Maule

“ Maule is traversed from north to south by the coast range and its surfaces are much broken. The Buchupureo river flows westward across the province. The climate is mild and healthy. Agriculture and stock-raising are the principal occupations, and hides, cattle, wheat and timber are exported. Transport facilities are afforded by the Maule and the Itata, which are navigable, and by a branch of the government railway from Cauquenes to Parral, an important town of southern Linares. ”

“ Stealthy horror and disease lurk within the weather-blackened, moss-crusted, and elm-shadowed walls of the archaic dwelling so vividly displayed, and we grasp the brooding malignity of the place when we read that its builder—old Colonel Pyncheon—snatched the land with peculiar ruthlessness from its original settler, Matthew Maule, whom he condemned to the gallows as a wizard in the year of the panic. ”

“ Maule carefully wrote down all that our witness said, and I began to think the defence of insanity stood on very fair grounds, especially when I perceived that Maule was making some arithmetical calculations. But you never could tell by his manner which way he was going, and therefore we had to wait for his next observation, which was to this effect:—
"You have given yourself, sir, a very excellent character, and doubtless, by your long service in the village, have richly deserved it. ”

“ "What's that you mutter to yourself, Matthew Maule?" asked Scipio. "And what for do you look so black at me?"
"No matter, darky," said the carpenter. "Do you think nobody is to look black but yourself? ”

“ The old man's love of himself, his upbraiding words when they last parted, and his own unkind treatment (to say the least of it) of Hester, all came surging back on Roland's memory now.
'I shall not readily forget Miss Maule's passionate outburst of grief and pain on leaving Merlwood,' continued the old Writer to the Signet ”

“ Now, the wizard's grandson, the young Matthew Maule of our story, was popularly supposed to have inherited some of his ancestor's questionable traits. It is wonderful how many absurdities were promulgated in reference to the young man. ”

“ Count Monte-Leone and the Marquis de Maulear entered together a vast and beautiful avenue, silvered over by a brilliant moon.
"Signor," said the Count to Maulear, "do you ever have waking dreams? Can you, by the power of your imagination, transport yourself into the future, and, as it were, read your destiny, with all its prosperous and unfortunate incidents, its pleasures and chagrins? This often happens to me, especially by day and when I am unhappy. ”

“ Very probably; and chance may befriend us yet in the discovery of Victor de Mauleon. You seem not to know the particulars of that story about the jewels which brought him into some connection with the police, and resulted in his disappearance from Paris. ”

“ Additions to the population there were not numerous, and such as came about the time of which I speak were even rougher and fiercer than the original inhabitants. In particular, there came a brace of ruffians named Phillips and Maule, who rode into camp one day and started a claim upon the other side of the stream. They outgulched the Gulch in the virulence and fluency of their blasphemy, in the truculence of their speech and manner, and in their reckless disregard of all social laws. ”

“ Rounding a rocky point covered with wild roses, from which Hugh had picked his bouquet, they found themselves in a tiny bay, where the limpid wavelets lapped gently upon a beach of silver sand, while the rocks of rosy granite which formed the bay were draped in part with a tangle of luxuriant creepers and crested with sweeping pine-boughs. Presently the boat grated on the sandy beach, and Hugh handed her out of the boat and led the way to a granite ledge commanding an exquisite view of sleeping river and clustering islets. ”

“ Nora sang the old, tender, Scotch love-song with a simple pathos that suited it as well as did her fine contralto. Roland, who like most emotional people, was exceedingly sensitive to the power of music, felt it float through his whole being—soothing the nervous system which had been on the strain all day, and taking him, for a moment, into that world of romance among whose bowery walks it is so pleasant, for even the most practical-minded, occasionally to wander. ”

“ After leaving the Coteau village, they passed the short Coteau Rapids, and then the drowsy old village of Beauharnois, with a pastoral landscape of green uplands and bowery orchards behind it,—after which they saw before them, beneath a richly wooded shore, a glittering stretch of interwoven blue and silver. And soon the steamer began to pitch herself forward, as she was swiftly hurried down the rapid incline, past cedar-covered points and islets,—so swiftly that it seemed as if they could scarcely take in the striking beauty of the scene till it had been left behind and the rapid was past. ”

“ As the fiery serpent began to coil and uncoil itself on the dark river, while the rockets sparkled against the sky, and the moon—partially obscured—threw fitful gleams between slow-moving clouds upon the distant islands, it seemed more like a transformation scene on the stage than one of actual reality, the contrast of the blaze of artificial light with the calm serenity of the moonbeams being singularly striking. ”

“ Niagara had its own solitary overpowering grandeur, but no surrounding scenery. The Saguenay hills were too stern in their solemn splendor. At Quebec, the view seemed almost too wide, too complex; but this charming valley, with its brown-beached blue bay, nestling amongst these richly wooded hills, with rank after rank of mountain tops,—as they seemed to her, fading away into the distant blue, seemed to have all the unity and beauty of a well-composed picture, and to satisfy her imagination without her knowing why. Flora was in an ecstasy. ”

“ Then comes the strenuous time of conflict,—the ‘sturm und drang’ period of the rapids, and then the calm strength, the gradual expansion, the growing dignity of a noble life, till at last we have this exquisite sunset, glorifying a river that is swiftly passing on, to lose itself in the great ‘silent sea,’ symbolizing the beauty of the same rich and noble life, passing away from its old familiar shores to lose itself in the boundlessness of eternity. ”

“ Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!"
And so poor Pippa passes on, consoled for the wearisome silk-winding, the scant food, scant raiment, scant human love. ”

“ Everywhere that they drove in the neighborhood they came upon charming glimpses of bay and river, or rich fields of waving grain, thriving orchards and pleasant old homesteads surrounded by their farm-buildings, making many delightful rural pictures to carry away. And again Mrs. Sandford reminded them how all that comfort and prosperity was the late fruit of the hard labors and patiently borne privations of the loyal old settlers, who chose to begin life over again in the wilderness, rather than sacrifice their political principles and disown the flag they loved so well. ”

“ Chillingworth's door. It was a little girl, who looked about eight or nine years old, but might have been older, quaintly wrapped in a shawl that had once been handsome, while a little fur-trimmed hood that was quite too small for her framed a mass of dark tangled curls, out of which large, lustrous gray eyes, strikingly beautiful in form and color, looked up from under their long dark eyelashes, with a soft, grave, appealing gaze. ”

“ Is it not strange that, at the time when the amount of surplus production is the subject of national lamentation, the people who produce by their labor the very things which they need for their own use and comfort, are the ones that are often destitute of them, while a few capitalists who do little or nothing toward the production or distribution, are supplied with all the comforts and luxuries of life, at half or less than half their usual price? ”

“ And the last day at Murray Bay was, after all, happier than May in her lonely reverie of the preceding evening had thought possible. They visited several of their favorite haunts during the morning, and it was wonderful how much Hugh and May had to say to each other,—said Kate, mischievously, careless of the retort that “People who lived in glass houses needn’t throw stones.” In the afternoon they took a long drive along the Cap-à-l’Aigle heights, watching another gorgeous sunset bathe the hills and river in its exquisite dyes. ”

“ She had never before extended her wanderings in the direction of Mill Bank Farm so far as to reach the ravine through which the little stream flowed into the river; and now, when she came to the edge of the steep slope and looked down into the luxuriant depth of foliage and fern and ragged moss-clad rock, she felt a sense of delight more intense than Bessie Ford or Lucy Raymond, familiar all their lives with such scenes, had ever experienced. ”

“ Stella talked all the evening without ceasing, and at night accompanied Lucy to her room, there to go on talking still, enlarging, in a lively, amusing strain, on the adventures of their seaside life; the "fun," the "splendid bathing," the people who were there, their dress, manners, and conversation; all the flirtations she had observed, with the quick eye of a girl who as yet has no personal interest in such matters. ”

“ They took the route which May had so often followed in imagination with her shadowy friends of the story, across the ravine and through the village, with its lights twinkling all over its little cove, till they reached the plain, bare old wooden church, beside which they stood for some time almost in silence, reverently regarding the little wilderness-temple which had so long alone met the needs and witnessed the devotions of men rough and rude, but men still with the felt need of Divine help in their strange wild lives. ”

“ To May it seemed like fairyland—this little evening sail among these lovely islands, in a yacht so low as to bring the eye on a level with their base, and not going too fast to enable her to enjoy in detail the beauty of lichen-crested rocks festooned with creepers and wild roses, and of still, placid reaches, dyed crimson and purple by the sunset hues, where clusters of snowy water-lilies were shining like stars amid the dark leaves. ”

“ Our sires their old traditions brought,
⁠Their lives of faithful toil,
For home and liberty they fought
⁠On our Canadian soil;
Quebec to us is sacred still,
⁠Nor less is Lundy's Lane,—
Long may a loyal people fill
⁠The land they fought to gain. ”

“ Maula loves Allen. Oh, how she loves him. But she would have waited until the moon maidens had chosen. Then, if you had chosen him, Maula would have taken her canoe far out beyond the reef and thrown herself to the sharks.” As the girl spoke, a passionate light shone in her eyes, forcing Mabel to believe her. “But now he is Maula’s. How I love him. I shall be so kind, so gentle, to him that he shall love me in return. Maula shall be a soft, cooing dove in his hands, a wild beast of the hills to his enemies.” ”

“ You love Him, I hope, Nelly, and pray to Him always?"
"Indeed I do, and I always pray God to bless you, Miss Lucy."
"Well, I won't forget to pray for you, Nelly, and we know He will hear our prayers," replied Lucy kindly.
Acts of Christian kindness often bring their reward even in this life: the "cup of cold water" we give sometimes returns to refresh our own parched lips. ”

“ Below the bridge stretched long brown sands with a strip of blue water in the middle, and a three-masted vessel lying stranded by the receding tide;—while just across the bay, narrowed by the low tide, rose the long bold headland of Cap à l’Aigle, jutting far out into the wide blue expanse of the St. Lawrence, bounded on the southern shore by a wavy line of soft blue and purple hills, glistening with silvery specks, which were, in reality, distant French villages. It was a feast to the eye, a refreshing to the whole being, simply to sit there and take in the lovely vista. ”

“ At one point, the shore of the island to their right, rose picturesquely into high banks clothed with a rich growth of light, fluttering birch and sombre cedar, the contrast of which delighted the travelers. There was quite a romantic-looking landing here, beside an old ruined lime-kiln, and the road wound picturesquely up the wooded height, the two or three figures seen walking up the winding path, as the boat receded, looking—May declared—“just like people in the beginning of a story.”
“And so they are—or in the middle of it,” said Mr. Winthrop. ”

“ Chillingworth's dark eyes had lighted up with enthusiasm.
"Ah, that was beautiful, indeed!" he said, with a warmer spontaneity than usual. "Thank you, indeed, Miss Harley, for telling us about it. That is how things should stand between master and men. We have some noble men in the old land yet!" ”

“ And now the tide has flowed in, up to the end of the weirs, the scattered passengers are collected on board, and the steamer, with screw revolving once more, glides swiftly out of Ha-Ha Bay, leaving behind all its rugged beauty and its primitive, secluded life; and turns up another bend of the fiord, towards the great hill curves that bound the vista. Point after point, bend after bend, succeed each other in bewildering succession, while the travellers feel once more how distinct is the stern sublimity of the Saguenay from the grand beauty of the St. Lawrence. ”