Helbeck of Bannisdale, vol 1

Helbeck of Bannisdale, vol 1
[with accents]

Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I., by Mrs. Humphry
Ward Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.
Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9441] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 1,
2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK
OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I. ***

Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Berger,
and PG Distributed Proofreaders

HELBECK OF BANNISDALE
by
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
... metus ille ... Acheruntis ... Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab
imo
In two volumes
Vol. I.
To
E. de V.
In Memoriam

CONTENTS
BOOK I
BOOK II
BOOK III

BOOK I

CHAPTER I
"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to these
parts!"
So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still--both hands resting on his thick
stick--while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front of
him and the landscape to either side.

Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broad
alluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way
to the estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he
stood, he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths,
marked here and there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more
solid dots of black which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat
stacks. Beyond the mosses were level lines of greyish white, where the
looping rivers passed into the sea--lines more luminous than the sky at
this particular moment of a damp March afternoon, because of some
otherwise invisible radiance, which, miles away, seemed to be shining
upon the water, slipping down to it from behind a curtain of rainy
cloud.
Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from east
to west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peat
moss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough driven
deep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and
the farmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should
come. Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture,
so that strips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long
stretches of purple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the
pastures were due, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen
hurrying to join the rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like
the dykes and the streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west
swept inland from the sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper
valley, and blotting out the mountains that stood around its head.
A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty,
even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's
glance travelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising
from the marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of
lovely lines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills,
each with its church tower and its white spreading farms--a laud of
homely charm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and
cut off by the seething clouds in the north-west from the mountains
towards which it climbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss
country behind him, the hills rose and fell about him in soft undulation

more and more rich in wood, while beside him roared the tumbling
Greet, with its flood-voice--a voice more dear and familiar to Alan
Helbeck perhaps, at this moment of his life, than the voice of any
human being.
He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back, a remarkably tall man,
with a dark head and short grizzled beard. He held