Roundheads

“ In the principal outpost inside Round Hill you’ll now and then find more cylinders and machines—cylinders of extra-cosmic brains with different senses from any we know—allies and explorers from the uttermost Outside—and special machines for giving them impressions and expression in the several ways suited at once to them and to the comprehensions of different types of listeners. Round Hill, like most of the beings’ main outposts all through the various universes, is a very cosmopolitan place. ”

“ Only pick me out twenty resolute men, and bring them round secretly to the first break in the cliffs eastward. I shall be there.”
’Twas easy to find twenty men ready for the venture. Nay, the hard thing was to take no more than twenty, for a hundred were eager to come. No sooner were we started, than the main body, as agreed, leapt from their hiding-place, and marched rapidly on Dunluce.
Our guide took us a mile eastward of the castle, where at the head of the narrow gully that led from the cliff to the shore, stood Ludar, pistol in hand, waiting for us. ”

“ There lay the village, its white houses gleaming in the moonlight—there the familiar road wound round the foot of the hill—there was the broad street, the old mill, the placid lake in the distance, and beyond it, clear against the sky, the dark outlines of Rutledge; massive, and gloomy, and lifeless, it stood far off from the cheery village, with its animation and content. ”

“ Above us, the noise of the guns was already lost in the thunder of the waves as they echoed in the cave under the castle rock. It seemed, as we stood there and looked up, that not a foot further could we go. The great angry cliff beetled over our heads, and on its very edge, far above, we might discern against the gloomy sky the dim corner of a buttress.
But it was not here that Ludar meant us to ascend. “Now, my men,” said he, “put your powder in your bonnets and follow me.” ”

“ For me it was harder work than for the active redshanks. As for Ludar, he stood at the bottom, while I, with half the troop growling at my back, was stuck midway. Yet we all reached the bottom in time; and as we did so, the boom of a gun from the rocks above us told that our men were already before the castle knocking for entrance.
Then we waded and scrambled in the darkness at the water’s edge, till we came to the base of the great black rock on which the fortress stood. Often we were wading waist-deep in the pools, and often on hands and knees drawing ourselves over the surf-swept ledges. ”

“ The line of light grew narrower and narrower, the cold grey shroud settled down lower and heavier, the lake and lawn grew more and more indistinct, the shadows thickened within, the darkness increased without, and imperceptibly night stole over us, and still I sat dreamily by the window, picturing to myself for the hundredth time, and as I did at all dreamy moments, Rutledge as it used to be—the halls filled with servants, the rooms with guests; carriages rolling to the door; music and laughter echoing through the house; Alice lovely and admired; Richard, with his refined, aristocratic face ”

“ Rudolph was enchanted with everything—with the blurred hillsides and the murmuring streams that curled in soft swirls along by the hedges, with the goatherds following their capricious charges,—the villagers, burnt brown, in the glory of fustanella, scarlet fez and smart jackets, their long sleeves hanging back like idle wings,—with the boys and their donkeys, and the women in embroidered coats and muslin head-dresses. ”

“ The Middle Ages are dead and dust.
We will proceed with that congenial paradox which states that the seat of learning lies in the [Pg 179] head, and so discuss the most distinctive costumery of this time, the roundlet.
Now, the roundlet is one of those things which delight the clothes-hunter or the costume expert. It is the natural result of a long series of fashions for the head, and its pedigree is free from any impediment or hindrance; it is the great-grandson of the hood, which is derived from a fold in a cloak, which is the beginning of all things. ”

“ The Cross-ways: on the Long Road to Rudersheim. A wooded country: high hills at back. The place is wild and overgrown, like the haunted spot it is reputed to be. In the foreground, right, a ruined stone well appears, in a mass of weeds and vines. Opposite, left, tall trees and dense thickets. Where the roads cross (to left of centre) , stands a large, neglected shrine, with a weather-worn figure of Christ,—again the 'Lonely Man'—facing towards Hamelin.—The stage is empty, at rise of the curtain; but the sound of chanting from burghers just gone by fades slowly, on the road to Rudersheim. ”

“ The breaking dawn showed him that he was in the pine-grove that bordered Rutledge lake. He felt no fear at the danger of his nearness to detection; he had done with fear now; what malice his enemies had to wreak must be wreaked on his dead body; and God have pity on the only one of all the world who would suffer pain or shame from his disgrace! ”

“ What a change had come over Roland Ruthven, since last, in boyhood, and just before he joined the Royals, he had gazed into those black and surgy depths which fascinate the eye and render the brain giddy, where the dead white of the foam contrasts so strongly with the sombre tints of the turbulent cauldron, and the still blacker uncertainties of the caverns beneath the rocks, as the Dee, there terrible, yet beautiful thunders over the Linn on its passage to the German Ocean. ”

“ The trail was well worn here as it had been before, and there were signs of much hauling. What was going on at Rudha Mor? The place could not be far distant, for she saw that the road wound up the rocks and fell away rapidly into a deep gorge, the further side of which she could see, dimly colored with the opalescent tint of the East. ”

“ Into this--a cubby-hole where the compradore kept his tally-slips, umbrella, odds and ends--the torchlight shone faintly through the reeds. Lying flat behind a roll of matting, Rudolph could see, as through the gauze twilight of a stage scene, the tossing lights and the skipping men who shouted back and forth, jabbing their spears or pikes down among the bales, to probe the darkness. ”

“ Even women learned to use guns and other weapons, that they might be able to defend their homes from these savage assaults.
The log house villages grew into populous places, and the descendants of the "Pilgrims" were not always satisfied to remain in the cities founded by their forefathers. Wonderful stories were told in the towns of the amazing fruitfulness of the forest and prairie land out West, which induced large numbers to sell their property and set out on the tedious and adventurous journey. ”

“ Rare and far, the sails of junks patched the horizon with umber polygons. Rudolph, sitting among his boxes in the sampan, viewed by turns this desolate void astern and the more desolate sweep of coast ahead. His matting sail divided the shining bronze outpour of an invisible river, divided a low brown shore beyond, and above these, the strips of some higher desert country that shone like snowdrifts, or like sifted ashes from which the hills rose black and charred. Their savage, winter-blasted look, in the clear light of an almost vernal morning, made the land seem fabulous. ”

“ At Rudchester the house and farm-buildings lie a little way off the road, on the left, and are all well to the south of the site of the fort. A lane crosses the road at right-angles, and the entrance to the farm is a little way down this lane. ”

“ It was a mound, formerly surmounted by a cross, used for many different purposes, and sometimes called the Roundhill, or Roundel. In 1317 the Mayor complained that Alan of Gissing used to stand with two grooms on the Berehill on Saturdays, waylaying woolfells coming by road, and forestalling them. ”

“ A few such may read this, perhaps: let them think of the Irish widow with the four children and nothing, and at least be more contented with their port and sherry and their leg of mutton.
This brings us at once to the subject of dinner and the little village, Roundwood, which was reached by this time, lying a few miles off from the lakes, and reached by a road not particularly remarkable for any picturesqueness in beauty, though you pass through a simple pleasing landscape, always agreeable as a repose, I think, after viewing a sight so beautiful as those mountain lakes we have just quitted. ”

“ What all sailors say must be true, for they know their business.
One of these missionaries was the Reverend Mr. Ruddle, and he was the chief of all the others, who were going to South Africa to do it good. There were six of them all told. Thomas Ruddle had his wife with him, for he could not exist without her; and she, for her part, thought him a marvellous man and a darling. He had a beautiful smile, and a big black beard, and a voice like the bellow of an amiable bull. But Mrs. Ruddle was blue-eyed, with the complexion of a Californian peach and a voice like a flute. ”

“ An hour, perhaps, passed so; the sunset was fast fading out of the sky, when the sound of voices through the woods struck my ear, and listening, I recognized the tones of the returning riding-party. There was a bridle-path, I knew, just below this knoll, through which they were returning from Norbury, and springing up, I gathered my light muslin dress about me, and pressing through the thicket that lay between it and me, waited for them to pass. ”

“ Rutledge. What a day it is! How impossible to be otherwise than happy and hopeful; how inevitably the dark phantoms of doubt and dread take themselves off in the light of such a sun as this, and in the sight of such a scene! The waves dance bright and gay in the sunshine; the mountains rise, on either hand, into the blue and cloudless sky; in a word, the loveliest river in all this lovely river-braided New World lays before me, the heart of seventeen beats in my bosom, the glow of health and exercise tingles in my veins ”

“ Roundabout. The Roundabout, I should say, is the Circus's (much inferior) rival.
It contained a photograph of Esdaile's house, with the spot where the parachute had descended marked with a cross.
It was, of course, a thousand pities. No man likes the house he lives in held up to the idle public gaze. Had the annoying thing been submitted to my own paper I could have stopped it. Had it been a big thing I might even have stopped its appearance in the Roundabout, for, while we cut one another's throats in detail, we have our understandings in larger matters. ”

“ While the hunters of the settlement at the fire-cave scoured the forest for animal food, and the women sought vegetables, nuts, berries and eggs, Longhead was by no means idle. True, he was, by the contributions exacted from the group, relieved from the necessity of daily effort to secure sustenance for himself, Broken Tooth and a bright-eyed little cave-boy who had been sent to the woman by the spirits, and he seldom joined in a hunting excursion; but, weapons were often broken or lost, and, as he still retained the secret of their manufacture, he was kept tolerably busy in replacing them. ”

“ They were warping his ship into dock, and the voices of France were thick in the night.
“Routledge, you’re evading the issue,” he muttered after a moment. “It isn’t that you must choose between one city and the wide world; nor between the desk or the saddle, a tent of skins or a compartment of brick. You can ride a camel in London or pack a folding-bed over the peaks to Llassa; you can be a tramp at home or an editor afield. It isn’t the world or not, Routledge, but—a woman or not!” ”

“ If you go to the public square in the middle of the village you will see a big roundhouse. If you take the top off the roundhouse you will see a big spool with a long string winding up around the spool. ”

“ This would seem to be a kind of big game shooting which has all others vanquished into nothingness. This is a wonderful trail through the mountains—the pass called the Yellowhead—a level ribbon of land along which the steels are laid for most of the way. But in some places, a road has been blasted out just to show how the mountains can be beaten. These lords of earth and sky, when called upon, must bow their unwilling necks to the yoke of steel. And no proper-spirited person can stand in this pass without feeling the challenge of the hills and without an immutable desire to conquer them. ”

“ Then, his inspection over, he sat down on the grass on the north-eastern slope of the hill, and drew his ordnance map from his pocket.
His horizon was bounded by the high land on the southern side of the River Stour. At his feet was a rolling, sandy plain, diversified here and there by clumps of trees, but mostly covered with gorse and heather. This plain stretched away into the distance, and beyond it an occasional silvery gleam betrayed the winding channels of Poole harbour. ”

“ That particular afternoon, as the declining sun lighted up the dark massive house, and the fine old trees, nearly bare though they were, and the winding paths of the garden and broad fields beyond, Rutledge seemed to me the realization of all I had ever dreamed or read, of beauty and of stateliness. I walked slowly down the garden; the faint smell of some lingering grapes on the arbor overhead perfumed the air; the dead leaves rustled under my feet, alone breaking the stillness peculiar to an autumn afternoon, unprofaned by the many murmurs of insect-life, or the animating song of summer bird. ”

“ An hour passed and never a footfall on the pavement. Then the watch marched by, and as their slow tramp died away in the distance the door quietly opened and there stood Ludar, very pale, but as cool and unconcerned as the day I first met him near Oxford. ”