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twg_000000031700 | the impression which that public rejoicing made on your memory. No one forgets his own happiness. What happened in heaven you shall hear: for proof please apply to my informant. Word comes to Jupiter that a stranger had arrived, a man well set up, pretty grey; he seemed to be threatening something, for he wagged his head ceaselessly; he dragged | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031701 | the right foot. They asked him what nation he was of; he answered something in a confused mumbling voice: his language they did not understand. He was no Greek and no Roman, nor of any known race. On this Jupiter bids Hercules go and find out what country he comes from; you see Hercules had travelled over the whole world, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031702 | and might be expected to know all the nations in it. But Hercules, the first glimpse he got, was really much taken aback, although not all the monsters in the world could frighten him; when he saw this new kind of object, with its extraordinary gait, and the voice of no terrestrial beast, but such as you might hear in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031703 | the leviathans of the deep, hoarse and inarticulate, he thought his thirteenth labour had come upon him. When he looked closer, the thing seemed to be a kind of man. Up he goes, then, and says what your Greek finds readiest to his tongue: "Who art thou, and what thy people? Who thy parents, where thy home?" [Sidenote: Od. i, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031704 | ] Claudius was delighted to find literary men up there, and began to hope there might be some corner for his own historical works. So he caps him with another Homeric verse, explaining that he was Caesar: "Breezes wafted me from Ilion unto the Ciconian land." [Sidenote: Od. ix, ] But the next verse was more true, and no less | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031705 | Homeric: "Thither come, I sacked a city, slew the people every one." He would have taken in poor simple Hercules, but that Our Lady of Malaria was there, who left her temple and came alone with him: all the other gods he had left at Rome. Quoth she, "The fellow's tale is nothing but lies. I have lived with him | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031706 | all these years, and I tell you, he was born at Lyons. You behold a fellow-burgess of Marcus. [Footnote: Reference unknown.] As I say, he was born at the sixteenth milestone from Vienne, a native Gaul. So of course he took Rome, as a good Gaul ought to do. I pledge you my word that in Lyons he was born, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031707 | where Licinus [Footnote: A Gallic slave, appointed by Augustus Procurator of Gallia Lugudunensis, when he made himself notorious by his extortions. See Dion Cass. liv, .] was king so many years. But you that have trudged over more roads than any muleteer that plies for hire, you must have come across the people of Lyons, and you must know that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031708 | it is a far cry from Xanthus to the Rhone." At this point Claudius flared up, and expressed his wrath with as big a growl as he could manage. What he said nobody understood; as a matter of fact, he was ordering my lady of Fever to be taken away, and making that sign with his trembling hand (which was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031709 | always steady enough for that, if for nothing else) by which he used to decapitate men. He had ordered her head to be chopped off. For all the notice the others took of him, they might have been his own freedmen. Then Hercules said, "You just listen to me, and stop playing the fool. You have come to the place | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031710 | where the mice nibble iron. [Footnote: A proverb, found also in Herondas iii, : apparently fairy-land, the land of Nowhere.] Out with the truth, and look sharp, or I'll knock your quips and quiddities out of you." Then to make himself all the more awful, he strikes an attitude and proceeds in his most tragic vein: "Declare with speed what | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031711 | spot you claim by birth. Or with this club fall stricken to the earth! This club hath ofttimes slaughtered haughty kings! Why mumble unintelligible things? What land, what tribe produced that shaking head? Declare it! On my journey when I sped Far to the Kingdom of the triple King, And from the Main Hesperian did bring The goodly cattle to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031712 | the Argive town, There I beheld a mountain looking down Upon two rivers: this the Sun espies Right opposite each day he doth arise. Hence, mighty Rhone, thy rapid torrents flow, And Arar, much in doubt which way to go, Ripples along the banks with shallow roll. Say, is this land the nurse that bred thy soul?" These lines he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031713 | delivered with much spirit and a bold front. All the same, he was not quite master of his wits, and had some fear of a blow from the fool. Claudius, seeing a mighty man before him, saw things looked serious and understood that here he had not quite the same pre-eminence as at Rome, where no one was his equal: | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031714 | the Gallic cock was worth most on his own dunghill. So this is what he was thought to say, as far as could be made out: "I did hope, Hercules, bravest of all the gods, that you would take my part with the rest, and if I should need a voucher, I meant to name you who know me so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031715 | well. Do but call it to mind, how it was I used to sit in judgment before your temple whole days together during July and August. You know what miseries I endured there, in hearing the lawyers plead day and night. If you had fallen amongst these, you may think yourself very strong, but you would have found it worse | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031716 | than the sewers of Augeas: I drained out more filth than you did. But since I want..." (Some pages have fallen out, in which Hercules must have been persuaded. The gods are now discussing what Hercules tells them). "No wonder you have forced your way into the Senate House: no bars or bolts can hold against you. Only do say | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031717 | what species of god you want the fellow to be made. An Epicurean god he cannot be: for they have no troubles and cause none. A Stoic, then? How can he be globular, as Varro says, without a head or any other projection? There is in him something of the Stoic god, as I can see now: he has neither | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031718 | heart nor head. Upon my word, if he had asked this boon from Saturn, he would not have got it, though he kept up Saturn's feast all the year round, a truly Saturnalian prince. A likely thing he will get it from Jove, whom he condemned for incest as far as in him lay: for he killed his son-in-law Silanus, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031719 | because Silanus had a sister, a most charming girl, called Venus by all the world, and he preferred to call her Juno. Why, says he, I want to know why, his own sister? Read your books, stupid: you may go half-way at Athens, the whole way at Alexandria. Because the mice lick meal at Rome, you say. Is this creature | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031720 | to mend our crooked ways? What goes on in his own closet he knows not;[Footnote: Perhaps alluding to a mock marriage of Silius and Messalina.] and now he searches the regions of the sky, wants to be a god. Is it not enough that he has a temple in Britain, that savages worship him and pray to him as a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031721 | god, so that they may find a fool [Footnote: Again [GREEK: morou] for [GREEK: theou] as in ch. .] to have mercy upon them?" At last it came into Jove's head, that while strangers were in the House it was not lawful to speak or debate. "My lords and gentlemen," said he, "I gave you leave to ask questions, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031722 | you have made a regular farmyard [Footnote: Proverb: meaning unknown.] of the place. Be so good as to keep the rules of the House. What will this person think of us, whoever he is?" So Claudius was led out, and the first to be asked his opinion was Father Janus: he had been made consul elect for the afternoon of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031723 | the next first of July,[Footnote: Perhaps an allusion to the shortening of the consul's term, which was done to give more candidates a chance of the honour.] being as shrewd a man as you could find on a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and behind. [Footnote : II, iii, ; alluding here to Janus's double | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031724 | face.] He made an eloquent harangue, because his life was passed in the forum, but too fast for the notary to take down. That is why I give no full report of it, for I don't want to change the words he used. He said a great deal of the majesty of the gods, and how the honour ought not | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031725 | to be given away to every Tom, Dick, or Harry. "Once," said he, "it was a great thing to become a god; now you have made it a farce. Therefore, that you may not think I am speaking against one person instead of the general custom, I propose that from this day forward the godhead be given to none of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031726 | those who eat the fruits of the earth, or whom mother earth doth nourish. After this bill has been read a third time, whosoever is made, said, or portrayed to be god, I vote he be delivered over to the bogies, and at the next public show be flogged with a birch amongst the new gladiators." The next to be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031727 | asked was Diespiter, son of Vica Pota, he also being consul elect, and a moneylender; by this trade he made a living, used to sell rights of citizenship in a small way. Hercules trips me up to him daintily, and tweaks him by the ear. So he uttered his opinion in these words: "Inasmuch as the blessed Claudius is akin | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031728 | to the blessed Augustus, and also to the blessed Augusta, his grandmother, whom he ordered to be made a goddess, and whereas he far surpasses all mortal men in wisdom, and seeing that it is for the public good that there be some one able to join Romulus in devouring boiled turnips, I propose that from this day forth blessed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031729 | Claudius be a god, to enjoy that honour with all its appurtenances in as full a degree as any other before him, and that a note to that effect be added to Ovid's Metamorphoses." The meeting was divided, and it looked as though Claudius was to win the day. For Hercules saw his iron was in the fire, trotted here | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031730 | and trotted there, saying, "Don't deny me; I make a point of the matter. I'll do as much for you again, when you like; you roll my log, and I'll roll yours: one hand washes another." Then arose the blessed Augustus, when his turn came, and spoke with much eloquence. [Footnote: The speech seems to contain a parody of Augustus's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031731 | style and sayings.] "I call you to witness, my lords and gentlemen," said he, "that since the day I was made a god I have never uttered one word. I always mind my own business. But now I can keep on the mask no longer, nor conceal the sorrow which shame makes all the greater. Is it for this I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031732 | have made peace by land and sea? For this have I calmed intestine wars? For this, laid a firm foundation of law for Rome, adorned it with buildings, and all that--my lords, words fail me; there are none can rise to the height of my indignation. I must borrow that saying of the eloquent Messala Corvinus, I am ashamed of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031733 | my authority. [Footnote: M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, appointed praefectus urbi, resigned within a week.] This man, my lords, who looks as though he could not hurt a fly, used to chop off heads as easily as a dog sits down. But why should I speak of all those men, and such men? There is no time to lament for public | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031734 | disasters, when one has so many private sorrows to think of. I leave that, therefore, and say only this; for even if my sister knows no Greek, I do: The knee is nearer than the shin. [Footnote: A proverb, like "Charity begins at home." The reading of the passage is uncertain; "sister" is only a conjecture, and it is hard | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031735 | to see why his sister should be mentioned.] This man you see, who for so many years has been masquerading under my name, has done me the favour of murdering two Julias, great-granddaughters of mine, one by cold steel and one by starvation; and one great grandson, L. Silanus--see, Jupiter, whether he had a case against him (at least it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031736 | is your own if you will be fair.) Come tell me, blessed Claudius, why of all those you killed, both men and women, without a hearing, why you did not hear their side of the case first, before putting them to death? Where do we find that custom? It is not done in heaven. Look at Jupiter: all these years | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031737 | he has been king, and never did more than once to break Vulcan's leg, 'Whom seizing by the foot he cast from the threshold of the sky,' [Sidenote: Illiad i, ] and once he fell in a rage with his wife and strung her up: did he do any killing? You killed Messalina, whose great-uncle I was no less than | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031738 | yours. 'I don't know,' did you say? Curse you! that is just it: not to know was worse than to kill. Caligula he went on persecuting even when he was dead. Caligula murdered his father-in-law, Claudius his son-in-law to boot. Caligula would not have Crassus' son called Great; Claudius gave him his name back, and took away his head. In | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031739 | one family he destroyed Crassus, Magnus, Scribonia, the Tristionias, Assario, noble though they were; Crassus indeed such a fool that he might have been emperor. Is this he you want now to make a god? Look at his body, born under the wrath of heaven! In fine, let him say the three words [Footnote: Some formula such as _ais esse | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031740 | meum_.] quickly, and he may have me for a slave. God! who will worship this god, who will believe in him? While you make gods of such as he, no one will believe you to be gods. To be brief, my lords: if I have lived honourably among you, if I have never given plain speech to any, avenge my | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031741 | wrongs. This is my motion": then he read out his amendment, which he had committed to writing: "Inasmuch as the blessed Claudius murdered his father-in-law Appius Silanus, his two sons-in-law, Pompeius Magnus and L. Silanus, Crassus Frugi his daughter's father-in-law, as like him as two eggs in a basket, Scribonia his daughter's mother-in-law, his wife Messalina, and others too numerous | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031742 | to mention; I propose that strong measures be taken against him, that he be allowed no delay of process, that immediate sentence of banishment be passed on him, that he be deported from heaven within thirty days, and from Olympus within thirty hours." This motion was passed without further debate. Not a moment was lost: Mercury screwed his neck and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031743 | haled him to the lower regions, to that bourne "from which they say no traveller returns." [Footnote: Catullus iii, .] As they passed downwards along the Sacred Way, Mercury asked what was that great concourse of men? could it be Claudius' funeral? It was certainly a most gorgeous spectacle, got up regardless of expense, clear it was that a god | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031744 | was being borne to the grave: tootling of flutes, roaring of horns, an immense brass band of all sorts, such a din that even Claudius could hear it. Joy and rejoicing on every side, the Roman people walking about like free men. Agatho and a few pettifoggers were weeping for grief, and for once in a way they meant it. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031745 | The Barristers were crawling out of their dark corners, pale and thin, with hardly a breath in their bodies, as though just coming to life again. One of them when he saw the pettifoggers putting their heads together, and lamenting their sad lot, up comes he and says: "Did not I tell you the Saturnalia could not last for ever?" | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031746 | When Claudius saw his own funeral train, he understood that he was dead. For they were chanting his dirge in anapaests, with much mopping and mouthing: "Pour forth your laments, your sorrow declare, Let the sounds of grief rise high in the air: For he that is dead had a wit most keen, Was bravest of all that on earth | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031747 | have been. Racehorses are nothing to his swift feet: Rebellious Parthians he did defeat; Swift after the Persians his light shafts go: For he well knew how to fit arrow to bow, Swiftly the striped barbarians fled: With one little wound he shot them dead. And the Britons beyond in their unknown seas, Blue-shielded Brigantians too, all these He chained | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031748 | by the neck as the Romans' slaves. He spake, and the Ocean with trembling waves Accepted the axe of the Roman law. O weep for the man! This world never saw One quicker a troublesome suit to decide, When only one part of the case had been tried, (He could do it indeed and not hear either side). Who'll now | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031749 | sit in judgment the whole year round? Now he that is judge of the shades underground Once ruler of fivescore cities in Crete, Must yield to his better and take a back seat. Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew, And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you! And you above all, who get rich quick By the rattle of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031750 | dice and the three card trick." Claudius was charmed to hear his own praises sung, and would have stayed longer to see the show. But the Talthybius [Footnote: Talthybius was a herald, and _nuntius_ is obviously a gloss on this. He means Mercury.] of the gods laid a hand on him, and led him across the Campus Martius, first wrapping | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031751 | his head up close that no one might know him, until betwixt Tiber and the Subway he went down to the lower regions. [Footnote: By the Cloaca?] His freedman Narcissus had gone down before him by a short cut, ready to welcome his master. Out he comes to meet him, smooth and shining (he had just left the bath), and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031752 | says he: "What make the gods among mortals?" "Look alive," says Mercury, "go and tell them we are coming." Away he flew, quicker than tongue can tell. It is easy going by that road, all down hill. So although he had a touch of the gout, in a trice they were come to Dis's door. There lay Cerberus, or, as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031753 | Horace puts it, the hundred-headed monster. [Sidenote: Odes ii, , ] Claudius was a trifle perturbed (it was a little white bitch he used to keep for a pet) when he spied this black shag-haired hound, not at all the kind of thing you could wish to meet in the dark. In a loud voice he cried, "Claudius is coming!" | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031754 | All marched before him singing, "The lost is found, O let us rejoice together!" [Footnote: With a slight change, a cry used in the worship of Osiris.] Here were found C. Silius consul elect, Juncus the ex-praetor, Sextus Traulus, M. Helvius, Trogus, Cotta, Vettius Valens, Fabius, Roman Knights whom Narcissus had ordered for execution. In the midst of this chanting | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031755 | company was Mnester the mime, whom Claudius for honour's sake had made shorter by a head. The news was soon blown about that Claudius had come: to Messalina they throng: first his freedmen, Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, Pheronactus, all sent before him by Claudius that he might not be unattended anywhere; next two prefects, Justus Catonius and Rufrius Pollio; then | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031756 | his friends, Saturninus, Lusius and Pedo Pompeius and Lupus and Celer Asinius, these of consular rank; last came his brother's daughter, his sister's daughter, sons-in-law, fathers and mothers-in-law, the whole family in fact. In a body they came to meet Claudius; and when Claudius saw them, he exclaimed, "Friends everywhere, on my word! How came you all here?" To this | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031757 | Pedo Pompeius answered, "What, cruel man? How came we here? Who but you sent us, you, the murderer of all the friends that ever you had? To court with you! I'll show you where their lordships sit." Pedo brings him before the judgement seat of Aeacus, who was holding court under the Lex Cornelia to try cases of murder and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031758 | assassination. Pedo requests the judge to take the prisoner's name, and produces a summons with this charge: Senators killed, ; Roman Knights, ; others as the sands of the sea-shore for multitude. [Sidenote: Il. ix, ] Claudius finds no counsel. At length out steps P. Petronius, an old chum of his, a finished scholar in the Claudian tongue and claims | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031759 | a remand. Not granted. Pedo Pompeius prosecutes with loud outcry. The counsel for the defence tries to reply; but Aeacus, who is the soul of justice, will not have it. Aeacus hears the case against Claudius, refuses to hear the other side and passes sentence against him, quoting the line: "As he did, so be he done by, this is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031760 | justice undefiled." [Footnote: A proverbial line.] A great silence fell. Not a soul but was stupefied at this new way of managing matters; they had never known anything like it before. It was no new thing to Claudius, yet he thought it unfair. There was a long discussion as to the punishment he ought to endure. Some said that Sisyphus | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031761 | had done his job of porterage long enough; Tantalus would be dying of thirst, if he were not relieved; the drag must be put at last on wretched Ixion's wheel. But it was determined not to let off any of the old stagers, lest Claudius should dare to hope for any such relief. It was agreed that some new punishment | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031762 | must be devised: they must devise some new task, something senseless, to suggest some craving without result. Then Aeacus decreed he should rattle dice for ever in a box with no bottom. At once the poor wretch began his fruitless task of hunting for the dice, which for ever slipped from his fingers. "For when he rattled with the box, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031763 | and thought he now had got 'em. The little cubes would vanish thro' the perforated bottom. Then he would pick 'em up again, and once more set a-trying: The dice but served him the same trick: away they went a-flying. So still he tries, and still he fails; still searching long he lingers; And every time the tricksy things go | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031764 | slipping thro' his fingers. Just so when Sisyphus at last once gets there with his boulder, He finds the labour all in vain--it rolls down off his shoulder." All on a sudden who should turn up but Caligula, and claims the man for a slave: brings witnesses, who said they had seen him being flogged, caned, fisticuffed by him. He | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031765 | Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND William Hope Hodgson _From the Manuscript discovered in by Messrs. Tonnison and Berreggnog in the Ruins that lie to the South of the Village of Kraighten, in the West of Ireland. Set out here, with Notes_. TO MY FATHER _(Whose feet tread the lost aeons)_ Open | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031766 | the door, And listen! Only the wind's muffled roar, And the glisten Of tears 'round the moon. And, in fancy, the tread Of vanishing shoon-- Out in the night with the Dead. "Hush! And hark To the sorrowful cry Of the wind in the dark. Hush and hark, without murmur or sigh, To shoon that tread the lost aeons: To | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031767 | the sound that bids you to die. Hush and hark! Hush and Hark!" _Shoon of the Dead_ AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUSCRIPT Many are the hours in which I have pondered upon the story that is set forth in the following pages. I trust that my instincts are not awry when they prompt me to leave the account, in simplicity, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031768 | as it was handed to me. And the MS. itself--You must picture me, when first it was given into my care, turning it over, curiously, and making a swift, jerky examination. A small t is; but thick, and all, save the last few pages, filled with a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have the queer, faint, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031769 | pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, and my fingers have subconscious memories of the soft, "cloggy" feel of the long-damp pages. I read, and, in reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown. Amid stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031770 | charge against their abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing, is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old Recluse, of the vanished house, had striven to tell. Of the simple, stiffly given account of weird and extraordinary matters, I will say little. It lies before you. The inner story must be uncovered, personally, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031771 | by each reader, according to ability and desire. And even should any fail to see, as now I see, the shadowed picture and conception of that to which one may well give the accepted titles of Heaven and Hell; yet can I promise certain thrills, merely taking the story as a story. WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON December , _I_ THE FINDING | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031772 | OF THE MANUSCRIPT Right away in the west of Ireland lies a tiny hamlet called Kraighten. It is situated, alone, at the base of a low hill. Far around there spreads a waste of bleak and totally inhospitable country; where, here and there at great intervals, one may come upon the ruins of some long desolate cottage--unthatched and stark. The | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031773 | whole land is bare and unpeopled, the very earth scarcely covering the rock that lies beneath it, and with which the country abounds, in places rising out of the soil in wave-shaped ridges. Yet, in spite of its desolation, my friend Tonnison and I had elected to spend our vacation there. He had stumbled on the place by mere chance | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031774 | the year previously, during the course of a long walking tour, and discovered the possibilities for the angler in a small and unnamed river that runs past the outskirts of the little village. I have said that the river is without name; I may add that no map that I have hitherto consulted has shown either village or stream. They | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031775 | seem to have entirely escaped observation: indeed, they might never exist for all that the average guide tells one. Possibly this can be partly accounted for by the fact that the nearest railway station (Ardrahan) is some forty miles distant. It was early one warm evening when my friend and I arrived in Kraighten. We had reached Ardrahan the previous | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031776 | night, sleeping there in rooms hired at the village post office, and leaving in good time on the following morning, clinging insecurely to one of the typical jaunting cars. It had taken us all day to accomplish our journey over some of the roughest tracks imaginable, with the result that we were thoroughly tired and somewhat bad tempered. However, the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031777 | tent had to be erected and our goods stowed away before we could think of food or rest. And so we set to work, with the aid of our driver, and soon had the tent up upon a small patch of ground just outside the little village, and quite near to the river. Then, having stored all our belongings, we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031778 | dismissed the driver, as he had to make his way back as speedily as possible, and told him to come across to us at the end of a fortnight. We had brought sufficient provisions to last us for that space of time, and water we could get from the stream. Fuel we did not need, as we had included a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031779 | small oil-stove among our outfit, and the weather was fine and warm. It was Tonnison's idea to camp out instead of getting lodgings in one of the cottages. As he put it, there was no joke in sleeping in a room with a numerous family of healthy Irish in one corner and the pigsty in the other, while overhead a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031780 | ragged colony of roosting fowls distributed their blessings impartially, and the whole place so full of peat smoke that it made a fellow sneeze his head off just to put it inside the doorway. Tonnison had got the stove lit now and was busy cutting slices of bacon into the frying pan; so I took the kettle and walked down | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031781 | to the river for water. On the way, I had to pass close to a little group of the village people, who eyed me curiously, but not in any unfriendly manner, though none of them ventured a word. As I returned with my kettle filled, I went up to them and, after a friendly nod, to which they replied in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031782 | like manner, I asked them casually about the fishing; but, instead of answering, they just shook their heads silently, and stared at me. I repeated the question, addressing more particularly a great, gaunt fellow at my elbow; yet again I received no answer. Then the man turned to a comrade and said something rapidly in a language that I did | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031783 | not understand; and, at once, the whole crowd of them fell to jabbering in what, after a few moments, I guessed to be pure Irish. At the same time they cast many glances in my direction. For a minute, perhaps, they spoke among themselves thus; then the man I had addressed faced 'round at me and said something. By the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031784 | expression of his face I guessed that he, in turn, was questioning me; but now I had to shake my head, and indicate that I did not comprehend what it was they wanted to know; and so we stood looking at one another, until I heard Tonnison calling to me to hurry up with the kettle. Then, with a smile | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031785 | and a nod, I left them, and all in the little crowd smiled and nodded in return, though their faces still betrayed their puzzlement. It was evident, I reflected as I went toward the tent, that the inhabitants of these few huts in the wilderness did not know a word of English; and when I told Tonnison, he remarked that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031786 | he was aware of the fact, and, more, that it was not at all uncommon in that part of the country, where the people often lived and died in their isolated hamlets without ever coming in contact with the outside world. "I wish we had got the driver to interpret for us before he left," I remarked, as we sat | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031787 | down to our meal. "It seems so strange for the people of this place not even to know what we've come for." Tonnison grunted an assent, and thereafter was silent for a while. Later, having satisfied our appetites somewhat, we began to talk, laying our plans for the morrow; then, after a smoke, we closed the flap of the tent, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031788 | and prepared to turn in. "I suppose there's no chance of those fellows outside taking anything?" I asked, as we rolled ourselves in our blankets. Tonnison said that he did not think so, at least while we were about; and, as he went on to explain, we could lock up everything, except the tent, in the big chest that we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031789 | had brought to hold our provisions. I agreed to this, and soon we were both asleep. Next morning, early, we rose and went for a swim in the river; after which we dressed and had breakfast. Then we roused out our fishing tackle and overhauled it, by which time, our breakfasts having settled somewhat, we made all secure within the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031790 | tent and strode off in the direction my friend had explored on his previous visit. During the day we fished happily, working steadily upstream, and by evening we had one of the prettiest creels of fish that I had seen for a long while. Returning to the village, we made a good feed off our day's spoil, after which, having | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031791 | selected a few of the finer fish for our breakfast, we presented the remainder to the group of villagers who had assembled at a respectful distance to watch our doings. They seemed wonderfully grateful, and heaped mountains of what I presumed to be Irish blessings upon our heads. Thus we spent several days, having splendid sport, and first-rate appetites to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031792 | do justice upon our prey. We were pleased to find how friendly the villagers were inclined to be, and that there was no evidence of their having ventured to meddle with our belongings during our absences. It was on a Tuesday that we arrived in Kraighten, and it would be on the Sunday following that we made a great discovery. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031793 | Hitherto we had always gone up-stream; on that day, however, we laid aside our rods, and, taking some provisions, set off for a long ramble in the opposite direction. The day was warm, and we trudged along leisurely enough, stopping about mid-day to eat our lunch upon a great flat rock near the riverbank. Afterward we sat and smoked awhile, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031794 | resuming our walk only when we were tired of inaction. For perhaps another hour we wandered onward, chatting quietly and comfortably on this and that matter, and on several occasions stopping while my companion--who is something of an artist--made rough sketches of striking bits of the wild scenery. And then, without any warning whatsoever, the river we had followed so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031795 | confidently, came to an abrupt end--vanishing into the earth. "Good Lord!" I said, "who ever would have thought of this?" And I stared in amazement; then I turned to Tonnison. He was looking, with a blank expression upon his face, at the place where the river disappeared. In a moment he spoke. "Let us go on a bit; it may | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031796 | reappear again--anyhow, it is worth investigating." I agreed, and we went forward once more, though rather aimlessly; for we were not at all certain in which direction to prosecute our search. For perhaps a mile we moved onward; then Tonnison, who had been gazing about curiously, stopped and shaded his eyes. "See!" he said, after a moment, "isn't that mist | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031797 | or something, over there to the right--away in a line with that great piece of rock?" And he indicated with his hand. I stared, and, after a minute, seemed to see something, but could not be certain, and said so. "Anyway," my friend replied, "we'll just go across and have a glance." And he started off in the direction he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031798 | had suggested, I following. Presently, we came among bushes, and, after a time, out upon the top of a high, boulder-strewn bank, from which we looked down into a wilderness of bushes and trees. "Seems as though we had come upon an oasis in this desert of stone," muttered Tonnison, as he gazed interestedly. Then he was silent, his eyes | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000031799 | fixed; and I looked also; for up from somewhere about the center of the wooded lowland there rose high into the quiet air a great column of hazelike spray, upon which the sun shone, causing innumerable rainbows. "How beautiful!" I exclaimed. "Yes," answered Tonnison, thoughtfully. "There must be a waterfall, or something, over there. Perhaps it's our river come to | 60 | gutenberg |
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