Pitfall

“ Nowhere did a rock chimney send up its smoke to stain the clear sky; the street was empty, grown up with grass and weeds and even young trees; no child's voice in laughter or man or woman’s voice calling; no dog's bark to vibrate through the stillness which was absolute; no sound of ax on wood or of hammer or of horses’ hoofs; no stirring object upon the steps which were rotting away, nor at door or window.
No sign of life, though he turned this way and that, searching. Everywhere the wilderness was pushing in again where once man had come, vanquishing it. ”

“ Till sick of storm and strife and slaughter, Some ghostly night when hides the moon, I slip into the milk-warm water And softly swim the stale lagoon. Then through some jungle python-haunted, Or plumed morass, or woodland wild, I win my way with heart undaunted, And all the wonder of a child. The pathless plains shall swoon around me, The forests frown, the floods appall; The mountains tiptoe to confound me, The rivers roar to speed my fall. Wild dooms shall daunt, and dawns be gory, And Death shall sit beside my knee ”

“ From equine bell-ringers comes over the hill.
But now the dull dawning gives place to the morning:
The sun, springing up in a glorious flood
Of golden-shot fire, mounts higher and higher,
Till the crests of the sandhills are stained with his blood. ”

“ You go up and down, and on over shelving and hillocky paths through the narrow lanes walled in by blank, windowless dwellings; you come out upon an open space strewed with the black ruins that some late fire has left; you pass by a mountain of castaway things, the rubbish of centuries, and on it you see numbers of big, wolf-like dogs lying torpid under the sun, with limbs outstretched to the full, as if they were dead; storks, or cranes, sitting fearless upon the low roofs, look gravely down upon you ”

“ Now the hoop of green, once white as paper under the noon sun, and the level, circular rim of the forest are empty and silent except for the rattling of the river and the moving of the pines against the fixed, grave stars. The human tragedy—or was it comedy?—has burnt itself out like the embers of a camp-fire that will never again be kindled in that lonely spot. ”

“ The whole land lay slumbering in the twilight of the forest. Wild dreams made up its half-conscious existence. The hungry cry of the beast of prey, or the fierce deed of savage man, whoop and dance, triumph and torture, broke in fitful bursts upon the deep silence, and then died away, leaving the breath of life to rise and fall with the passing winds.
Every rocky cliff on the hill-side, every marshy spot on the lowlands, was veiled in living, rustling folds of green. ”

“ Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. ”

“ Above them, as they slumber in graves that none may number.
Dawns grow to day, days dim to dusk, and dusks in darkness pass;
Unheeded springs are born, unheeded summers brighten,
And winters wake to whiten the wilderness of grass. ”

“ Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery, exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep discouragement. ”

“ Now the lofty forests bend low beneath its fury; their limbs and wavy boughs are tossed about and catch hold of each other; the mountains tremble and seem to reel about, and the ancient hills to be shaken to their foundations: the furious storm sweeps along, smoking through the vale and over the resounding hills: the face of the earth is obscured by the deluge descending from the firmament, and I am deafened by the din of the thunder. The tempestuous scene damps my spirits, and my horse sinks under me at the tremendous peals, as I hasten on for the plain. ”

“ A morbid dread has been upon her all the day, and the sighing of the wind in the pine-trees—for a storm is rising over a neighboring mountain—does not tend to make her more cheerful. She stands a little while watching the grass bending before the breeze and the dead leaves swirling and eddying round on the smooth-cropped lawn. ”

“ And it shall come to pass, that he that shall flee from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall rid himself out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for the flood-gates from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. ”

“ The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass,
Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass;
From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone,
And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan.
The garden, once fair, became cold and foul,
Like the corpse of her who had been its soul,
Which at first was lively as if in sleep,
Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap
To make men tremble who never weep. ”

“ The wind is howling and whistling through the trees which form a background to the pit-bank, and the rain is coming hissing down in sheets. In a hovel close to the pit shaft sit the bereaved and disconsolate mourners, hoping against hope, and watching for those who will never return. ”

“ Creep silently, against the wind, to the chalk-pit's edge, and in summer or winter, sunshine or shower, on a still day or a windy, you will catch a glimpse of some wild creature, a visitor, or one of those who have made their home in the pit for the sake of sustenance or shelter. ”

“ But as he did so the eyes of the dog shot fire, an awful groaning and noise, a raging storm, thunder, lightning, with cracking of the rocks, broke forth in fury. The earth trembled, the rocks fell upon each other, trees were rent into splinters, torrents burst from the rocks, and the heavens enveloped themselves in night and flames.
The unlucky farmer never knew how he got out of the cave ”

“ QUAFFING THE STORM.
The enkindled storm swept ragingly into the great forest
And the forest stirred aquiver and sang
With gloomy voices
As when time in chaos began.
All trees clenched themselves in violence, in strife,
An eagle the forest became,
Beating its pinions before avenging wrath of the storm
Aloft to the richly-clad vault. ”

“ And before the pitiless rush of the flood, what difference between man and beast? All of them rats alike, poor creeping folk, flooded out of their holes. The same wind and rain tore the crow’s nest from the tree and the roof from the native’s hut ”

“ Was the frozen snow on the fair cheek and open brow, or—oh horror, still more horrible!—had he been buried alive in the black and treacherous pit, and were the dear locks defiled with the mud of the bog, and the bright eyes filled with its slimy darkness for ever? ”

“ In the so-called pine barrens there is a luxuriant vegetation; but here about the deserted house and out-building there was nothing but glistening sand, moss, and those pallid grasses that suggest death rather than life, however feeble. And how widely different is it to be surrounded by ruin wrought by man, and to be in a forest where man has never been! ”

“ It is the blasted and battered ruin [383] of a forest. A thousand years, ten thousand tempests, lightnings, winds, and wintry violence, have all flung their utmost force on these trees, and there they stand, trunk after trunk, scathed, hollow, grey, gnarled; stretching out their bare, sturdy arms, or their mingled foliage and ruin—a life in death. All is grey and old. The ground is grey beneath, the trees are grey with clinging lichens, the very heather and fern that spring beneath them have a character of the past. ”

“ And thus for hours may you be lost in the forest, nor all the while have wasted one thought on the outer world, till with no other warning but an uncertain glimmer and a strange noise, you all at once issue forth into the open day, and are standing on the brink of a precipice above a flood. ”

“ Centuries have bedecked and adorned the sides of this stupendous pit; and while naked sheets and planes of colour, the work of recent years, still gleam starkly, all innocent of blade and leaf, elsewhere in deserted galleries and among cliff-faces torn bare by vanished generations of men, green things have made their home and flourished with luxuriance, to the eternal drip of surface water. ”

“ As the fire came on a curious thing happened, for from out the tall grass about the base of the black hill whereon we stood the wild animals that live in the plain, with lolling tongues and bloodshot eyes, burst into the open, and seeing us, mounted to the summit, and crouched at our feet, trembling and panting, as domestic animals might have done, all their wildness clean gone out of them. At last, as the grass about us ignited, a fawn ran into the opening, but only to fall exhausted on its very edge. ”

“ Blinded the rooms wherein no foot falls.
Faded the portraits on the walls.
Reverberating, shakes the air
⁠A river there.
Coursing in flood, its infinite roars;
From pit to pit its water pours ”

“ Farms, tiled and thatched, basked in summery warmth, forest, hedge and copse, full-foliaged and abundant, shone out in copper and bronze, and the air's stillness, the patient tranquillity, enfolding the land, made it seem expectantly to wait for some sudden wind that should ultimately cast devastation through the forests. ”

“ The whole forest ablaze, the sky red with lighted fragments flying before the high wind over cleared spaces, creeks, and roads, and igniting, like the torches of a thousand incendiaries, fences, orchards, farms, crops, and buildings in many places at once, had happily never been seen before. ”

“ Again the ruin rings with life, and the wilderness is a smiling garden, fruitful in human happiness. The voices of industry now cheer every corner of the solitary city, and the laugh of pleasure awakens the gloomy recesses of the forest with an inspiring feeling of gladness. ”

“ The vast forests, the green meadows, the flourishing villages, the pleasant homes which a few hours before had formed one of the happiest countries in the world, was now one vast expanse of dust and ashes, out of which lowered the smouldering, blackened shafts of giant pine trees that had not been all consumed. The half-burned corpses of men, women, and children, cattle and wild beasts, strewed the forests, and in the dried-up beds of brooks and rivers lay the blackened bodies of burnt fishes. ”

“ Often while travelling over the narrow, winding mountain roads, toward the close of winter, I have been overtaken and half-blinded by sudden, furious storms of wind and snow, and compelled to seek the nearest tree or projecting rock for shelter. ”

“ Grass grows between the uneven stones of the pavements, the signs above the shop windows decline, half the letters of these signs are missing, here and there a house has been pulled down, or has been allowed to slide into ruin, and wild greenery springs up through the fallen stones, and there is silence in all the streets. ”

“ A star shall fall from heaven to earth and there shall be given up the key to the pit of the abyss. And it shall open the pit of the abyss and there shall go up a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace ”

“ Here, in the wakeful night, high up in the monstrous hills, with this everlasting torrent raging in his ears, and the camp-fire out of doors there flaring, flickering, glowing, dying down—here in the fog of the forest fires and the solitude of the mountains, it is so easy to see things as they truly were. ”

“ But when crowds of people went out from the town to examine the ill-fated pit that had swallowed up such numbers, and yet never seemed to be full, they could discover nothing. All that they could see was a vast plain, that looked as if it had been there since the beginning of the world. And from that time the people of the country began to die like ordinary mortals all the world over. ”

“ Around the great silent hills stand bare, or fringed with jagged pine tops, and some few hundred yards away on either side, a rude cross or wooden railing blown over by the tempest, discoloured by rain or snow-drift, marks the lonely resting-place of the dead. ”

“ On they came, the forest trembling with the onset. The leafy curtain burst into tatters; the jungle ropes and snaky stems, tearing the branches from the treetops, were in a few moments heaped in a tangled and confused ruin. ”

“ As he lay face down on the grass, seizing it with both hands, he longed for death, to be burned on a pyre of pine wood on a high hill, to have his ashes scattered wide and broadcast, to be thrown into the space he longed for while living, but he feared that such a luxury of resolution into the elements would be too costly. ”

“ The leeward woods are thick with a blinding, stifling smoke, through which all the wild creatures of the forest flee in terror, whither they know not—by chance to safety, by equal chance perhaps to a terrible death in the surging deluge of fire. ”

“ Human life had been sacrificed more than once, amid the snow-drift, on that wild moor-land, and sheep innumerable had been lost. To make my danger greater, the place was full of pits and hollows, where mining speculators had tried to sink shafts in former years. ”

“ Not a dwelling was to be seen, not a sound heard to break the silence but the occasional rustle of wings, the croak of some huge bird, or the distant crash of some boulder or stone as it dislodged itself to fall heavily into the dark valley below. ”