: Starvecrow Farm by Weyman Stanley John - England Social life and customs 19th century Fiction; Adventure stories; Man-woman relationships Fiction; Elopement Fiction

@FreeBooksWed 07 Jun, 2023

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They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old Priory Church at Cartmel.

"I give you a last chance," he said.

He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had jostled.

The face was Stewart's!

... he touched his brow with his whip handle.

... every head was uncovered as Clyne . . . rode to the door.

In ten minutes the road twinkled with lights.

She was leaning against the side of the window.

STARVECROW FARM

A head appeared at either window of the postchaise. Henrietta looked forward. Her lover looked back.

The postchaise had nearly cleared the sands. Behind it the low line of Lancashire coast was fading from sight. Before it the long green hill of Cartmel had risen so high and drawn so near as to hide the Furness fells. On the left, seaward, a waste of sullen shallows and quaking sands still stretched to infinity--a thing to shudder at. But the savage head of Warton Crag, that for a full hour had guarded the travellers' right, had given place to the gentler outlines of Armside Knot. The dreaded Lancashire Channels had been passed in safety, and the mounted guide, whose task it was to lead wayfarers over these syrtes, and who enjoyed as guerdon the life-rent of a snug farm under Cark, no longer eyed the west with anxiety, but plashed in stolid silence towards his evening meal.

And all was well. But the margin of safety had not been large--the postboys' boots still dripped, and the floor of the carriage was damp. Seaward the pale line of the tide, which would presently sweep in one foaming wave across the flat, and in an instant cover it half a foot deep, was fretting abreast the point. Ten minutes later had been too late; and the face of Henrietta's lover, whom a few hours and a Scotch minister were to make her husband, betrayed his knowledge of the fact. He looked backward and westward over the dreary flat; and fascinated, seized, possessed by the scene, he shuddered--perhaps at his own thoughts. He would fain have bidden the postboys hasten, but he was ashamed to give the order before her. Halfway across he had set down the uneasiness he could not hide to the fear of pursuit, to the fear of separation. But he could no longer do this; for it was plain to a child that neither horse nor man would cross Cartmel sands until the tide that was beginning to run had ebbed again.

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