Moulder

“ To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself. ”

“ Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet at Tom Cross Rigg, and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of moorland spreads itself out towards the west. ”

“ So beautiful are those cloud-pictures that we hardly needed beauty below. Here on the road to Moulins we had both, the landscape, if not romantic or striking, being rich in pastoral charm. Arthur Young, who looked at every bit of country first and foremost from the farmer’s point of view, was so much struck with the neighbourhood of Moulins that, but for the Revolution, he would very probably have become a French landowner. ”

“ Mohler, a German from Pennsylvania, of Saxon origin. The way was through a hilly, woody country; many breaks in the earth presented limestone rocks, and announced the proximity of caves. For a sportsman this country must be delightful, for we saw in the woods two flocks of partridges, which left the road, only to give way to the passing carriage, and then settled at not more than ten paces from us. On the banks of the creeks we saw a great number of snipes. Mohler’s house is situated on a considerable creek, called the South river, which by means of a canal, works a grist-mill and forge. ”

“ Just beyond the gap, the line passes Lough Mourne, a melancholy little lake set in a framework of bleak hills, and then runs on across a still bleaker moor; but gradually, as the hills are left behind, the character of the country changes, the houses become more numerous, the fields larger and less stony, one sees an orchard here and there—and then, quite suddenly, the whole landscape becomes prosperous and pastoral, and we caught our first glimpse of wide fields covered with a light and vivid green, which we knew was the green of flax. ”

“ There are few places in the world more beautiful. It lies upon the bank of a fjord, on the opposite side of which is an array of snowy mountains forty miles in length. Molde is sometimes called the "Interlaken of Norway," but that does not by any means describe it. For here there is no single mountain, like the Jungfrau, to compel our homage, but rather a long series of majestic peaks, resembling a line of icebergs drifting in crystal splendor from the polar sea. ”

“ Above the garden, the wild moorland rose steeply up, marked with wandering sheep tracts. From the back of the house, a little flower garden sloped away to the edge of a rocky back. The moorland stream rushed wildly along its narrow channel, a few yards below; and, viewed from the garden wall, at the edge of the bank, it was a weird bit of stream scenery. The water rushed and roared here; there it played a thousand pranks; and there, again, it was full of graceful eddies; gliding away at last over the smooth lip of a worn rock, a few yards lower down. ”

“ Molde is the most beautifully situated town in Norway. It has a population of 1800 souls. It is a very important port of call for all the steamers which coast between Bergen, Trondhjem, and the North. The town is built along the 36 mouth of the Romsdal Fjord, and from almost any point a view of the grand Romsdal Mountains is to be obtained. The panorama on a clear day is gorgeous. To see the sun setting over the fjord and its background of snow-tipped peaks is to have a vision of fairy-like colour and beauty that takes one's breath away. ”

“ We passed the huge brown Moultrie House, in summer a gay resort, at present a barrack; passed the hundred scattered cottages of the island, mostly untenanted now, and looking among the sand-drifts as if they had been washed ashore at random; passed the low walls of Fort Moultrie, once visibly yellow, but now almost hidden by the new glacis, and surmounted by piles of barrels and bags of sand, with here and there palmetto stockades as a casing for the improvised embrasures ”

“ But there is not a church bell within ten miles and there never will be one heard on this flat. There is not the least approach to church society or religious organization or observance. There is not, so far as known, so much as a man in the least religiously inclined. We are a hard lot. No work on the claim to-day. The pick and shovel will rest where thrown Saturday afternoon and only a trickle of yellowish water from the reservoir will seep through the long line of sluices instead of yesterday’s muddy surge rushing through—sand, gravel and grating pebble and boulder. ”

“ Every little rill that flows down the mountain side is charged with finely-powdered sediment which it is ever wearing away from the surface of its own bed. Every great stream, besides the immense quantities of mud and sand which in times of flood it carries along in its turbulent course, has its channel strewn over with pebbles at which it never ceases to work, rounding off the angles and polishing the surfaces; and these pebbles, what are they but the fragments of old rocks and the elements of new,—the rubble-stone of Nature’s edifice on its way from the quarry to the building? ”

“ The moor itself was park and garden in one, and the heather and gorse grew right up to the wide terrace walk upon which the south windows of the little house opened. A plantation of pine and fir behind gave protection from the winter winds, and shade from the summer sun; but save for this little wood—an oasis in a blooming desert—the moor stretched away in its wild freedom on every hand, the white road alone, glimpses of which could be seen here and there, seeming to connect it with the great world beyond. ”

“ There were corrals rudely but strongly set up, and nearly one hundred acres lay under the plough. There was a water-front on a nameless mountain creek, and a stretch of prairie feed that was pretty well inexhaustible. In short, there was everything a good farmer could need to make life reasonably prosperous and endurable in a climate that knew little of moderation.
The delight died out of Molly’s grey eyes with the passing of the sunset. And she turned her gaze in the direction where the snow-trail vanished round a bluff of woodland. ”

“ THE HOOTING CARN One of the grimmest yet most fascinating tracts of moorland in the West is that wild, boulder-strewn district behind St. Just in Penwith, near the Land's End. Here, amid a scene of savage beauty, wind-swept by the great gales from the Atlantic, is a stretch of treeless moor the richest in all Cornwall in remains of prehistoric man. ”

“ Wherever the boulder-clay lies thick and continuous, as in the parish of Cromarty, on a sloping table-land, every minute streamlet cuts its way to the solid rock at the bottom, and runs through a deep dell, either softened into beauty by the disintegrating process, or with all its precipices standing up raw and abrupt over the stream. ”

“ Every breath stuck in her throat; she was dying for air, and longed to open the window, being closer to that than to the door.
But she dared not; for outside, through the dim square panes, she saw the tragical sky covered with driving slate-coloured piles of cloud, and the rain falling in a perfect deluge, and the sea dark and ominous as an imminent threat, the raging foam gleaming through a shroud of pouring water.
"Molde, Molde!" she exclaimed, icy-cold with terrible remembrance. "It is the sky of Molde, the fjord of Molde! That was where I first felt it. Oh, God! Help, help!" ”

“ A deep cleft on a mountain-crest, a bowl-shaped hollow scooped out of a hillside, a profound ravine, a conical mound or a group of such mounds, rising conspicuously above a bare moorland, a solitary boulder of gigantic size, or a line of large boulders—these and many other prominent elements in the scenery, alike of the Lowlands and the Highlands, have arrested attention from the earliest times. ”

“ We are still skirting the bold, precipitous shores of Mull, the central loadstone which has kept us all day to our course, and now and then our attention is especially engrossed by the view of her rugged cliffs, terrible in winter's storms, and her natural arches of basalt, through which the sea washes at high-water, and which betray in every feature a family likeness to great Staffa. ”

“ Coming upon the lodge now, you see only a mound of white swelling above the expanse of pond or beaver meadow, and beyond stand ranks of evergreen, dark and silent. That mound is as dull or dead as anything else in the somber landscape until, as you pass indifferently, your eye catches a wisp of vapor, like a breath, or your ear detects a faint plop, plop, as bodies slide down into the tunnel one after another. In an instant the whole landscape changes, as it always does change, and glow and fall away into the golden frame of a picture, when a living creature moves across the face of it. ”

“ Perhaps the moor is specially irresistible when the full moon throws its magic over hill and valley, suggesting infinite possibilities. In the clear air the hills look very solemn and impressive, and the long, broken reflections of the moonbeams lie in every stream as it ripples over rocks or breaks against boulders ”

“ L'eau est tellement chaude qu'on cuit dedans les œufs hard en trois minutes. Au milieu de ce ravin sur le torrent principal il y a trois moulins, l'un au-dessus de l'autre, qui sont construits d'une manière toute particulière et très pittoresque. Toute la journée les femmes tartares ne cessent de venir au-dessus et au-dessous de ces moulins pour laver leur linge. II faut vous dire qu'elles lavent avec les pieds. C'est comme une fourmilière toujours remuante. Les femmes sont pour la plupart belles et bien faites. Les costumes des femmes orientales malgré leur pauvreté, sont gracieux. ”

“ Molly and May walked along a narrow path close beside the glass wall, and watched the queer fish chase each other about in the water or lie lazily under the shadow of a big rock.
At last Molly said, "Why, the bottom of the ocean looks very much like the top of the earth. There are hills and valleys and rocks and sand and green things growing everywhere." ”

“ On leaving Christiansund we also left the island belt, and the remainder of the journey, until we entered the Moldefjord, was very disagreeable.
Molde is one of the most charming places in Norway, and is “well adapted for a long stay,” as Baedeker puts it. It is a trim and clean little town of less than two thousand inhabitants, situated on the fjord of its own name, facing the south, and lying at the base of high hills sheltering it from the cold north and west winds. The vegetation is luxuriant ”

“ I walked fast across the moors, as though I had a destination. And I had; yet when I understood it I sheered off, only to turn again and stare fascinated in the direction of the object that frightened me.
There it rose against the seaward cliffs, the little tower of Trécourt farm, sea-smitten and crusted, wind-worn, stained, gray as the lichened rocks scattered across the moorland. ”

“ As far as the eye could reach, no human form was visible. A flock of sheep were quietly browsing the scanty grass on the slope of a neighboring hill, while a few ravens fluttered and cawed above. Everything seemed dead, even in the little row of wretched hovels which we have described. At last the door of the most miserable [27] among them, with whose inmates we are already acquainted, opened, and Molly and her father stepped out in the bleak, raw morning air. At the same moment, they observed the forms of several men turning into the little footpath which led by these humble dwellings. ”

“ Is it any wonder that we hover about the dark mystery, and find in our researches room for absorbing study, even though we cannot reach absolute certainty? Could you have seen the excitement which prevailed among the half-dozen settlers, I had employed in digging the mound on Rainy River, in August last, when the perfect pottery cup figured below was found, and the wild enthusiasm with which they prosecuted their further work, you would have said it requires no previous training, but simply a successful discovery or two to make any one a zealous mound explorer. ”

“ Our road after this, till six o'clock in the evening, lay through the most exquisite forests, but with terrible footing for the mules—thick, pudding-like, wet mud, and loose, slippery stones, corduroys of hard mud striping some of the most difficult places, where only a surefooted mule can tread. ”

“ Not one single human dwelling anywhere speck-like on the river-winding plain—or nest-like among the brushwood knolls—or rock-like among the fractured cliffs far up on the mountain region do our eyes behold, eager as they are to discover some symptom of life. Two houses we know to be in the solitude—ay, two—one of them [Pg 309] near the head of the Loch, and the other near the head of the Glen—but both distant from this our Tent, which is pitched between, in the very heart of the Moor. ”

“ You can form no idea of what the glory on the Plains is just before sunrise. Like the afterglow, for a great height above the horizon there is a shaded band of the most intense and glowing orange, while the mountains which reflect the yet unrisen sun have the purple light of amethysts. I left early, but soon lost the track and was lost; but knowing that a sublime gash in the mountains was Bear Canyon, quite near Boulder, I struck across the prairie for it, and then found the Boulder track. ”