United States or Portugal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
IT was mid-December before Lloyd Fenneben saw Lagonda Ledge again. In the murderous attempt upon his life, he had been hurled, head-downward, upon the hidden rock-ledge with such force that even his strong nervous system could barely overcome the shock. Hours of unconsciousness were followed by a raging brain fever, and paralysis, insanity, and death strove together against him.
'Here be some, I answered, speaking as if in spite of her. 'I would have brought thee twice as many, but that I feared to crush them in the narrow ways, Mistress Lorna. And so I laid her out two dozen upon the moss of the rock-ledge, unwinding the wisp of hay from each as it came safe out of my pocket.
'The old order changeth, giving place to the new; And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 'Ay, and the day may come, said Claude, 'when the brows of that huge High Vere shall be crowned with golden wheat, and every rock-ledge on Trentishoe, like those of Petra and the Rhine, support its garden-bed of artificial soil.
And when a little time had past, and all the while I was ready with the Diskos, and naught did come upward to harm me, I stept very soft to the edge of the rock-ledge, and lookt downward; but there was nowhere any thing to see.
And Muskwa, still slumbering on the rock-ledge with Thor, was dreaming of the mother who lay crushed under the rock on the slope, and as he dreamed he whimpered softly. The ledge where Thor and Muskwa lay caught the first gleams of the morning sun, and as the sun rose higher the ledge grew warmer and warmer, and Thor, when he awoke, merely stretched himself and made no effort to rise.
The attacking party saw no one on the battlements of the Castle, so worked their way round the hill until the man on the tower was hidden from them by the bulk of the Castle itself, and thus they crawled like lizards from bush to bush, from stone to stone, and from rock-ledge to rock-ledge, taking their time, and not deserting one position of obscurity until another was decided upon.
We ran as fast as we could to the town, where everything was in the wildest confusion. The 'Big House' and Mr. John Hansen's were mere ruins; the Court-house had come to pieces, and the prison-cells yawned open. I distinctly saw that the rock-ledge under Akra, between Fort James and Crèvecoeur, had been upraised: canoes passed over what was now dry.
In some places, too, a soft layer of tufa has been hollowed for man's abode, suggesting, like the caves, a fine old smuggling-trade. As many as eight doors may be counted side by side. In other places a rock-ledge, or even a detached boulder, has been converted into a house by masonry-walls. We shall seldom see these savageries on the eastern coast of the island.
They were the pioneers of the pioneers, who in their wanderings found a spot rich in game, in nuts and soil such a home as they had wished and they beckoned back for their families and their friends. The figure upon the rock-ledge rested upon a long, muzzle-loading, flint-lock rifle as he looked out over the valley. His legs were wrapped in crudely tanned hides made from game he had killed.
"Here be some," I answered, speaking as if in spite of her. "I would have brought thee twice as many, but that I feared to crush them in the narrow ways, Mistress Lorna." And so I laid her out two dozen upon the moss of the rock-ledge, unwinding the wisp of hay from each as it came safe out of my pocket.
Word Of The Day