Squalor

“ We crouched in the companion-way for shelter, not doubting that the squall would speedily pass, and that the schooner, which we naturally supposed lay close to the berg hove-to, would, the instant the weather cleared, send a boat to take us off. But the squall, instead of abating, gradually rose into half a gale of wind—a wet dark gale that shrouded the sea with flying spume and rain to within a musket-shot of the iceberg, whilst the sky was no more than a weeping, pouring shadow coming and going as it were with a lightening and darkening of it by masses of headlong torn vapour. ”

“ To let go the anchor and take in the sail, to meet a heavy squall from the westward, was the work of a moment. A heavy squall in a dangerous position is a thing to be remembered: you see advancing upon you an enormous [354] arch of black cloud, with a slightly white misty sky beneath, called by the Malays the wind’s eye, and when it breaks upon you with a force almost sufficient to lift you from your legs and sweep you into the sea, you feel your own nothingness, and how impotent are most of our efforts to contend against the elements. ”

“ We lay enchanted. Night fell; there was a light visible on shore; it did not move. The two women sang, Belle joining them in the hymns she has learned at family worship. Then a squall came up; we sat a while in roaring midnight under rivers of rain, and, when it blew by, there was the light again, immovable. A second squall followed, one of the worst I was ever out in; we could scarce catch our breath in the cold, dashing deluge. ”

“ For thirteen days of unbearable calm, broken only by occasional brief squalls, accompanied by torrential downpour of rain, and thunder and lightning of appalling grandeur—squalls which raised the flagging hopes of the men for a space, and to which they hastily hoisted their canvas, that they might be carried out of this dismal tract of the ocean ”

“ A squall is a tempest on a small scale. We see in the distance a dark cloud of immense size which seems to ride slowly over the surface of the smooth sea. The gentle breeze gives way to a strong wind, the surface of the water becomes ruffled with whitecaps, the darkness increases, and at irregular intervals the threatening, angry cloud is lighted up by chains of lightning thrown in all possible directions; these flashes are followed by peals of thunder, and by prolonged rumbling, which becomes feebler and feebler, and finally dies away far out on the surface of the ocean. ”

“ For at this moment a heavier gust than ever struck down on the water—and widened rapidly out—and tore the tops of the waves into spray—until a whirling gray cloud seemed to be flying over to the other shores. The noise and tumult of the squall were indescribable; and then, in five or six minutes or so, the loch began to reappear again, black and sullen, from under that mist of foam; and the wind subsided—only to keep moaning and howling as if meditating further springs. ”

“ The first rock reacheth with a sharp peak to the heavens, and about the peak is a dark cloud that passeth not away from it, no, not in summer time or harvest. This rock no man could climb, even though he had twenty hands and feet, for it is steep and smooth. In the midst of this cliff is a cave wherein dwelleth Scylla, the dreadful monster of the sea. Her voice is but as the voice of a new-born dog, and her twelve feet are small and ill-grown, but she hath six necks, exceeding long, and on each a head dreadful to behold, and in each head three rows of teeth, thick set and full of death. ”

“ Then the squall passes on as rapidly as it came: the cap of wind soughs itself out among the swaying branches, and in a minute the air is clear, the sky blue and joyous, and with a flash the sun looks through the fast-retiring beards of mist and rain, cheering the dripping woods and bedrenched meadows, rousing skylark from the field, thrush in the brake, gilding the hurrying, foaming rills and beds of watery fern. ”

“ The sky was a mass of stormy black, here and there edged with a copper-looking cloud, and breaking in one or two directions into pale silvery strata, that had an unhealthy lightning look: a heavy black squall lay ahead of us, like a dusky curtain, whence we saw the rain, fringe-like, pouring down against the horizon. ”

“ Of course they found it as all cliff swallows must, for cliff-hunting is a part of their springtime work. It was very high and very straight. Its wall was of boards, and the gray shingled roof jutted out overhead just as if inviting Eve and Petro to its shelter.
It was a good cliff, and mankind had been so busy building the same sort all across the country for the past hundred years that there was no lack of them anywhere, and swallows could now choose the ones that pleased them best. Yes, civilization had been kind to them and had made more cliffs than Nature had built for them ”

“ It is not easy to divert the Quaker from his course; we swung to the right, but the wing of the car, on my side, struck the man full in the chest. He fell as instantly and solidly as if he were a stone pillar, and, like a stone, he lay in the mud. ”

“ SQUALL, the name given to any sudden increase of wind to gale force. Generally speaking a squall is understood to be of short duration, but the word " gust " would be used to indicate an increase of wind force of more transient character than a squall. Gusts may succeed one another several times within the compass of a minute. A squall may comprise a succession of gusts, with intervening partial lulls, and would last with varying intensity for some minutes at least. ”

“ They drew closer and closer to the land, until a towering line of cliffs rose for more than a thousand feet right above their heads. It was a stern and sombre coast, unbroken by any bays or inland glimpses, and gloomy and terrible in the fading light. The great oily swell broke into spouts of foam at the cliff-foot, and all along the face of the precipice they could see innumerable sea-fowl clinging to the rock.
Gradually, as they sailed along this hostile land, a light sea-fog began to gather. ”

“ Beautiful children ran along the roads playing [101] with gay butterflies. And as the swallow flew farther and farther south, everything became more and more beautiful.
At last they came to a blue lake, and by the side of it, shaded by magnificent trees, stood a palace of dazzling white marble, built in olden times. Vines clustered round its lofty pillars, and at the top were many swallows’ nests, and one of these was the home of the swallow who carried Thumbelina. ”

“ The approach of the squall is generally foreboded by the appearance of jet black clouds over the land, moving in a direction towards the sea, at the same time that a gentle breeze blows towards the shore. ”

“ The breeze scarce stirred the reeds beside the river,
The swallows saw their figures as they flew
In that clear mirror for a moment quiver,
Before they vanished in the clouds from view.
And schoolboys wilder than the winging swallows
Far from the master with his look severe,
Bounded like fawns, to gather weeds, marsh-mallows
And primrose blossoms to the young heart dear. ”

“ Along the face of such crumbling rocks, swallows' nests are clustered, thick as cities, and eagles and deer do not disdain their summits. One morning, out in the boat along the base of these rocks, it was amusing, and affecting too, to see these swallows put their heads out to look at us. There was something very hospitable about it, as if man had never shown himself a tyrant near them. What a morning that was! Every sight is worth twice as much by the early morning light. ”

“ Thus we “sayled by thought and pleasaunce,” as Chaucer says, and all things seemed with us to flow; the shore itself, and the distant cliffs, were dissolved by the undiluted air. The hardest material seemed to obey the same law with the most fluid, and so indeed in the long run it does. Trees were but rivers of sap and woody fibre, flowing from the atmosphere, and emptying into the earth by their trunks, as their roots flowed upward to the surface. And in the heavens there were rivers of stars, and milky-ways, already beginning to gleam and ripple over our heads. ”

“ The work was easy. The soil was light and loose, and gave beneath the sharp edge of the shovel. He cleared several shovelfuls out, and then stooped to rake for the chest with his fingers. He knew that it had been buried only a few inches below the surface. He raked long and diligently, but, wherever he tried it, the earth gave beneath the pressure of his strong fingers, nor yielded up any indication of the chest. He rose and resorted once more to the shovel, and a look of disquiet stole into his face. ”

“ While on shore to-day we witnessed a quarrel between two squaws, which appeared to be growing every moment more boisterous, when a man came forward, at whose approach every one seemed terrified and ran. ”

“ Those who have experienced the effects of a violent squall about Sheerness, may be proper judges of what is to be expected from a most furious gale, which often continues for an hour, or more, in a river which may be said generally to flow between banks full two miles asunder, and which are, in most parts, from three to five, in some, full seven, miles apart! ”

“ Into this opalescent scene, some days before the freshet reached its height, the logs began to come down. In the upper country every tributary stream was pouring them out in shoals,—heavy, blind, butting, and blundering shoals,—to be carried by the great river down to the booms and saws above its mouth. Some, caught in eddies, were thrust aside up the bank to lie and slowly rot among the living trees. But most, darting and wallowing through mad rapids, or shooting falls, or whirling and circling dully down the more tranquil reaches of the tide, made shift to accomplish their voyage. ”

“ Heralded by the increasing fierceness of the squalls, sometimes by a faint flash of lightning like the signal of a lighted torch waved far away behind the clouds, the shift of wind comes at last, the crucial moment of the change from the brooding and veiled violence of the south-west gale to the sparkling, flashing, cutting, cleareyed anger of the King's north-westerly mood. ”

“ The cliff or eaves-swallow is a square-tailed bird smaller than the foregoing, which builds numerous nests in colonies under the eaves of barns, other buildings and cliffs. The bank-swallows are our smallest swallows, being about five inches long. They dig tunnels in sand-banks, two or three feet deep with a nest of grass and feathers at the end. The tree-swallow has the under parts white. It nests in hollow trees or in bird-boxes near dwellings. ”

“ Between the rapidly increasing peals of thunder the squall could be heard approaching, moaning over the hills in the west and down the bay as if ravening for prey, while the lightning seemed to take a savage delight in spearing the distant cliffs which, in the flashes, were beautifully outlined in silhouette against an electric atmosphere. ”

“ To be among these savage heights and depths, these heaving waves of desolate moor, to have these solitudes above us and these blue shadows so far below us, is to know something of "the strong foundations of the earth." It is with a feeling of anti-climax that we close the gate behind us, and, on a precipitous gradient and no surface worth mentioning, steer slowly down into Swaledale. ”

“ Soon after dark we were visited by a squall from the eastward, longer in duration, and heavier than any we had before experienced. From our exposed situation--no land intervening for 30 miles--it raised a good deal of sea: the wind remained fresh at the east during the greater part of the night. ”

“ Their infants are fastened to a framework of light wood, in the same manner as those of the North American Indians. When a squaw has anything to do, she very composedly sets this frame up against the side of the house as a civilized housewife would an umbrella or broom. ”

“ There is something very charming in the swallow's warbling song, beyond its association with warm and beautiful weather; and when in autumn they are congregating by thousands, to hear them all chanting together as they fill the air, and, sailing round and round in widening and interlacing circles, mount higher and higher until the highest are almost out of sight, is to my mind wonderfully grand and impressive. ”

“ When she saw how heedless all the Birds were, the Swallow would have nothing more to do with them, but left the woods where they lived and came among men, building her nests in barns and along the eaves of houses. ”

“ If you will look at the surface of the chalk, where the sands and clays lie on it, you will find that it is not smooth; that the beds do not rest conformably on each other, as if they had been laid down quietly by successive tides, while the chalk below was still soft mud. ”

“ In hell—in Sheol, which may be understood of the depth of the earth, the very centre of it. Should we dig as deep as we can under ground, and think to hide ourselves there, we should be mistaken; God knows that path which the vulture's eye never saw, and to him the earth is all surface. ”

“ But the chief reason assigned is from the water of a certain spring or well, which, rising in the said cliff, runs down into the sea among those pieces of clay, and petrifies them as it runs; and the force of the sea often stirring, and perhaps turning, the lumps of clay, when storms of wind may give force enough to the water, causes them to harden everywhere alike ”

“ Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince. “It is strange,” he remarked, “but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.”
“That is because you have done a good action,” said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. “What a remarkable phenomenon,” said the Bird Professor as he was passing over the bridge. “A swallow in winter!” ”