Lomaque

“ They're all in such a hurry to get to the guillotine that they won't even give a man time to eat his victuals in peace!"
"There's no choice now," muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. "His father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went in those days ”

“ Citizen Maurice is not at home; but Louis Trudaine takes his place, and is overjoyed to see once more the best and dearest of his friends!"
"I hardly know you again. How you are altered for the better!" exclaimed Lomaque, as they entered the parlor of the cottage.
"Remember that you see me after a long freedom from anxiety. Since I have lived here, I have gone to rest at night, and have not been afraid of the morning," replied Trudaine. He went out into the passage while he spoke, and called at the foot of the one flight of stairs which the cottage possessed, "Rose! Rose! come down! ”

“ Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of Danville’s answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was one. His sallow face whitened as he looked toward the prisoners’ platform.
“They are lost,” he murmured to himself, moving out of the group in which he had hitherto stood. “Lost! The lie which has saved that villain’s head leaves them without the shadow of a hope. No need to stop for the sentence—Danville’s infamous presence of mind has given them up to the guillotine!” ”

“ Who shall oppose you, did you say? Your master and mine; the man whose signature is at the bottom of this order—the man who with a scratch of his pen can send both our heads rolling together into the sack of the guillotine! Shall I call to him as he passes the house? Shall I tell him that Superintendent Danville resists me in making an arrest? Shall I? Shall I?” And in the immensity of his contempt, Lomaque seemed absolutely to rise in stature, as he thrust the arrest order under Danville’s eyes and pointed to the signature with the head of his stick. ”

“ The land-steward started—this time with genuine astonishment. "For me!" he exclaimed. "Mademoiselle Rose has troubled herself to keep a cup of coffee hot for me?" The old servant stared; Trudaine stopped and looked back.
"What is there so very surprising," he asked, "in such an ordinary act of politeness on my sister's part?"
"Excuse me, Monsieur Trudaine," answered Lomaque; "you have not passed such an existence as mine—you are not a friendless old man—you have a settled position in the world, and are used to be treated with consideration. I am not. ”

“ It is found difficult to gain certain information about the person or persons visited by Trudaine without having recourse to an arrest. (3.) An arrest is thought premature at this preliminary stage of the proceedings, being likely to stop the development of conspiracy, and give warning to the guilty to fly. Order thereupon given to watch and wait for the present. (4.) Citizen Superintendent Danville quits Paris for a short time. The office of watching Trudaine is then taken out of the hands of the undersigned, and is confided to his comrade, Magloire.—Signed, {{Picard. Countersigned, Lomaque. ”

“ The old castle, "on which the osprey built her annual nest," is so much buried in ivy that it is not easily distinguished from the surrounding woods. We hired a boat at Luss and in our turn roved upon the lake. We landed on one of the islands and lunched on the top of a rock by the ruins of a second castle. Loch Lomond, studded with islands, lay like a mirror beneath us, with the huge Ben Lomond for a noble background. From time to time a boat broke the smoothness of the water, and the cry of a gull, or the bark of a far-away dog, the stillness of the air. ”

“ But be this as it may, the upper portion of Loch Lomond is felt by all to be most sublime. Near the head, all the manifold impressions of the beautiful which for hours our mind had been receiving, begin to fade; if some gloomy change has taken place in the air, there is a total obliteration, and the mighty scene before us is felt to possess not the hour merely, but the day. ”

“ All has gone to decay. The buildings are unused and ruinous, and the large gardens show now only wild cactuses, willows, and a few olive-trees. A fast run brings me back in time to take leave of the few I knew and who knew me, and to reach the steamer before she sails. A last look— yes, last for life— to the beach, the hills, the low point, the distant town, as we round Point Loma and the first beams of the light-house strike out towards the setting sun. ”

“ A cold wind blows briskly from the east and sweeps a million streamers of white smoke in turbulent panic over the darkening roofs of the city, far below. In the north the lovely Lomond Hills are distinctly visible across the dusky level of the Forth, which stretches away toward the ocean, one broad sheet of glimmering steel,—its margin indented with many a graceful bay, and the little islands that adorn it shining like stones of amethyst set in polished flint. ”

“ Loch Lomond is a sea! Along its shores might you voyage [Pg 376] in your swift schooner, with shifting breezes, all a summer's day, nor at sunset, when you dropped anchor, have seen half the beautiful wonders. It is many-isled; and some of them are in themselves little worlds, with woods and hills. Houses are seen looking out from among old trees, and children playing on the greensward that slopes safely into deep water, where in rushy havens are drawn up the boats of fishermen, or of woodcutters who go to their work on the mainland. ”

“ But the clear course of the lovely Leven is rock-crossed and intercepted with gravelly shallows, and guards Loch Lomond from the white-winged roamers that from all seas come crowding into the Firth of Clyde, and carry their streaming flags above the woods of Ardgowan. And there stands Ben. What cares he for all the multitude of other lochs his gaze commands—what cares he even for the salt-sea foam tumbling far away off into the ocean? All-sufficient for his love is his own loch at his feet. How serenely looks down the Giant! ”

“ A low surf beats along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of far-off seas and trade-winds, as it has beaten for thousands of years, with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if of distant thunder on the shore. Yonder, to the right, Point Loma stretches its sharp and rocky promontory into the ocean, purple in the sun, bearing a light-house on its highest elevation. ”

“ It is indeed a melancholy thing to see a full-grown woman thus waiting, as it were, body and soul devoted to the poor beast; yet even this is better than working in a manufactory the day through.
We came to a moorish tract; saw before us the hills of Loch Lomond, Ben Lomond and another, distinct each by itself. Not far from the roadside were some benches placed in rows in the middle of a large field, with a sort of covered shed like a sentry-box, but much more like those boxes which the Italian puppet-showmen in London use. ”

“ For the rest there is not much to say about Lome. It is a clean and neat little place, like most of our German colonial towns, with well-laidout308 streets shaded by palm and other trees, and bordered by pretty little bungalows, or, in some cases, more substantially built stone houses, set in well-kept tropical gardens. The native population of Lome, however, did not impress me favourably. The up-country native is a gentleman; the coast native is, too often, a caricature of the street "corner boy" of London or Berlin. ”

“ Loch Lomond sat still for its picture in the morning, and after an early breakfast, we took a row-boat, with a couple of Highlanders, for Inversnade, and pulled across the lake with a kind of drowsy delightfulness in the scene and air which I have never before found out of Italy. We overshot our destination a little to look into Rob Roy’s Cave, a dark den in the face of the rock, which has the look of his vocation; and then pulling back along the shore, we were landed, in the spray of a waterfall, at a cottage occupied by the boatmen of this Highland ferry. ”

“ There is no need to dwell in detail upon the army's long, slow march. Leaving the city of Lompoar, it moved up the Lotar River, through the spectacularly scenic gorge of the Coast Range, and into the Middle Valley; that incredibly lush and fertile region which, lying between the Low Umpasseurs on the east and the Coast Range on the west, comprised roughly a third of Lomarr's area. ”

“ Here is a picture of a street in Lome, and the trees are only four years old, but already they stretch across the road and make a pleasant shade. The gardens and the trees of Lome made a great impression on me. Any fences one sees are neat, but as a rule they do not have many fences, only round every bungalow is a well-laid-out, well-kept, tropical garden; if it is only just made you know it will be good in the future because of the promise fulfilled in the garden beside it. ”

“ At the distance and point of view at which we passed it, the castle made no show.
Arriving at Balloch, we found it a small village, with no marked features, and a hotel, where we got some lunch, and then we took a stroll over the bridge across the Levers, while waiting for the steamer to take us up Loch Lomond. It was a beautiful afternoon, warm and sunny; and after walking about a mile, we had a fine view of Loch Lomond, and of the mountains around and beyond it,—Ben Lomond among the rest. It is vain, at a week's distance, to try to remember the shapes of mountains ”

“ The view from Ben Lomond is nearly twice as extensive as that from Catskill, being uninterrupted on every side, but it wants the glorious forest scenery, clear, blue sky, and active, rejoicing character of the latter. We stayed about two hours upon the summit, taking refuge behind the cairn, when the wind blew strong. I found the smallest of flowers under a rock, and brought it away as a memento. In the middle of the precipice there is a narrow ravine or rather cleft in the rock, to the bottom, from whence the mountain slopes regularly but steeply down to the valley. ”

“ Meanwhile, the sense of quiet was never lost sight of; the little peaceful lakes among the islands might make you forget that the great water, Loch Lomond, was so near; and yet are more beautiful, because you know that it is so: they have their own bays and creeks sheltered within a shelter. When we had ascended to the top of the island we had a view up to Ben Lomond, over the long, broad water without spot or rock ”

“ We have never had a more delightful walk than this evening. Ben Lomond and the three pointed-topped mountains of Loch Lomond, which we had seen from the Garrison, were very majestic under the clear sky, the lake perfectly calm, the air sweet and mild. ”

“ Directly before me lay the lodge, but the house was invisible from where I sat, being evidently situated somewhere beyond a dense coppice into which I perceived the drive to lead, for patched here and there by the moonlight I could trace it running ribbon-like through the trees.
A vine grew upon the wall beneath me, its aged tendrils of the thickness of ropes, and it afforded a natural ladder whereby I made my descent. ”

“ Soon after, the lomas or great barren hills appeared; they form a kind of connecting-link between20 the Coast and Central Ranges. These gently rounded mounds are bare except for a kind of worthless, wiry grass that in some unaccountable way draws enough sustenance from the red-clay soil to maintain its meagre growth. These hills gradually increase in height, but the ascent is by such slow degrees that one is scarcely conscious of any rise at all. There are few houses, and the small number of inhabitants seem to be as sallow and lifeless as the hills themselves. ”

“ The wind of the hill rais'd her locks, and Lochallen beheld her in grief.
The soul of the hero was knit to the tear-eyed daughter of Lorma.
She was graceful and tall as the willow, that bends o'er the deep shady
stream.
Her eye like a sun-beam on water, that gleams thro' the dark skirting
reeds.
Her hair like the light wreathing cloud, that floats on the brow of the
hill,
When the beam of the morning is there, and it scatters its skirts to the
wind. ”

“ The mountains all around seem to open up steep passes that lead away to still higher hills in the distance. There is Glencroe going down between Donich and Ben Arthur, and the road which was made by the 98th Regiment about a hundred years ago. Then there is the dark glen between Ben Bheula and Ben Lochain, down which pour the waters of the Lettermay Burn, which come out of the little tarn, Curra Lochain. Beyond Loch{81} Lomond there proudly stands Ben Lomond, lifting its head 3192 feet high, and dominating all the loch of that name. ”

“ The happiest time, however, was in the long silvery nights, when the valley was filled with the mild splendour of the regent of the sky, and the people turned with glee to joys which tire not. When the moonlight, falling softly, lighted with sheen the little village of Koroivónu, Lolóma and her handmaidens were always ready for the song and dance. ”

“ Loches is certainly one of the greatest impressions of the traveller in central France, - the largest cluster of curious things that presents itself to his sight. It rises above the valley of the Indre, the charming stream set in meadows and sedges, which wanders through the province of Berry and through many of the novels of Madame George Sand; lifting from the summit of a hill, which it covers to the base, a confusion of terraces, ramparts, towers, and spires. ”

“ Steamers are constantly arriving at, and departing from the wharf, on their passage up and down the river. This is one of the many examples to be met with in the western country, of towns springing into importance within the memory of comparatively young men—a log-house is still standing, which is shewn as the first habitation built by the backwoodsman, who squatted in the forest where now stands a handsome and flourishing city. ”