Phemie Keller (Complete)
9781465680501
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
He had been toiling under the noontide heat up the narrow defile which led from Grassenfel to Tordale. He had grown weary of the way, of the rough path, of the rugged scenery. He had looked to his right hand and to his left, and behold on the one side stormy Skillanscar met his view, whilst on the other the peaks of Helbeck rose towering to the summer sky. He had looked straightforward, and there were mountains still—mountains that seemed to hem him in, and make him a prisoner in their rocky fastnesses. Toiling onward, he had been thinking how long was the road; how great the distance; when all at once the path bore sharply round the base of a projecting rock, and brought him suddenly within view of Tordale Church. With the everlasting hills overshadowing it, with the murmuring waterfall singing ever and always beside it; the sweet melody to which so few came to listen—with the larches and the pines waving their branches gently over the grassy mounds in the graveyard, with the August sun pouring his beams down the mountains on the dancing rivulet, on the smooth velvety turf, Tordale Church stood on a little mound commanding a view of the valley, that broke like a revelation of beauty on the traveller. He had walked far to see this piece of God’s handiwork; he had toiled wearily up the defile, over the rocks, between the mountains, to find this gem which was set so securely among the hills, that the eye of stranger rarely rested on it. He had walked far, and he felt that he was not so young as formerly; yet when the glorious view opened before him Captain Henry Gower Stondon forgot the distance, thought no longerof fatigue, but, pausing, drank in the loveliness he beheld.
