The Project Gutenberg eBook, At a Winter's Fire, by Bernard Edward J. Capes

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: At a Winter's Fire

Author: Bernard Edward J. Capes

Release Date: November 14, 2004 [eBook #14045]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT A WINTER'S FIRE***

E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team

AT A WINTER'S FIRE

by

BERNARD CAPES

Author of _The Lake of Wine_, etc.

1899

All except three of the following Tales have already appeared in English
or American Magazines. The best thanks of the author are due to the
Editors of the "Cornhill," "Macmillan's," "Lippincott's" and "Pearson's"
Magazines, and to the Editor of the "Sketch," for permission to reprint
such of the stories as have been published in their pages.

Contents

THE MOON STRICKEN

JACK AND JILL

THE VANISHING HOUSE

DARK DIGNUM

WILLIAM TYRWHITT'S "COPY"

A LAZY ROMANCE

BLACK VENN

AN EDDY ON THE FLOOR

DINAH'S MAMMOTH

THE BLACK REAPER

A VOICE FROM THE PIT

THE MOON STRICKEN

It so fell that one dark evening in the month of June I was belated
in the Bernese Oberland. Dusk overtook me toiling along the great
Chamounix Road, and in the heart of a most desolate gorge, whose towering
snow-flung walls seemed--as the day sucked inwards to a point secret as a
leech's mouth--to close about me like a monstrous amphitheatre of ghosts.
The rutted road, dipping and climbing toilfully against the shouldering
of great tumbled boulders, or winning for itself but narrow foothold over
slippery ridges, was thawed clear of snow; but the cold soft peril yet
lay upon its flanks thick enough for a wintry plunge of ten feet, or may
be fifty where the edge of the causeway fell over to the lower furrows
of the ravine. It was a matter of policy to go with caution, and a thing
of some moment to hear the thud and splintering of little distant
icefalls about one in the darkness. Now and again a cold arrow of wind
would sing down from the frosty peaks above or jerk with a squiggle of
laughter among the fallen slabs in the valley.