The Duchess of Rosemary Lane: A NovelFarjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
General
The Duchess of Rosemary Lane: A Novel
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
English fiction -- 19th century
swords proclaiming that they are on the straight road to glory;
concluding with an army of wooden grenadiers with fixed bayonets, who
march without bending a joint. All these move through the avenue of
light, and the drummer-boy appears arm-in-arm with a little girl with
whom, until she died twelve months ago, Sally used to play at grocers'
shops in dark kitchens and on back-window sills. With a grand
fanfaronade of trumpets, on marches a gay troop of soldiers, followed
by men carrying huge flags, the devices in which are quick with life.
Upon the waving folds of silk, fish are swimming, horses are prancing,
artizans are following their trades, and the lion and the unicorn are
fighting for the crown. These precede more soldiers and carriages and
flags, until the shouts that rend the air proclaim the approach of the
principal figure in the procession. This proves to be a gilt coach of
antique shape, with coachmen and footmen blazing with gold lace, and
Sally jumps up and down in frantic excitement as she recognises the
inmate of the coach, who is staring in wonder out of the window at the
people huzzaing and waving their hats in her honour. It is her own
baby-treasure, with flushed and beautiful face, and with eyes bluer
and more beautiful than the brightest and bluest clouds. In the midst
of this triumphant display a man suddenly appears, and with sinister
looks, stands by the coach in which the child is sitting. It is the
new tenant who has taken the bedroom in her mother's house, and his
menacing attitude proclaims that he is bent on mischief. The child
looks imploringly towards Sally for protection, and instantaneously
Sally is on the donkey's back, riding full tilt at their common enemy,
who goes down in great confusion before her. Upon this the crowd and
the entire pageant melt away like vapour from a glass, and Sally, with
her baby-treasure safe in her arms, is walking along a dark street,
the houses in which are so tall that they shut out the sky. The night
is cold, the rain is falling, and they are alone, walking for many
hours through the dreary thoroughfares, until from an archway a shadow
steals and strives to seize the child. It is the new tenant again.
Sally, terror-stricken, flies from him as fast as her little legs will
allow her--and flies so swiftly, and through so many streets, for
seemingly-interminable hours, that her breath fails, and life is
leaving her: and all through this terrible flight the pursuer is at
her heels, with flashing eyes and with death in his face. Sally knows
that this is expressed in him, and that he is bent on destruction,
although her back is towards him. She feels his hot breath on her
neck; she hears a hissing sound from remorseless lips; closer and
closer he comes, and his arms are about to close around her, when she
falls over a precipice, down, down, into the spreading branches of a
tree, where she places her baby safely in a cradle of flowers, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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