The Lost Viol (1905) (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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LOST VIOL/CHAPTER I: "Yes, a grand night, was the thought in Miss Kathleen Sheridans mind, as she passed into the west lodge-gates of Orrock Park on the evening of the elst of November, 9 98 an evening of storm, with the roar of the sea in the 5ar. The young lady stopped at Embree Pond in the park to watch the sheet of water shivering to its dark heart under the flight of the squalls then with her long-legged walk she was a hunchback, went on her way, showing in her face her delight in this bleak mood of nature. Some way further, however, on hearing the hoofs of a horse, her expression changed to one of very real fright, for she had a thought of one Sir Percy Orrock, beheaded by Cromwell, whose ghost gallops about on a headless horse in rough weather but this turned out to be only Mr. Millings, the land-steward for, on coming round to the manor-house, the young lady found Millings there talking to Sir Peter Orrock, who at a window was holding his ear forward to hear the land-stewards news. The Lost Viol Good evening, Mr. Millings, called Miss Kathleen, laughing from ear to ear, with strings of black hair draping her face. Well, uncle, I have been sketching it all on the heath - witches 09 broomsticks, strange screams of death in the air. That silver lime of Farmer Carrk is blown flat. Uncle, if you ask me to stop and dine, I may consent. Hm, muttered Sir Peter to himself, better stick to your own dinner. Go on, Millings - same old story, eh Same old story, Sir Peter, answered Mr. Millings there wont be any of Norfolk left soon, at this rate. Mrs. Dawes cottage gone, and with it her son, James Dawe, and three of the boats - 99 Well, it is their own fault called out the little maid, living on the edge of the cliffs, when they 99 know - Got nowhere else to live, muttered Sir Peter. Dawe drowned, Millings No, Sir Peter, but Im afraid I must say rescued at an awful cost he was rescued by Miss Langler, who has just been taken home to Woodside in a dying state. Hannah Hannah Langler breathed Sir Peter, turning very pale. The lad was carried out two hundred yards, said Mr. Millings, where he clung to the bottom of one of the three boats on the cliffs I found a crowd watching him, including Fagan, the coast-guardsman, who a1 The Lost Viol told me that the lifeboat was coming round from Wardenham but I thought from the first that it would come too late, for I could see Dawe nearer in every time the lighthouse beam swept over him and so it proved, for, as the lifeboat-light appeared round the north headland, Dawe was thrown up by a breaker on a strip of sand But Hannah 3 said the baronet. Miss Langler was in the crowd with her father, said Millings she had been holding up Dawes mother, who was fainting, but when Dawe was all of a sudden lying on the strip of sand below us, I saw Miss Langler running among the fishermen, begging one and another to save him before the next wave. Theres nothing like venturing, I heard her say twice or thrice, but they answered that that would only mean two deaths instead of one, and I fully agreed with them. When the next breaker drew back from the cliffs we all looked to see Dawe gone with it but there he still was, and I now heard Miss Langler cry out to Horsford, the lighthouse-keeper, Now, now, Horsford, venture now, and then, all at once, I was aware that she herself was going down the cliff-side by that little foot-path near the church-tower."