Part 8 (2/2)
”He had stabbed his cousin Frank three times, sir, before Amyas, who is as noble a lad as walks God's earth, struck him down And in defence of what, forsooth, did he play the ruffian and the swashbuckler, but to bring home to your house this letter, sir, which you shall hear at your leisure, theout of the house he went round and called to Cary to come to him
”The birds are flown, Will,” whispered he ”There is but one chance for us, and that is Marsland Mouth If they are trying to take boat there, youtill we raise the hue and cry to-alloped off over the downs toward Marsland, while Sir Richard cereain, and professed himself ready and happy to have the honor of an audience in Mr Leigh's private chamber And as we know pretty well already as to be discussed therein, we had better go over to Marsland Mouth, and, if possible, arrive there before Will Cary: seeing that he arrived hot and swearing, half an hour too late
Note--I have shrunk so these and other sketches (true and accurate as I believe then, when the tyranny and lawlessness of the feudal chiefs had reduced the island to such a state of weakness and barbarisland either to crush the Noranize some sort of law and order, or to leave Ireland an easy prey to the Spaniards, or any other nation which should go to ith us The as done-- clus were inflicted, and avenged by fresh wrongs, and those by fresh again May the mee, and for the liberal policy of this age, to see the last ebullitions of Celtic excitability die out harmless and ashaht as a soldier under the regenerative influence of law, discipline, self-respect, and loyalty, can prove himself a worthy rival of the rant that the lish, which is the special glory of the present war, erm of a brotherhood industrial, political, and hereafter, perhaps, religious also; and that not s which have parted them for centuries, raves of Alma and Inkerman
CHAPTER VI
THE COMBES OF THE FAR WEST
”Far, far froreen Illyrian hills, and there The sunshi+ne in the happy glens is fair, And by the sea and in the brakes The grass is cool, the sea-side air Buoyant and fresh, the inal and sweet than ours”
MATTHEW ARNOLD
And even such are those delightful glens, which cut the high table- land of the confines of Devon and Cornwall, and opening each through its gorge of down and rock, towards the boundless Western Ocean Each is like the other, and each is like no other English scenery Each has its upright walls, inland of rich oak-wood, nearer the sea of dark green furze, then of sht and left far into the deep sea, in castles, spires, and wings of jagged iron-stone Each has its narrow strip of fertileacross and across froray stonewheel; its dark, rock pools above the tide ather in froe of blown sand, bright with golden trefoil and criray bank of polished pebbles, dohich the stream rattles toward the sea below Each has its black field of jagged shark's-tooth rock which paves the cove from side to side, streaked with here and there a pink line of shell sand, and laced hite foa in parallel lines out to the ard, in strata set upright on edge, or tilted towards each other at strange angles by primeval earthquakes;--such is the ”mouth”--as those coves are called; and such the jaw of teeth which they display, one rasp of which would grind abroad the timbers of the stoutest shi+p To landward, all richness, softness, and peace; to seaward, a waste and howling wilderness of rock and roller, barren to the fisherman, and hopeless to the shi+pwreckedfor boats,sea-wall of rock, which protects it from the rollers of the Atlantic; and that mouth is Marsland, the abode of the White Witch, Lucy Passed, the Jesuits were gone But before the Jesuits ca on that lonely beach, under the bright October moon, namely, Rose Salterne and the White Witch herself; for Rose, fevered with curiosity and superstition, and allured by the very wildness and possible danger of the spell, had kept her appointray shi+ngle beach with her counsellor
”You be safe enough here to-night,sound abed, and there's no other soul ever sets foot here o' nights, except it be the merht to be up here on the pebbles”
Rose pointed to a strip of sand some forty yards nearer the sea, where the boat lay
”Oh, the lazy old villain! he's been round the rocks after pollock this evening, and never taken the trouble to hale the boat up I'll trounce hiet home I only hope he's ue to oodwife bustled doard the boat, with Rose behind her
”Iss, 'tis fast, sure enough: and the oars aboard too! Well, I never! Oh, the lazy thief, to leave they here to be stole! I'll just sit in the boat, dear, and watch o down to the say; for youThere's the looking-glass; now go, and dip your head three times, and mind you don't look to land or sea before you've said the words, and looked upon the glass Now, be quick, it's just upon ht”
And she coiled herself up in the boat, while Rose went faltering down the strip of sand, so off her clothes, stood shi+vering and tre for a moment before she entered the sea
She was between talls of rock: that on her left hand, soht, though htfro dark cracks and crevices, fit haunts for all the goblins of the sea On her left hand, the peaks of the rock frowned down ghastly black; on her right hand, far aloft, the downs slept bright and cold
The breeze had died away; not even a roller broke the perfect stillness of the cove The gulls were all asleep upon the ledges Over all was a true autumn silence; a silence which may be heard She stood awed, and listened in hope of a sound whichbeside herself existed
There was a faint bleat, as of a new-born lah above her head; she started and looked up Then a wail from the cliffs, as of a child in pain, answered by another fro snipe, and the otter calling to her brood; but to her they were oblins, come to answer to her call Nevertheless, they only quickened her expectation; and the witch had told her not to fear the would har of her own heart, as she stepped, mirror in hand, into the cold water, waded hastily, as far as she dare, and then stopped aghast
A ring of flaht; all the multitudinous life of the autulory;-- ”And around her the la and panting, and rainbows, Crihting Far through the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of Nereus, Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean”
She could see every shell which crawled on the white sand at her feet, every rock-fish which played in and out of the crannies, and stared at her with its broad bright eyes; while the great palli brown hands to a grave aone too far now to retreat; hastily dipping her head three tih her dripping locks at the ic mirror, pronounced the incantation-- ”A maiden pure, here I stand, Neither on sea, nor yet on land; Angels watch me on either hand If you be landsman, come down the strand; If you be sailor, coel, colass, and pass o from the shore; Leave me, but love me for evermore”
The incantation was hardly finished, her eyes were straining into theappeared but the sparkle of the drops fro down the pebbles the hasty feet of h rock, and hastily dressed herself: the steps held on right to the boat Peeping out, half- dead with terror, she saw there four men, two of who the the boat down
Whereon, out of the stern sheets, arose, like an angry ghost, the portly figure of Lucy Passmore, and shrieked in shrillest treble-- ”Eh! ye villains, ye roogs, what do ye want staling poor folks' boats by night like this?”
The whole party recoiled in terror, and one turned to run up the beach, shouting at the top of his voice, ”'Tis a marmaiden--a marmaiden asleep in willy Passood luck,” she could hear Will say; ”'tisthe hearty cuff which he received duly, as the White Witch, leaping out of the boat, dared any o houessed, was keeping up this delay chiefly to gain time for her pupil: but she had also ht as hard as possible; for she, as well as Rose, had already discerned in the ungainly figure of one of the party the sa she had divined long ago; and she was so loyal a subject as to hold in extre with such ”Popish skulkers” (as she called the whole party roundly to their face)--unless on consideration of a very handsome sum of h's grooled fear and covetousness
”No,” she cried, ”as I am an honest woman and loyal! This is why you left the boat down to the shoore, you old traitor, you, is it? To help off sich noxious trade as this out of the hands of her majesty's quorum and rotulorum? Eh? Stand back, cowards! Will you strike a woman?”
This last speech (as usual) was etting out one of the oars, she swung it round and round fiercely, and at last caught Father Parsons such a crack across the shi+ns, that he retreated with a howl
”Lucy, Lucy!” shrieked her husband, in shrillest Devon falsetto, ”be you old nobles before I'd lend them the boot!”
”Tu?” shrieked the matron, with a tone of ineffable scorn ”And do yu call yourself a ain, hopping about at oar's length
”Tu? And would you sell your soul under ten?”
”Oh, if that is it,” cried poor Caans, I mean; and take care of your shi+ns, Offa Cerbero, you know--Oh, virago! Furens quid faeon, soons to an honest wos were cut fro on his trunk astride,” like that more famous one on Hudibras, cried, ”Ten nobles, or I'll kep ye here till !” And the ten nobles were paid into her hand
And now the boat, its dragon guardian being pacified, was run down to the sea, and close past the nook where poor little Rose was squeezing herself into the farthest and darkest corner, a her breath as they approached
They passed her, and the boat's keel was already in the water; Lucy had followed the close to the water's edge a dark cavern, cunningly surht across its ers, and above all at Mr Leigh's grooaol and the gallohile the wretched serving-man, ould as soon have dared to leap off Welco to the White Witch, in vain entreated her , to keep one of the party between himself and her, lest her redoubted eye should ”overlook” hiht's adventures were not ended yet; for just as the boat was launched, a faint halloo was heard upon the beach, and athe sand, and pulling his horse up on its haunches close to the terrified group, dropped, rather than leaped, froh he dared not tackle a witch, kneell enough how to deal with a swords upon the newcoive me, it's Mr Eustace! Oh, dear sir, I took you for one of Sir Richard's men! Oh, sir, you're hurt!”
”A scratch, a scratch!” almost moaned Eustace ”Help me into the boat, Jack Gentlemen, I abonds upon the face of the earth?” said kind-hearted Campian
”With you, forever All is over here Whither God and the cause lead”--and he staggered toward the boat
As he passed Rose, she saw his ghastly bleeding face, half bound up with a handkerchief, which could not conceal the convulsions of rage, shame, and despair, which twisted it frolared wildly round--and once, right into the cavern Theyshe was utterly invisible, the terrified girl was on the point of shrieking aloud
”He has overlookedto herself, as she recollected his threat of yesterday
”Who has wounded you?” asked Campian
”My cousin--Amyas--and taken the letter!”
”The devil take hi up and down upon the sand in fury
”Ay, curse him--you roan, he entle out at the sight of pain, ”you rane wound like to that Do ye let me just bind mun up--do ye now!” and she advanced
Eustace thrust her back
”No! better bear it, I deserve it--devils! I deserve it! On board, or we shall all be lost--William Cary is close behind me!”
And at that news the boat was thrust into the sea, faster than ever it went before, and only in tiht, when the rattle of Cary's horsehoofs was heard above