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It lay before her radiant under the Cyprian sky palaces and ramparts stretching in long lines a-down the coast, against the background of mountain ranges, densely wooded and crowned with the sparkling snows of Troödos; there were gardens rainbow-dyed in bloom, cool with the spray of fountains and the shadows of waving palms; and between the cities were wonderful, fertile plains flowing down to the foam of the sea a vision of tangled blossoms wreathing with beauty the shattered splendor of temples of outworn divinities, or rippling with tasselled corn and vines and all manner of fruit-bloom, in luxuriant promise of present good.
Here fell silence awhile and then, "Oh, England England!" cried he. "D'ye mind how the road winds 'twixt the hedgerows a-down hill into Lamberhurst, Martin; d'ye mind the wonder of it all the green meadows, the dim woods full of bird song and fragrance you shall see it all again one day, but as for me ah, to breathe just once again the sweet smell of English earth! But God's will be done!"
He made friends again with his childhood's friend, the old tree against which he leaned; and glancing his eye a-down its trunk, beheld something that excited a melancholy smile. It was a half-obliterated inscription the Latin word EFFODE which he remembered to have carved in the bark of the tree, with a whole day's toil, when he had first begun to muse about his exalted destiny.
Two years have passed, and Agnes and the glacier are still mine; great blocks of ice now flow in almost a continuous stream from the mine to the railroad station, and in a smaller but quite as continuous stream an income flows in upon Agnes and me; and from one of the experimental excavations made by Tom Burton on the bluff comes a stream of ice-cold water running in a sparkling brook a-down my dell.
Then came I, and grasping this thing had been named Humphrey, I dragged it a-down the sands and hove it forthwith into the sea, standing thereafter to watch it borne out on the receding tide. Now as I watched thus, came a wave that lifted the thing so that this dead man seemed to rise up and wave an arm to me ere he vanished.
A few days more; and at eventide, the children look out of the window, and dimly perceive the flaunting of a snowy mantle in the air. It is stern Winter's vesture. They crowd around the hearth, and cling to their mother's gown, or press between their father's knees, affrighted by the hollow roaring voice, that bellows a-down the wide flue of the chimney.
She surveyed herself with full content when the last touch had been given her, and her slow sweep a-down corridors and grand staircase was a triumphal march. She knew that her entrance into the crowd downstairs could no more fail of its customary effect than could the appearance of the sun next morning or, one should rather say, the announcement of dinner to the tired and hungry shooting men.
She passed out by the door that led on to a small balcony and a-down the flight of outside stairs that were covered with vines in purple bloom. Although the darkness was almost impenetrable, she could distinguish a form waiting at the foot of the stair. For an instant she paused and whispered timourously, "Who art thou?" "Julian," came as softly back, and a white hand was stretched out to her.
"Pretty, isn't it?" sighed Jacques; "but here is another verse: "Yestreen we met beside the birk, A-down ayont the burnie, O, An' wan'er't till the auld gray kirk A stap put to our journie, O. "Ah, lassie, there it stans! quo' I " With which words Jacques shut the book, and threw upon Belle-bouche a glance which made that young lady color to the roots of her hair.
Then Beltane laid on with the flat of his heavy sword and soundly belaboured these hard-breathing knaves, insomuch that one, hard-smitten on the crown, stumbled and fell, whereupon his comrades, to save their bones, leapt forthwith a-down the steepy bank and, plunging into the stream, made across to the farther side, splashing prodigiously, and cursing consumedly, for the water they liked not at all.
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