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[Illustration: _The Man who could talk with the Birds_]




DROLLS

FROM SHADOWLAND

BY

J. H. PEARCE

_Author of "Esther Pentreath," "Inconsequent Lives," "Jaco Treloar,"
&c._

        NEW YORK
        MACMILLAN AND CO.
        1893.

_All rights reserved._




CONTENTS.

                                          PAGE

  THE MAN WHO COINED HIS BLOOD INTO GOLD     1

  AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY                     15

  THE MAN WHO COULD TALK WITH THE BIRDS     27

  THE PURSUIT                               39

  A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT                  49

  THE MAN WHO DESIRED TO BE A TREE          61

  THE MAN WHO HAD SEEN                      73

  THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD                    85

  THE MAN WHO MET HATE                      95

  THE HAUNTED HOUSE                        109

  GIFTS AND AWARDS                         119

  FRIEND OR FOE?                           133

  THE FIELDS OF AMARANTH                   145

  THE COMEDY OF A SOUL                     155





THE MAN WHO COINED HIS BLOOD INTO GOLD.


THE yoke of Poverty galled him exceedingly, and he hated his
taskmistress with a most rancorous hatred.

As he climbed up or down the dripping ladders, descending from sollar to
sollar towards the level where he worked, he would set his teeth grimly
that he might not curse aloud--an oath underground being an invitation
to the Evil One--but in his heart the muffled curses were audible
enough. And when he was at work in the dreary level, with the darkness
lying on his shoulder like a hand, and the candles shining unsteadily
through the gloom, like little evil winking eyes, he brooded so moodily
over his bondage to Poverty, that he desired to break from it at any
cost.

"I'd risk a lem for its weight in gowld: darned ef I wedn'!" he muttered
savagely, as he dug at the stubborn rock with his pick.

He could hear the sounds of blasting in other levels--the explosions
travelling to him in a muffled boom--and above him, for he was working
beneath the bed of the ocean, he could faintly distinguish the grinding
of the sea as the huge waves wallowed and roared across the beach.

"I'm sick to death o' this here life," he grumbled; "I'd give a haand or
a' eye for a pot o' suvrins. Iss, I'd risk more than that," he added
darkly: letting the words ooze out as if under his breath.

At that moment his pick detached a piece of rock which came crashing
down on the floor of the level, splintering into great jagged fragments
as it fell.

He started back with an exclamation of uncontrollable surprise. The
falling rock had disclosed the interior of a cavern whose outlines were
lost in impenetrable gloom, but which here and there in a vague fashion,
as it caught the light of the candle flickering in his hat, seemed to
sparkle as if its walls were crusted with silver.

"Lor' Jimmeny, this es bra' an' queer!" he gasped.

As he leaned on his pick, peering into the cavern with covetous eyes,
but with a wildly-leaping heart, he was aware of an odd movement among
the shadows which were elusively outlined by the light of his dip.

It was almost as though some of them had an independent individuality,
and could have detached themselves from their roots if they wished.

It was certain a squat, hump-backed blotch, that was sprawling blackly
beside a misshapen block, was either wriggling on the floor as if trying
to stand upright... or else there was something wrong with his eyes.

He stared at the wavering gloom in the cavern, with its quaint, angular
splashes of glister, where heads of quartz and patches of mundic caught
the light from the unsteady flame of the candle, and presently he was
_certain_ that the shadows were alive.

Most of all he was sure that the little hump-backed oddity had risen to
its feet and was a veritable creature: an actual uncouth, shambling
grotesque, instead of a mere flat blotch of shadow.

Up waddled the little hump-back to the hole in the wall where Joel stood
staring, leaning on his pick.

"What can I do for'ee, friend?" he asked huskily: his voice sounding
faint, hoarse, and muffled, as if it were coming from an immense
distance, or as if the squat little frame had merely borrowed it for the
nonce.

Joel stared at the speaker, with his lower jaw dropping.

"What can I do for'ee, friend?" asked the hump-back; peering at the
grimy, half-naked miner, with his little ferrety eyes glowing
luminously.

Joel moistened his lips with his tongue before he answered. "Nawthin',
plaise, sir," he gas