Armorel of Lyonesse - Walter Besant

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He must know also what is meant by a gale of wind, a stiff breeze, a dead calm. He recognises, by the look of it, a lively sea, a chopping sea, a heavy sea, a roaring sea, a sulky sea. He knows everything except a river. That, I suppose, requires very careful explanation. It was a Scilly youth—I mean a Scillonian—who sat down on the river bank to wait for the water to go by. The history seems to prove the commercial intercourse which in remote antiquity took place between Phœnicia and the Cassiterides or Scilly Islands.'

      Armorel looked puzzled. 'I did not know that story of a Scillonian and a river,' she said, coldly.

      'Never mind his stories,' said Roland. 'This place is a story in itself: you are a story: we are all in fairyland.'

      'No'—she shook her head. 'Bryher is the only island in all Scilly which has any fairies. They call them pixies there. I do not think that fairies would ever like to come and live on Samson: because of the graves, you know.'

      She led them down the hill along a path worn by her own feet alone, and brought them out to the level space occupied by the farm-buildings.

      'This is where we live,' she said. 'If you could stay here, Roland Lee, we could give you a room. We have many empty rooms'—she sighed—'since my father and mother and my brothers were all drowned. Will you come in?'

      She took them into the 'best parlour,' a room which struck a sudden chill to anyone who entered therein. It was the room reserved for days of ceremony—for a wedding, a christening, or a funeral. Between these events the room was never used. The furniture presented the aspect common to 'best parlours,' being formal and awkward. In one corner stood a bookcase with glass doors, filled with books. Armorel showed them into this apartment, drew up the blind, opened the window—there was certainly a stuffiness in the air—and looked about the room with evident pride. Few best parlours, she thought, in the adjacent islands of St. Mary's, Bryher, Tresco, or even Great Britain itself, could beat this.

      She left them for a few minutes, and came back bearing a tray on which were a plate of apples, another of biscuits, and a decanter full of a very black liquid. Hospitality has its rules even on Samson, whither come so few visitors.

      'Will you taste our Scilly apples?' she said. 'These are from our own orchard, behind the house. You will find them very sweet.'

      Roland took one—as a general rule, this young man would rather take a dose of medicine than an apple—and munched it with avidity. 'A delicious fruit!' he cried. But his friend refused the proffered gift.

      'Then you will take a biscuit, Dick Stephenson? Nothing? At least, a glass of wine?'

      'Never in the morning, thank you.'

      'You will, Roland Lee?' She turned, with a look of disappointment, to the other man, who was so easily pleased and who said such beautiful things. 'It is my own wine—I made it myself last year, of ripe blackberries.'

      'Indeed I will! Your own wine? Your own making, Miss Armorel? Wine of Samson—the glorious vintage of the blackberry! In pies and in jam-pots I know the blackberry, but not, as yet, in decanters. Thank you, thank you!'

      He smiled heroically while he held the glass to the light, smelt it, rolled it gently round. Then he tasted it. 'Sweet,' he said, critically. 'And strong. Clings to the palate. A liqueur wine—a curious wine.' He drank it up, and smiled again. 'Your own making! It is wonderful! No—not another drop, thank you!'

      'Shall I show you?'—the girl asked, timidly—'would you like to see my great-great-grandmother? She is so very old that the people come all the way from St. Agnes only just to look at her. Sometimes she answers questions for them, and they think it is telling their fortunes. She is asleep. But you may talk aloud. You will not awaken her. She is so very, very old, you know. Consider: she has been a widow nearly eighty years.'

      She led them into the other room, where, in effect, the ancient dame sat in her hooded chair fast asleep, in cap and bonnet, her hands, in black mittens, crossed.

      'Heavens!' Roland murmured. 'What a face! I must draw that face! And'—he looked at the girl bending over the chair placing a pillow in position—'and that other. It is wonderful!' he said aloud. 'This is, indeed, the face of one who has lived a hundred years. Does she sometimes wake up and talk?'

      'In the evening she recovers her memory for awhile and talks—sometimes quite nicely, sometimes she rambles.'

      'And you have a spinning-wheel in the corner.'

      'She likes someone to work at the spinning-wheel while she talks. Then she thinks it is the old time back again.'

      'And there is a violin.'

      'I play it in the evening. It keeps her awake, and helps her to remember. Justinian taught me. He used to play very well indeed until his fingers grew stiff. I can play a great many tunes, but it is difficult to learn any new ones. Last summer there were some ladies at Tregarthen's—one of them had a most beautiful voice, and she used to sing in the evening with the window open. I used to sail across on purpose to land and listen outside. And I learned a very pretty tune. I would play it to you in the evening if you were not going away.'

      'I am not obliged to go away,' the young man said, with strangely flushing cheeks.

      'Roland!' That was Dick's voice—but it was unheeded.

      'Will you stay here, then?' the girl asked.

      'Here in this house? In your house?'

      'You can have my brother Emanuel's room. I shall be very glad if you will stay. And I will show you everything.' She did not invite the young man called Dick, but this other, the young man who drank her wine and ate her apple.

      'If your—your—your guardian—or your great-great-grandmother approves.'

      'Oh! she will approve. Stay, Roland Lee. We will make you very happy here. And you don't know what a lot there is to see.'

      'Roland!' Again Dick's warning voice.

      'A thousand thanks!' he said. 'I will stay.'

       THE ENCHANTED ISLAND

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      The striking of seven by the most sonorous and musical of clocks ever heard reminded Roland of the dinner-hour. At seven most of us are preparing for this function, which civilisation has converted almost into an act of praise and worship. Some men, he remembered, were now walking in the direction of the club: some were dressing: some were making for restaurants: some had already begun. One naturally associates seven o'clock with the anticipation of dinner. There are men, it is true, who habitually take in food at midday and call it dinner: there are also those who have no dinner at all. He began to realise that he was not, this evening, going to have any dinner at all. For he was now at the farmhouse, sitting in the square window with Armorel: he had gone back to Tregarthen's and returned with his portmanteau and his painting gear: fortunately he had also taken an abundant lunch at that establishment. He had become an inhabitant of Samson. The increased population, therefore, now consisted of seven souls.

      In fact, there was no dinner for him. Everybody in Samson dines at half-past twelve: he had tea with Armorel at half-past four: after tea they wandered along the shore and stood upon Shark Point to see the sun set behind Mincarlo, an operation performed with zeal and despatch, and with great breadth and largeness of colouring. When the shades of evening began to prevail they were fain to get home quickly, because there is no path among the boulders, nor have former inhabitants provided hand-rails for visitors on the carns. Therefore they retraced their steps to the farm, and Armorel left him sitting alone in the square window while she went about some household duties. In the quiet room the solemn clock told the moments, and there was light enough left to discern the ghostly figure of the ancient dame sleeping in her chair. The place was so quiet and so strange that the visitor presently felt as if he was sitting among ghosts. It is at twilight, in fact, that the spirits

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