention—a redstart!—jerky, flirting beauty. ”

“ How restless you wander along the bough, your shrill note doubtless being apprehensive of danger, away under the bushes without a parting word. A robin fills the place—that hero of many a tale, that picture-painted creature evolved from the reddish-tinted egg shells. ”

“ She won’t let him turn me out—the artful minx. “Dear uncle—don’t be cross with me, dear uncle!”’ said Mr Franklin with an access of fury, and a ludicrous assumption of a feminine falsetto. “Leave all your money to your niece, dear uncle; that’s what you’ve got to do.” Not a brass farthing, by Jove! He doesn’t want my money, doesn’t he? and he has the impudence to tell me so! Very good, Mr Thomas Wedlake; I’ll take you at your word. I’ll pay you out, you—you—rapscallion!’
The furious monologue seemed to have spun itself out; so Mr Blackford ventured a word. ”

“ There are many members of the junior branch of the legal profession who are of unbending uprightness and fastidious honour; there are a few downright knaves; and there are others who stand neither on the upper nor on the lower rungs of the moral ladder, but occupy a position somewhere about the middle. These last are equally prepared to be honest should honesty be made easy for them, or rogues in the face of difficulty or temptation; and among their number was Mr Blackford. ”

“ Thud! the very earth vibrates in harmony with the animals’ spirit. Over the entrance, on the tree-roots grow long variegated lines of stainless white vegetation—whiter under there, against the earth—a soft quartz in a soft rock. That sapling is dead, nipped in its youth. ”

“ The word avalanche carries with it a sound of terror and dismay, which may well appal any mind. Happily, avalanches are unknown in Great Britain; but in Switzerland they are sadly too frequent. They are known also under other names in some parts of Italy and Germany. Avalanches consist of large accumulations of snow, set free by some means, descending from an elevated region to the valley. Their action is more or less twofold: chiefly by the mass of the snow sweeping away or overwhelming everything which comes in its course ”

“ It was not until nearly a hundred years after the Sicilian king’s invasion of Constantinople that the enterprising citizens of Genoa and Venice succeeded in procuring a supply of the coveted eggs, and very soon made their countries famous for the manufacture of silk. In 1300, the velvets of Genoa were renowned throughout Europe; but there was always an attempt, more or less, to make the manufacture of silk a monopoly; and it was not until nearly two hundred years after the Italian cities had become famous centres of the silk industry, that the manufacture was introduced into France. ”

“ Go to bed; an’ he’ll be better, we’ll hope and trust, to-morrow morning.’
‘I won’t go to bed,’ Nora said firmly, ‘as long as I don’t know whether he will live or not, Dr Macfarlane.’
‘Why, my lass, that’ll be a very long watch for ye, then, indeed, I promise you, for he’ll not be well again for many a long day yet, I’m thinking. But he’ll do, I don’t doubt, with care and nursing. Go to bed, now, for there’ll be plenty to guard you. Mr Hawthorn and I will stop here to-night; and there’s neighbours enough coming up every minute to hold the place against all the niggers in the whole of Trinidad. ”

“ There are powdery avalanches, in which the snow and ice break up into powder, forming a kind of silver cloud, sparkling like quicksilver, and making a noise like distant thunder. This kind is more dangerous by reason of the commotion produced in the air, than by its weight or power to overwhelm. There are what are called creeping avalanches. The mass of snow, being disengaged, moves down a more gentle slope, as on an inclined plane, and so is sluggish in its course. ”

“ Only the bee, that in its flight catches the reddish glow, and halts to know the cause. The common blue butterfly, in its diurnal flight over the park in search of sweets, at times erects its wings, there exhibiting the rows of matchless pearls{563} imprinted on the border of its garment. The wren leaves not the tree in its misfortune, but twits its plaintive miniature trill from under the withered leaves and débris swept against its surface, accumulating with every fresh breeze. ”

“ At the end of the first week, the boy began to sink. He had complained of great pain in his stomach. His mother nursed him in her lap for a whole week, when he desired to lie his length in the manger. His hands and lips were cold, and his respiration feeble. His mother put a little milk to his lips, but he could not take it; and then with one tender cry, ‘O my father in the snow! O father, father!’ he expired.
Throughout the whole of their imprisonment they were in total darkness. For nearly three weeks the crowing of the cock enabled them to distinguish night from day ”

“ It was clear that there was money to be made out of the man by judicious handling; and Mr Blackford was of opinion that no one could be better qualified to make it, or more deserving of it when made, than himself. ”

“ These women, like the small master manufacturers, often display the kindliest interest in those under their charge; and if they see a girl exceptionally clever and intelligent, will make no inconsiderable personal sacrifices to enable her to perfect herself in the higher branches of the industry by becoming a designer of new materials, of patterns, and combinations of colour, such as are rigidly demanded with every successive season by the uncompromising tyranny of Fashion. ”

“ Every man-Jack will think he’s been “remembered”—and so he has, I assure you! You’ll have a nice time of it with ’em, Blackford. D’ye quail at the thought of it—eh? If so, say the word, and we’ll think of something else.’
‘Not on my account, I beg,’ said the solicitor, recovering his senses. ‘I daresay I shall be equal to the occasion. But Mr Franklin, my dear sir, how am I to thank you for such munifi’——
‘You’d better not thank me at all, if you’re wise,’ said the eccentric testator; ‘you may sicken me like the rest, and then I shall alter my mind. Bosh! I know you well enough. ”

“ It has sometimes happened that the snow has not fallen to a sufficient thickness to crush the houses, in which event the inmates have more chance of being saved, as the porous character of the powdered snow allows of sufficient air to sustain respiration. This was the case when, in 1749, the entire village of Tauetsch, in the Grisons, was one night overwhelmed by a powdery avalanche, which descended so noiselessly that the inhabitants were not aware of the calamity, and wondered in the morning why the day did not break. ”

“ The king enjoyed a reign of sixty-seven years; part of which time he was associated with his father. He must have been nearly one hundred years old when he died; and from the temple walls at Abydos we learn that he had sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters. This is the merest outline of Ramses II., one of the greatest of the Egyptian kings; an essentially successful man, bold, enterprising, ambitious, and vain. ”

“ One hundred persons were covered in by the snow in their houses, sixty of whom were got out unhurt.
But perhaps the most remarkable instance of imprisonment in the snow of a descending avalanche occurred in the hamlet of Bergoletto, in the valley of the Upper Stura, at the foot of the Alps, near the fortress of Demonte, in Piedmont. Three persons survived an incarceration of five weeks. It was in the winter of 1755, when the falls of snow had been so very heavy that there was danger that its weight would break through the roofs of the houses. ”

“ The milk of the first goat gradually diminished; but the kidding of the second increased the supply, and as they killed the kid, though with great reluctance, the supply held out until the day of their deliverance. The poor goat became quite a solace to them, as it was so tame as to lick their hands and face. The poor creature was ever afterwards an object of great affection in the family.
We need only add one or two interesting facts. During their five weeks’ imprisonment they suffered little uneasiness from hunger after the first week. ”

“ Sometimes, however, an avalanche may change its character in its descent; as, for instance, a creeping avalanche may reach a steep declivity, and the mass of snow falling on the sharp angles of a rock, it may be shattered, and its mass dispersed in a cloud of powdery snow. Cases occur sometimes in which, instead of burying the objects with which they come in contact, they drive them into the valley, and deposit them at a considerable distance from their original position. A remarkable case of this kind occurred in 1806 ”