The Smuggler of King's Cove; or, The Old Chapel MysteryCobb, Sylvanus
General
The Smuggler of King's Cove; or, The Old Chapel Mystery
Cobb, Sylvanus
Smugglers -- Fiction
Its broad doorway was an open arch toward the south, and on the sides
were six arched openings for windows, with the brazen frames and leaden
mullions of the casements intact; but there were no panes--no signs of
glass to be seen.
How many years the structure had stood there none could tell. Tradition
told that a fraternity of Franciscans--gray friars--had once occupied a
monastery near where the castle now stood; and that they had erected
this chapel as an offering to St. Francis, whose effigy, in stone, had
stood near the altar, while they had occupied it.
How many years it had stood there, none could tell; yet its wall, and
its wonderful roof, were as tight, as impervious to water, as ever. At
the open windows, and at the deep arch of the vestibule, the storm could
find entrance; but nowhere else.
Our three adventurers entered the chapel and looked around. The altar,
at the end opposite the entrance, was a single stone set against the
rear wall.
It was four feet high by about five feet wide, and three feet deep from
front to rear. In a far corner at the other end, toward the door, were a
dozen or more square blocks of stone that had evidently been intended
for seats.
In those old times, and amongst those old friars, it was not deemed
necessary that a worshiper should sit while holding communion with
Jehovah; and seats, as a general thing, were not provided.
These few granite blocks might have been designed for the sick, lame, or
aged, who could not stand. As they left the chapel Percy looked at his
watch, a reliable time-piece his father had brought to him from France,
and found it to be almost three o’clock.
“Shall we have time to go to the top of the crag?” he asked, with a
shade of anxiety on his face.
“Oh, yes! yes! We shall have plenty of time--four hours, at least.”
“It will be very dark in four hours from now, dear lady.”
“Time enough. Oh, I must see the top; and the view out to sea! You shall
know how fast I can walk.”
Percy smiled and nodded assent, and on they went. It was a wild, rugged
road, but more in the seeming than in fact, for the experienced guide,
who had traversed the crag in every direction from earliest childhood,
knew every inch of the way, and was able to follow a path almost as easy
of ascent as would have been the climbing of a grassy slope of the same
inclination.
By and by they came to a stretch of path which was restful--a grand
aisle, with perpendicular walls towering aloft on either hand; the floor
of which was very smooth and even, and wide enough to allow two persons
to walk abreast, with room to spare.
In reaching this point, they had climbed an ascent where our hero had
given to Cordelia his hand; and he continued to hold it after the need
had passed.
Mary was several yards in the rear, and seemed inclined to remain so.
For a time the two in advance had been silent. The sublimity of the
scene around them had inspired them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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