William Clark Russell

The Yarn of Old Harbour Town William Clark Russell

Old Harbour House stood about a mile from the Harbour. It confronted the town which lay about one mile and a half off, right across a wide, romantic, heavily-wooded ravine. The banks of this gap sloped softly and pleasantly into a plain of meadows and two or three farms whose dyes of roof and cattle enriched the verdure; and down there ran a river singing in measures of music as it flowed into the Harbour and mingled its bright water with the brine of the deep beyond. Above, on the placid slope of down close against Old Harbour Town, hung a straggler building or two, lonely in importance, or consequential in some trifling pomp of land; at the point of cliff on Old Harbour House side, a low, pursy lighthouse wheezed at night a yellow gleam that was a home-greeting or God-speed to some five score fishermen who dredged in these and further waters; and on the brow confronting the lighthouse a venerable windmill revolved its vans against the sky.