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Then, to sit between the man she loved and the man she loathed, thus in the blackness, was a nerve-shaking experience which her preceding fainting-fit did not deprive of its normal terrors. The hand of Valentine and the hand of Julian were as ice and as fire to her. The darkness seemed crowded with nameless things. She could fancy that she heard it whisper incessantly in her ear.
There were noises of German in the passage, and other nerve-shaking sounds. The swaying increased. The young man reappeared. "We're off, right enough!" "I say!" said Bert, "where are we starting? I wish you'd explain. What's this place? I don't understand." "What!" cried the young man, "you don't understand?" "No. I'm all dazed-like from that crack on the nob I got. Where ARE we?
Helen clutched Ruth suddenly by the skirt. "Hear that!" she whispered. "Say it out loud, dear, do!" exclaimed the girl of the Red Mill. "There is never anything so nerve-shaking as a stage whisper." "There! you heard it?" "The wind rustling something," said Ruth, attempting to go on. "No." "Something squeaks mice, I do believe." "Mice would starve to death here," declared Helen.
It was a sickening and unnatural sight, and one that will haunt all who saw it till their dying day enacted as it was in the deep, oppressive gloom, and set to the unceasing music of the many-toned nerve-shaking echoes.
The Reverend Stephen Lorimer was writing his sermon for the last Sunday in Advent. His theme was eternal punishment and one which he considered worthy of his utmost eloquence. There was nothing mythical or allegorical in that subject in the opinion of the Reverend Stephen. He believed in it most firmly, and the belief afforded him the keenest satisfaction. It was a nerve-shaking sermon.
As it was, the big snake, the huge eagle, the screaming cockatoo, the nerve-shaking cachophony of the jackass, and the half-flying progress of the big wallaby, all combined with the huge wildness of the country and its vegetation to oppress Finn with the sense of being a lone outcast, an outlier in a foreign land which was full of sinister possibilities.
A very good "get-up" nevertheless it was, and satisfactory to both concerned. Mistress Croale went out a decent-looking poor body, and entered a not uncomely matron of the housekeeper class, rather agreeable to look upon, who had just stood a nerve-shaking but not unpleasant surprise, and was recovering.
Wednesday was quiet; so also was Thursday, our peace being marred by neither shells nor hooters. The hooters, indeed, were never to do it again a graceful concession, for which we gave thanks; their cat-calls had been so nerve-shaking. The monotony was relieved on Friday by some shells which came right into the city as far as the Post Office. They omitted to burst.
If you have a full stomach you do not mind so much, and even shrug your shoulders should the man next to you be hit; but at four or five in the morning, when everything is pale and damp, and you are stomach-sick, it is nerve-shaking to see a man brutally struck and gasping under the blow. I have seen this happen three times; once it was truly horrible, for I was so splashed with blood....
But the most all right thing, to Joy's unregenerate heart, was next morning, when she went up to pay her usual morning visit to Mrs. Hewitt. "Joy, will you tell me," demanded the lady, "what you meant by telling Gail you wanted her to do the housekeeping?" There was no use having it out with Gail. Joy was not one of those nerve-shaking people who insist on having things out, anyhow.
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