The Argosy — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

The Channel Islands. 47 baggage, is, that it is a very tough climb to get to the inn, and that if there is only one in the place, it might have quartered itself somewhat nearer the pier. But the longest lane has a turning, and Scott’s Hotel loomed upon us_at last. We had been told that Mrs. Scott, the landlady, was very independent ; would take in whom she pleased and reject whom she would ; was capable of sacrificing herself for those she took a fancy to, and for the unhappy ones with whom she did not fall in love at first sight, would do little or nothing. We belfeve nothing of all this ; or, if it be true, we certainly fell at once into her good graces. We were the first arrivals, and seeing no one and making no one hear, we boldly marched through, right into her very kitchen. It might have been a palace, so spotlessly clean, so wonderfully orderly was the whole room: and somehow, a well-appointed kitchen is a sight that comes home to us, conjuring up all sorts of homely and domestic visions and pleasant emotions. As a rule, too, it is the embodiment of unceremonious comfort. This particular kitchen certainly was. And not the least comfortable and pleasant object was Mrs. Scott herself, who stood in the middle of the floor and gazed at us as if we had dropped from the clouds. We at once fell in love with her motherly face and earnest grey eyes, and felt ourselves at home. Then her tongue loosened. “Eh, my dears!” She lifted up her hands to give force to the exclamation. It was impossible not to smile at the greeting. Coming from her kindly lips and voice, it had a genuine, un- studied directness which made it not in the least familiar, but very pleasant. At once we were no longer strangers, but might have known her for ten years. “Eh, my dears! but you must have had a rough passage!” And as Mrs. Scott was the widow of a former captain of one of these boats, she was an authority upon the point. ‘And you are wet and cold!” she cried, coming up to H., who had received on the voyage, more than once, the benediction of a wave. And forth- with she conducted him to the roaring fire, and turned him round and round, for all the world as if he had been a jack wound up and hung, and ready to begin its work. Our hold upon the house at any rate was secure, and Mrs. Scott’s best and kindliest was at our service. And so, by and by, all things comfortably settled, we wandered out to become acquainted with the island. It may at once be said that the aspect of Alderney is most mournful, most melancholy. It has the appearance of a town once populated, now deserted ; the look of a dead city. In revenge, it possesses the newest, and, in the opinion of many, the most beau- tiful church in all the islands, built after designs by Gilbert Scott. The town itself is quaint, irregular, without any vestige of beauty. The principal streets are deserted, whether in the morning, at mid- Gomichboo s) (E(@) ee — —