Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... THE DEVIL'S TIGHT-ROPE I "NTOT far distant from the West Country fishing village of Daleham, and the fame and glory of that hamlet, stands the Head, a limestone crag of dizzy altitude and fantastic shape. The point, as often happens here, juts abruptly forth from amid other precipices of sandstone, and its marble face presents a surface more diversified than the circumjacent cliffs of red Devonian. For the Head is alive with wonderful lemon lights and blue shadows, with the rusty stain of iron and pearly percolations of stalactite on dripping ledges. It harbours sea-fowl and jackdaws unnumbered; its outlines dwindle in sharp planes towards the summit, and spring harmoniously from the deep sea; while the whole gigantic mass, ascending above a silver ring of foam, where summer waters fret its eternal base and a seaweed belt indicates high-water mark along its ramparts, would seem to float upon the sea rather than oppose steadfast barriers to each wave's advance. Upon a day far past, the wide spaces of the Head gleamed with direct sunlight, its clefts and crannies were embroidered with blossoming thrift and samphire, its golden reflections and wide purple shadows spread peacefully like a dream-island upon the water. Shoreward the crag was connected with the wild world of the cliffs by a narrow razor-edge of stone, and on either side precipitous and tortuous tracks descended along the edges of tremendous declivities, while below the Devil's Tight-Rope, as this frail path was called, white beaches glimmered and arose the sigh of the sea, no greater in this hour of calm than the breathing of a child asleep. About the Tight-Rope crossed two tracks at right angles. One passed over the razoredge to the dizzy summit of the Head, where a small...