The Argosy — page 313: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

292 A Drive to the Land's Lud. the reader experienced at a roadside inn, the weary hours of a wet evening ?—how at length bed-time, with the refuge of one’s own sanctum, does not seem altogether a thing undesirable? But with me, at least, retirement was neither rest nor sleep. The window of the room, with two panes taken out for ventilation, looked on to a passage; which passage had no communication with this part of the house. Anyone passing might at pleasure stop and examine the premises, or thrust in an arm and request the honour of a hand-shake. Opposite the window, three feet of passage’ between, was another window open to the sky. This was mercifully kept down all night or before morning I must have been suffocated. The missing panes, however, not only admitted the fresh air, but all the sounds of the house, which up to long past mid- night were varied and numerous. Conspicuous amongst these was the incessant and irritating cry of a child in an adjoining chamber: a little toad of a girl who resented all the efforts of her pacifying mother by flying into torrents of rage. Interludes of what sounded like a pitched battle of kicking and slapping agreeably broke the monotony of the shrillscreaming. At last, when the house had sunk into repose, sounds as of ghosts declared themselves behind the wainscoting. Anyone could imagine such a place haunted. But it was only rats frisking and gambolling about, and holding revels in their own peculiarly interesting fashion. They seemed to be in every part of the wall, and I was afraid I should soon not only hear but see them. Nature, however, has her revenges; and just as a distant voice was calling to the cows to come and be milked ; in that peculiarly cheerful jargon so intelligible to the useful animals; I fell asleep. A few hours later we met at the breakfast table. The weather was fine; the air balmy; the sky serene and’blue. By ten o’clock we started for the Lizard Point, under the guidance of John Williams: I walking with the guide; Z. preferring the carriage, as far as the road would admit of a passage for it. About twenty minutes’ walk ; now through lanes bordered on each side by low walls built of sont loose stones, between the crevices of which the heath and stone-crop crept; now over fields; brought us to the edge of the clifis. As it had been last night, so this morning the feel- ing was one of disappointment. Was the rocky coast of Cornwall not grander than this? of greater boldness and magnificence? something of which the English might be justly proud,—as the Swiss are proud of their mountains ? Praise oft iterated had caused imagination to colour and heighten reality beyond itself. Here, at any rate, was nothing to hush the breath and quicken the pulses. But here were not the finest parts of the coast—not even as yet was it_the Lizard Point. Nevertheless, a conbination of rocks, a wide expanse of seayand a bright sky, can never be otherwise than beautiful ; and the walk to the Gomicbooks.co