E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Stephen Blundell,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
| PAGE | |
| Sea Change— | |
| Part I. The Rainbow | 1 |
| Part II. The Grave | 51 |
| "William Foster" | 109 |
| The Cry of the Child— | |
| Part I. The Dead Child | 183 |
| Part II. The Living Child | 223 |
| How Love came to Professor Guildea | 267 |
| The Lady and the Beggar | 341 |
Shakespeare.
In London nightfall is a delirium of bustle, inthe country the coming of a dream. The townscatters a dust of city men over its long and lightedstreets, powders its crying thoroughfares withgaily dressed creatures who are hidden, like bats,during the hours of day, opens a thousand defiantyellow eyes that have been sealed in sleep, throwsoff its wrapper and shows its elaborate toilet. Thecountry grows demure and brown, most modest inthe shadows. Labourers go home along the dampand silent lanes with heavy weariness. The parishclergyman flits like a blackbird through the twinklingvillage. Dogs bark from solitary farms. Abeautiful and soft depression fills all the air likeincense or like evening bells. But whether nightreveals or hides the activities of men it changes[4]them most curiously. The difference betweenman in day, man in night, is acute.
The arrival of darkness always meant somethingto the Rev. Peter Uniacke, whose cure of soulsnow held him far from the swarming alleys andthe docks in which his early work had been done.He seldom failed to give thi