LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 744, 7 November 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A MYSTERY OF THE CLIFFS. HIS ACCOUNT OF IT. {Continued.) ‘All right, sir. You’ll be able to find your way back when you’ve bad enough of it; only if I were you I wouldn’t stay too late, don’t you know ; it mightn’t be so easy for ye to sec the path - not but what the moon will be up by the time the sun is gone, and she’ll make it pretty nigh as light as day with this weather. ’

‘O, I sha’n’t stay very long—l can find my way back—much obliged. ’ I had moved my legs to let the coastguardsman pass ; and, as he returned to his post, I put my feet up again on the grassy footstool and resumed my dreaming, and, finally, my sleeping. I must have had a rare long nap by this time, for twilight was settling down upon the scene when next I opened my eyes. ‘ A very agreeable afternoon, the best thing I could possibly have done. I shall often come here,’ I complacently communed with myself, as I indulged in a lazy yawn. My still half-sleepy eyes wandered from sky to sea and sea to sky, and then towards the farther seat in ‘ Booby’s Nook.’

Why, who in Heaven’s name was sitting there ? Was I still dreaming, or was I losing my wits ? A very curious sensation suddenly came over me for a moment—a cold deathlike sensation. I made an effort to rise, but seemed riveted to the seat, and could do nothing but stare like a helpless fool. At what ? How could any one have come there without my knowing it—to this ridge, only accessible by the path across which my legs were still stretched? Yet, palpably, positively, there was some one. Yes, a young lady, dressed in ordinary watering-place costume gray hat and feather, gray jackec and skirt to match. She was deliberately putting on her gloves, at least one glove, the left the other was on. There was not much light in the sky truly, and I could not distinguish her features, for she had her profile towards me ; but there she was—there could be no mistake about that, for there were not above twenty feet between us. But how—how, in the name of all that was wonderful, had she got there ? Only through my body, it would seem, so to speak—for had I not to move my legs to let the coastguardsman pass when he went back to his post ? Even he could not step over my knees, and certainly it was hardly likely a young lady would have attempted to do so, and quite impossible that she could have done it without awaking me. My feet were actually still up, as I continued staring at her. Positively—there’s no other word for it—l was astounded—awe-struck ! I remember—the matter-of-fact prosaic lawyer, who had never even been startled in his life !

I don’t know how long I sat thus, but the light had well-nigh faded from the sky when I stood up and said aloud, * You will hardly be able to find your way back, I fear, if you sit there much longer. This is a very dangerous path.’ No answer. I took one step towards her, and was again on the point of speaking, when she too rose, and without looking towards me, she waved her hand once or twice, as if warning me back, and then resumed her little struggle with that obstinate glove. Her fingers and wrists continued to work nervously at it; and her face, as from the first, was bent intently on it. Again 1 spoke ; again without getting any answer; but the warning gesture was repeated. Impossible to describe my sensations. I don’t attempt it. If you like to think I was frightened, you must; perhaps I was ; for, after one more fruitless attempt to get her to speak, I turned my back upon her, and, I hardly know how, found myself, within a minute or two, close to the coastguard station on the top of the cliff. I was explaining, describing, wondering, and suggesting ; telling all about the young lady down in * Booby’s Nook.’ Two or three of the men, amongst whom was my friend who had shown me the way, were listening, and, I could quite see, laughing at me in their sleeves.

‘ Well/ I said, ‘ you may believe me or not, as you please ; but if I never move from this spot again, I’ll swear that what I am telling you is true. She was sitting where you were sitting/ said I, turning to my friend, e when we first went down, in the very seat.’ ‘ Couldn’t be, sir ; simply couldn’t be/ answered the man. * There hasn’t been no lady like that seen about here the whole day. Lor’ bless ye, they’d be frightened out of their lives to go there ! I heerd one of our men say that a week ago there was a picnic party hereabouts, and one young lady declared she would sit down in “ Booby’s Nook ; ” but he said she didn’t stay long, but came back quite dizzy and scared like at the height of the precipice, and wished she hadn’t gone. Besides, as I was telling you, nobody couldn’t get by, ’cept you moved your legs,—leastwise, as I say, unless they was a bird.’

‘Well, now, just come down, and look for yourselves,' I struck in, appealing to the whole group; ‘ of course she is there still—we must have seen her had she come away. Bring a lantern—no, we sha’n’t want a lantern, there’s a moon; that will make everything as bright as day in another five minutes. My good fellows, come and look for yourselves.’ Excitement is not the word which will express my state of mind; for the disbelief I met with a little roused my temper, in addition to other feelings. We turned, and approached the beginning of the descent; we neared the edge, and, as the sailors put it, were just opening the cliffs, upon which the moon was playing brightly, when lo [ there was a heavy rumble, followed by a rushing sound like falling earth, and then a heavy thud or two. We all started, and pushing forward, were just in time to see the last portion of ‘ Boobj’s Nook’ sliding pell-mell down the face of the cliff—the whole projection on which I and the mysterious young lady had been sitting not five minutes before had disappeared, and lay in shapeless, heaps upon the beach below. . 4 A narrow escape you’ve, had, sir, anyways, young lady or not,’ ejaculated tht coastguardsman. Round by a circuitous way, down to the foot of the cliffs we went, a whole party of us, coastguardsmen, chief boatman, and two or three farm laborers, all armed with picks and shovels. I insisted that it would be little short of murder to delay a search for the unfortunate girl—she was undoubtedly buried in the fallen heap. What obloquy I went through as the original disbelief in my

story was strengthened with each unsuccessful clearance of the debris, no words can tell ; let it pass. After the picking and shovelling, and spreading out of the masses of fallen earth, had gone on for a couple ef hours, under the broad light of that full moon, and not a vestige of any young lady could be seen, further efforts were prevented by the incoming tide. The men latterly had grown sulky; the rough sarcastic humour with which they at first responded to my appeals gave way to a more open and a less agreeable display of their sentiments. They looked upon me as crazed, and it was only the curious and unexpected landslip which had ever given any weight to my story ; that had seemed to be a sort of confirmation of it, it was so unlooked for. Dp came the bubbling, lapping tide, sluicing through and over the tumbled heaps of earth. The men were beating a retreat, and I, more mystified and bewildered than I had ever felt in my life, was following reluctantly at the tail of the gang. Dejected, and with eyes bent on the ground, I was just quitting the fringe of the debris , when they fell upon an object which instantly arrested me. With a stoop and a shout, I picked it up, waving it in my hand, and calling loudly to the men to return and behold the piece of confirmatory evidence I had secured. It was nothing more nor less than a glove, a lady’s tiny left-hand glove—surely the identical one she had been struggling with. The colour I had never seen, and of course could not now; but if it were not hers, whose else in such a place ? In the mind of no reasoning being could there be a doubt, vet no other sign of her or of anything be| longing to her was ever found; no, not so much as a ribbon or a handkerchief. (To be continued .)