Moonshiner

“ He slowly patrolled the bank below the broad, thin, crystal sheet, seeing naught but its rainbow hovering elusively in the sun, and its green and white skein-like draperies pendulous before the great dark arch over which the cataract fell. The log caught among the rocks in the spray at the base was still there, seeming always to rise while the restless water seemed motionless.
No trace that human beings had ever invaded these solitudes could he discover. No vague, faint suggestion of the well-hidden lair of the moonshiners did the wild covert show forth. “The revenuers war smarter'n me ”

“ It was known that the attempt to capture the moonshiners would be dangerous. They were fearless, desperate men, well armed. It would require skill and courage to take them.
The sheriff and chief revenue officers, knowing that the moonshiners were so formidable in arms, numbers, and location, were anxious to have as large an attacking party as possible. Hence they were glad when Long Tom, Jasper Very, honest David Hester and his sons, Hans Schmidt, the German, John Larkin, George LeMonde, and others were sworn in as constables. ”

“ Now the democratic sentiment in this country is bred in the bone, and few of its denizens have so diluted it with Christian grace as to willingly acknowledge a superior. In such a coterie as this “eating humble-pie” is done only at the muzzle of a “shootin'-iron.”
“Never hearn afore ez enny o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot,” remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy, indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still. ”

“ The reason to Wyatt, familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, was only too plain. They intended that the “revenuer” should never go forth to tell the tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow his trail, either losing it in the wilderness or from ignorance of his intention. He had put himself hopelessly into the power of these desperate men, whom his escape or liberation would menace with incarceration for a long term as Federal prisoners in distant penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were not already answerable to the law for some worse crime than illicit distilling. ”

“ Moonshine glanced over his shoulder at the closely-printed page, and the light of her silver lamp so put to shame his miserable taper that he extinguished it, and began to write some verses in her praise.
At last, Moonshine peered down into a deep, dark dungeon, and saw a hapless human creature bound with chains. Pale and wan he was, from long years of imprisonment. For hours she remained to speak to him comforting words.
In the morning the pioneer came to his home on the mountain side, and told how he had been rescued by Moonshine from highwaymen who pursued him as he journeyed. ”

“ LYING TO—HEART AND INSTINCT—SPARROWS VIEWED AS CONSUMERS—MIGRATIONS—POSTING A LETTER IN THE PACIFIC—CANNIBALS—ADVENTURES OF A LOCKET.
The glimpse of moonshine only lasted a second, but it was sufficient to light up the valley of the shadow of death. All around was again enveloped in obscurity. The moon, like a modest benefactor who hides himself from those to whose wants he has ministered, concealed itself behind its screen of blackness.
The pinnace was thrown into stays, and they resolved to lie-to till daybreak. There might be rocks to windward as well as to leeward ”

“ Wonderful moonshine this evening, light as day; and along with it aurora borealis, yellow and strange in the white moonlight; a large ring round the moon—all this over the great stretch of white, shining ice, here and there in our neighborhood piled up high by the pressure. And in the midst of this silent silvery ice-world the windmill sweeps round its dark wings against the deep-blue sky and the aurora. A strange contrast: civilization making a sudden incursion into this frozen ghostly world.
“To-morrow is the Fram’s birthday. How many memories it recalls of the launch-day a year ago! ”

“ It was all moonshine, apparently a reflection of light from our earth, when sixteen times the amount of light showered on us at full moon is then thrown by us on her! But a hole through the middle of the moon, perhaps twenty miles round! There is no air that we know of on the half of the moon that we see, and there is no water. There are ample traces of volcanic fires that once lighted her surface, but they are all long gone out, and have left nothing behind for us but insoluble problems and mysterious wonders—a world of craters, lava, precipices, and cinders. ”

“ So long as they are humanly made, and so long as it is this flood of moonlight from which the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if not the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon the product of the human mind for its appearance."
"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe. "Do you mean to say you think that this thing is made of—well—of moonshine?"
"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But the rays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surface are profoundly changed. ”

“ Sunshine climbed into a barrel of mangos, crouching down until they covered him, and Moonshine hid in a sack of grain. When the soldiers reached the red door, the hermit opened it willingly.
"Boys?" said he, in answer to their question. "I have no boys! I am an old man and have lived in this desert place many a long year without wife or child to bear me company. You must be mistaken!"
The soldiers pushed the hermit roughly aside and entered the cave.
"You had better not lie to the Khan's soldiers!" ”

“ But the moonshine, the imaginative poesy of nature, spreads its soft shadowy charm over all, conceals distances, and magnifies heights, and modifies relations: and fills up vacuities with its own whiteness, counterfeiting substance; and where the dense shadows lie, makes solidity imitate hollowness; and gives to all objects a tender visionary hue and softening. Interpret the moonlight and the shadows as the peculiar genius and sensibility of the individual's own spirit: and here you have the other sort: a Mystic, an Enthusiast of a nobler breed—a Fenelon. ”

“ Murthwaite. "I can't doubt, after what you have told me, that the restoration of the Moonstone to its place on the forehead of the Indian idol, is the motive and the justification of that sacrifice of caste which I alluded to just now. Those men will wait their opportunity with the patience of cats, and will use it with the ferocity of tigers. How you have escaped them I can't imagine," says the eminent traveler, lighting his cheroot again, and staring hard at Mr. Franklin. "You have been carrying the Diamond backwards and forwards, here and in London, and you are still a living man! ”

“ Naturally enough the genial influence of moonshine is often supposed to be particularly beneficial to children; for will not the waxing moon help them to wax in strength and stature? Hence in the island of Kiriwina, one of the Trobriands Group to the east of New Guinea, a mother always lifts up or presents her child to the first full moon after its birth in order that it may grow fast and talk soon.391 So among the Baganda of Central Africa it was customary for each mother to take her child out at the first new moon after its birth, and to point out the moon to the infant ”

“ But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'll never get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife—and I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too—you'll never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to wherever it goes. ”

“ Not until they had gone far over the desert on their way to the Khan's city did the captain remember that he had been told there were two boys living with the hermit. He stopped abruptly, wheeled his horse and gave orders that the troop should return at once to the old man's cave. Sunshine guessed what was in the captain's mind, and his heart sank within him. "There will be no possible escape for my brother," he thought, "for the soldiers will come upon Moonshine unexpectedly before he has time to hide again!" ”

“ Observing that I was not yet satisfied, Betteredge shrewdly adverted to certain later events in the history of the Moonstone; and scattered both my theories to the wind at once and for ever.
“Let’s try it another way, sir,” he said. “Keep your own opinion, and see how far it will take you towards finding out the truth. If we are to believe the nightgown—which I don’t for one—you not only smeared off the paint from the door, without knowing it, but you also took the Diamond without knowing it. ”

“ It does wonders, to be sure, but it does not make cross people pleasant, nor violent people calm, nor fretful people easy, nor obstinate people reasonable, nor foolish people wise,—that is, it may do so spasmodically, but it does not hold them to it and keep them at it. A great deal of beautiful moonshine is written about the sanctities of home and the sacraments of marriage and birth. I do not mean to say that there is no sanctity and no sacrament. Moonshine is not nothing. It is light,—real, honest light,—just as truly as the sunshine. It is sunshine at second-hand. ”

“ Moonshine crept down, one clear, unclouded night, to look about the world and see what was going on. In her hand she carried a silver lamp, by whose white rays all objects could be seen as plainly as at noontide; and wherever she went, the shadows, ashamed of their blackness, stole guiltily away and tried to hide themselves. Her path led through a forest and down a mountain side, where wild beasts roamed for prey ”

“ But it is useless to inquire of any stupid joker, for he will idly say that there is no such man there, because, forsooth, a certain single woman who was sent to the moon came back again, which she would never have done if a man had been there with whom she could have married and remained, Nor should any one be misled by those blind guides who darkly hint that it is all moonshine. There is not an Indian moonshee, nor a citizen of the Celestial Empire, some of whose ancestors came from the nocturnal orb, who does not know better than that. ”

“ George, imitating his companion, felt the thrill still in his veins. 'Chândni!' he echoed, 'that means silvery, doesn't it?'
'Moonshine also. They call her Chândni-rât or Moonlit-night as a rule. If tales be true, there is a good deal of the night about her. She and Dalel--but here he comes, innocently, from a side door. The Devil loves moonshiny nights.'
The figure approaching them was not outwardly of diabolic mould, being altogether too insignificant. ”

“ With this view, I encouraged him to talk to me; contriving so to direct the conversation, on my side, as to lead it back again to the subject which had engaged us earlier in the evening—the subject of the Diamond. I took care to revert to those portions of the story of the Moonstone, which related to the transport of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which Mr. Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall: and to the unexpected appearance of the Indians at the house, on the evening of the birthday. ”

“ MOON-SHEERED. A ship the upper works of which rise very high, fore and aft.
MOONSHINE. Illicit hollands, schiedam, and indeed smuggling in general; excused as a matter of moonshine. A mere nothing.
MOON-STRUCK. An influence imputed to the moon in the tropics, by which fish, particularly of the Scomber class, though recently taken, become intenerated, and even spoiled; while some attribute poisonous qualities to them in this state. Human beings are also said to be injured by sleeping in the moon's rays. ”

“ The Indians will be set free on Wednesday in next week. There isn’t a doubt on my mind, and there isn’t a doubt on Mr. Murthwaite’s mind, that they came to this place to steal the Moonstone. Their calculations were all thrown out, of course, by what happened in the house on Wednesday night; and they have no more to do with the actual loss of the jewel than you have. But I can tell you one thing, Mr. Betteredge—if we don’t find the Moonstone, they will. You have not heard the last of the three jugglers yet.”
Mr. Franklin came back from his walk as the Sergeant said those startling words. ”

“ As there was no help for it, they took their first voyage to the West Indies; so there was a dispersion of an united family—two went west, one went east, coble went down, and mother, after waiting a month or two, and supposing father dead, went off with a soldier. All dispersed by one confounded gale of wind from the northward and eastward, so that’s the way that I went to sea, Bob. And now it’s time that Moonshine was back.”
But Moonshine kept us waiting for some time: when he returned it was then quite dark, and we had lighted candles, anxiously waiting for him ”

“ Out in the street I kept in the shadow of the houses as far as I might, though all was silent as the grave; indeed, I think that when the moon is bright a great hush falls always upon Nature, as though she was taken up in wondering at her own beauty. Everyone was fast asleep in Moonfleet and there was no light in any window; only when I came opposite the Why Not? I saw from the red glow behind the curtains that the bottom room was lit up, so Elzevir was not yet gone to bed. ”

“ But as for us, for Grace and me, we never leave this our happy Moonfleet, being well content to see the dawn tipping the long cliff-line with gold, and the night walking in dew across the meadows; to watch the spring clothe the beech boughs with green, or the figs ripen on the southern wall: while behind all, is spread as a curtain the eternal sea, ever the same and ever changing. ”