The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sapphire Cross, by George Manville Fenn

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Title: The Sapphire Cross

Author: George Manville Fenn

Release Date: June 20, 2010 [EBook #32917]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAPPHIRE CROSS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Book 1, Chapter I.

IN THE OLD FEN-LAND.

"Oh, how sweet the pines smell, Marion! I declare it's quite bliss to
get down here in these wilds, with the free wind blowing the London
smoke out of your back hair, and no one to criticise and make remarks.
I won't go to the sea-side any more: pier and band, and esplanade and
promenade; in pink to-day and in blue to-morrow, and the next day in
green; and then a bow here and a `de-do' there; and `how's mamma?' and
`nice day;' and all the same sickening stuff over again. There! I
won't hear fault found with the Fen-land ever any more. I don't wonder
at that dear old Hereward the Wake loving it. Why, it's beautiful! and
I feel free--as free as the air itself; and could set off and run and
jump and shout like a child?"

"Dangerous work, running and jumping here," said a tall, pale girl, the
speaker's companion, as she picked her way from tuft to tuft of heath
and rushes, now plucking a spray of white or creamy-pink moss, now some
silky rush, and at last bending long over a cluster of forget-me-nots,
peering up from the bright green water plants, like turquoise set in
enamelled gold.

"What lovely forget-me-nots!" cried her blonde companion, hurrying to
her side, the oozy ground bending beneath her weight, as she pressed
forward. "True blue--true blue! I must have a bunch as well."

"Poor Philip's favourite flowers," said the other, sadly. "I have the
little dried bouquet at home now that he gave me--six years ago this
spring, Ada. Forget-me-not!"

She stood, sad and thoughtful, with the flowers in her hand, the tears
the while dropping slowly upon the little blue petals, that seemed like
eyes peering up at her. They were standing together upon the edge of a
wide stretch of uncultivated marsh, which commenced as soon as the grove
of whispering pines through which