Tilt

“ Mid-April came, and Toby and Charley, with dogs and komatik, met Skipper Zeb at Black River tilt, when he appeared again out of the silent wilderness with the harvest of his labours, and his winter's trapping was ended.
How happy they were when Skipper Zeb was home again. It was pleasant to hear his big voice and his jolly laugh booming about the cabin. He was always an optimist, and he always made every one feel that everything was all right. ”

“ An armful of gads thrown on the still hot embers caused them to blaze up cheerfully and bring her diminished head-gear into sudden prominence as a shadow. At this a step approached the door.
“Are folk astir here yet?” inquired a voice she knew well.
“Yes, Mr. Winterborne,” said Marty, throwing on a tilt bonnet, which completely hid the recent ravages of the scissors. “Come in!”
The door was flung back, and there stepped in upon the mat a man not particularly young for a lover, nor particularly mature for a person of affairs. ”

“ The head of Glen Tilt is but an inconsiderable distance from the head of the river Dee, which rises in the great mountains that close up the head of Glen Tilt. I was told there would, some time or other, be a very good road from Blair, by Lude, across the hills to Glen Shee and Glen Beg, which lead to the castle town of Bramar.
The drive from Atholl house to the Forest Lodge is beautiful; the Tilt is for ever noisy throughout its rough course; its banks are highly ornamented with trees, and broken precipices, and openings in the mountains, pouring down their ample tribute to the rapid Tilt. ”

“ Stilts are fond of aerial exercises, pursuing each other with marvellous velocity through the air, so that a few moments after the spectator has- 180 - almost lost sight of them in the sky above they are down again within a few yards of the surface. ”

“ STILTS, poles provided at a certain distance above the ground with steps or stirrups for the feet, for the purpose of walking on them. As a means of amusement stilts have been used by all peoples in all ages, as well as by the inhabitants of marshy or flooded districts. ”

“ We doe not tugge to hale her up by force,
For then our line wood breake, and our hooke lost;
But let her carelesse play alongst the streame,
As you had left her, and sheele drowne her selfe.
Foul. A my life a most rich comparison.
Goos. Never stirre if it be not a richer Caparison then my Lorde my Cosin wore at Tilt, for that was brodred with nothing but moone-shine ith the water, and this has Sammons in't; by heaven a most edible Caparison.
Ru. Odious thou woodst say, for Comparisons are odious. ”

“ Suddenly, as if the movement of his hand had released it, the load of her accumulated impressions of him tilted up, and down poured in a ponderous avalanche all she felt about him. ”

“ Now as the wind wafted it towards them it came in a deep roar, but only to soften and become distant, swelling, and rising, and falling, filling their dreams again, as they lay beneath the shelter of the canvas tilts, and seeming to wake them at the break of day. ”

“ ON THE THRESHOLD.
Standing on the threshold, with her wakening heart and mind,
Standing on the threshold, with her childhood left behind;
The woman softness blending with the look of sweet surprise
For life and all its marvels that lights the clear blue eyes.
Standing on the threshold, with light foot and fearless hand,
As the young knight by his armour in a minster nave might stand ”

“ There was a clock at the end of the corridor outside, whose ticking sounded dull and muffled from the distance, yet it penetrated, with clear, sharp vibrations, to the brain of the sick man, and seemed to him, in the gathering excitement of this fearful hour, to grow louder and louder, till each tick sounded to his sharpened sense like the vibrations of a bell, and seemed to be the funeral knell of his destiny ”

“ The terrible bondage of this tick-tack of time, this twitching of the hands of the clock, this eternal repetition of hours and days--oh God, it was too awful to contemplate. And there was no escape from it, no escape.
She almost wished Gerald were with her to save her from the terror of her own thoughts. Oh, how she suffered, lying there alone, confronted by the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all life resolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then the striking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitching of the clock-fingers. ”

“ Having turned this point, and still found myself proceeding, but to what degree, and whether for better or worse, I could not exactly ascertain, as I most pertinaciously continued to look upon the rock, mechanically moving foot after foot with a sort of dogged perseverance, leaving to the leading guide the pleasing task, which I most anxiously expected every moment, of assuring me that the deed was done, and congratulating me on having passed the Mauvais Pas. ”

“ A wave strikes her as she reaches it, and dashes her once more to the ground. For a second time she is swept like a straw along the deck, and for the second time the ebb arrests her progress, and leaves her in the same position as before. ”

“ He has the habit, or, say, the fault, of defective mantelpiece clocks, of suddenly stopping in the very fulness of the tick. If you have ever lived with a clock afflicted with that perversity, you know how vexing it is--such a stoppage. ”

“ For us, pawns on the great chess-board, this waiting is agonizing, and stretches our nerves to that painful tension which one feels sometimes when watching a leaden sky, waiting for the storm to break. ”

“ The spectacle, as observed by those some twenty feet from the ground, might be likened somewhat to a turbulent sea when a sturdy tide sets against the storm, and the mad waves tumble hither and thither, foiled, and impelled, yet for all the confusion and obstruction moving in one direction with a sweep and a force that no power could chain. ”

“ Which thou incurrest by flying, meet thy flight
Sevenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to Hell,
Which taught thee yet no better, that no pain
Can equal anger infinite provoked.
But wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee
Came not all hell broke loose? is pain to them
Less pain, less to be fled? or thou than they
Less hardy to endure? Courageous Chief!
The first in flight from pain! hadst thou alleged
To thy deserted host this cause of flight,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
To which the Fiend thus answered, frowning stern. ”

“ The chain at every oscillation made a grinding sound, with hideous regularity. It appeared to take breath, and then to resume. This grinding was like the cry of a grasshopper.
An approaching squall is heralded by sudden gusts of wind. All at once the breeze increased into a gale. The corpse emphasized its dismal oscillations. It no longer swung, it tossed; the chain, which had been grinding, now shrieked. It appeared that its shriek was heard. If it was an appeal, it was obeyed. From the depths of the horizon came the sound of a rushing noise. ”

“ Slant was her course athwart the strenuous tide,
And sloping, tugg'd by tumid sails, she went.
Safe to the wisht-for shore the strong winds blew,
Safe to the wisht-for shore the turbulent
But trusted waters their subduer drew ”

“ He could see these currents surging to and fro, beating on every brick and stone and wooden thing, flung back by the force of their impact along with a thousand others that they themselves brought into being—crossing, fighting, conflicting, conquering and being conquered; rising into the speed necessary to smite the ear as sound or to hurt it with their piercing sharpness or their mad confusion ”

“ At this distance of time, I have no very clear recollection of the mode of our exit, and cannot speak positively as to whether we skirted any part of this perilous wall of the Titans, or crept up through the corner of the curve, by some fissure leading to the summit. ”

“ But when one lies at night and hears the deep buzz of a plane overhead, and most especially when the buzz ceases and he knows that the plane is gliding and making ready to drop something, the one feeling that comes is that if that fellow overhead pulls the lever at the right spot, a very very wrong spot, it means sudden and absolute destruction. ”

“ There they rested, one edge on each projecting promontory of the chasm, in all their bare nakedness. In the morning, I might have paused to look before I leaped; but what were forty or fifty feet of pine vaulting, in comparison with the protracted misery of a quarter of a mile of the Mauvais Pas? So forthwith committing myself to their support, on hands, and knees I crawled along, and in a few minutes trode again on terra firma, beyond the reach of further risk, rejoicing, and, I trust, not ungrateful for the perils I had escaped. ”

“ Intermittent calls break upon the air, and long-drawn infinitely mournful wailings, that sometimes swell and sometimes seem to be strangled and end in a kind of sob. And then, in spite of the sonority of the vast straight walls, in spite of the echoes which prolong the cries, the silence obstinately returns. ”

“ Even so the ticking of the clock may pass unnoticed in the sense that it is an undiscriminated element in the background of our consciousness; but if the ticking comes to a sudden stop, the feeling of a void in our consciousness proclaims the fact that something has gone out from it. ”

“ I hold a watch near the flame; nobody hears its ticks; but you all see their effect upon the flame; at every tick it falls and roars. The winding-up of the watch also produces tumult. The twittering of a distant sparrow shrieks in the flame ”

“ If it stood still, you would slide down just as a boy slides down a hill on his coaster. "But," you object, "the wave doesn't stand still." Very true, but the water composing the wave stands still, and there you have the secret. If ever you start sliding down the face of that wave, you'll keep on sliding and you'll never reach the bottom. Please don't laugh. The face of that wave may be only six feet, yet you can slide down it a quarter of a mile, or half a mile, and not reach the bottom. ”

“ This was nothing more nor less than a faint creaking, such as had followed my own lifting of the board which hid the domino and mask; a noise that was speedily followed by one yet more distinct and of a nature to convince me beyond a doubt that my own action was being repeated by some unknown hand. Whose? Curiosity, love, honor, every impulse of my being impelled me to find out. I moved like a spirit towards the stairs. ”

“ But all of a sudden there was a startled cry of warning—the banjo was dropped on the deck, and the Doctor sprung aft in a vain effort to check what he had seen was coming; the next moment the great boom came heavily swinging along, accelerating its pace as it went out to leeward, until there was a frightful crash that seemed to tear the whole craft to pieces. And then, in this wild lurch, what had happened? Tilley was the first to see. ”

“ For the swinging of the pendulum and the ticking had indeed often been perceived, but to connect the notion of a "going clock" with the visible but noiseless swinging, just as with the audible but invisible ticking of the watch, requires a pretty well advanced power of abstraction. ”

“ And yet the bars are strong:
Lord, draw them for me, for my hand is weak,
The night is chill. Enter thou till the streak
Of ruddy morning flush the day's young cheek!"
He standeth knocking, knocking still ”

“ Soon the swift motion lulls our brains into the accustomed muddle; we seem to be dragged along like a miserable thread pulled through the eye of an ever-lasting needle,—through and through, and never through,—while here and there, like painful knots, the dépôts stop us, the poor thread is arrested for a minute, and then the pulling begins again. ”

“ The judge was left-handed, which might account for the poor throwing, but he got his feet tangled in some of that loose curtain and hit Scenery Sims right in the head with that heavy moon.
Bang! Somebody took a shot at the steer and knocked several bells, and one of them danged bells hit me in the nose. I hate to get hit in the nose with a bell. I hates to get hit in the nose with anything, but I sure does detest a bell. I can see folks going out of the door as fast as they can travel. I seen Hair Oil climbing onto poor Maud S, and then my time is all taken up with that danged steer. ”

“ There is a short retreat, a recognition of the danger and vigorous rally, another forced step backwards, an ineffectual whirring of wings on the extreme brink, and, turning in the moment of falling, the discomfited one renounces all further effort and plunges into the abyss. And, no doubt, the little lice who crawl about upon the ledge and see such mighty doings, would, were they poets, write long epics telling of the wars and falls of angels. ”

“ Every trifling accident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us. ”

“ Without the ponderous weights, which always fell off at precisely the wrong moment, the works wouldn't work of course, and when the pendulum was off, which it took every opportunity to be, they worked too much. As the clock had to be on the mantle piece so that the weights could be suspended, to manipulate it at all, it was awkward to get at, and fresh complications were continually arising. ”

“ I asked. “We hope so,” they hastily answered; “but not a moment most be lost;” and, suiting the action to the word, the horses were spurred on to a full trot, the eyes of both being now intensely fixed on something evidently in or near the river. “Do you see a dark speck at the foot of the left hand precipice?” observed one of the guides to me. “I do.”—“Monsieur,” continued he, “the waters are rising rapidly, by the increased melting of the snows; and if that dark stone is covered when we reach the fissure, our passage through the torrent will be hazardous, if not impracticable.” ”