Shirley
Book Excerpt
And they were silent; they were transfixed; and so was the invader. He--a personage short of stature, but straight of port, and bearing on broad shoulders a hawk's head, beak, and eye, the whole surmounted by a Rehoboam, or shovel hat, which he did not seem to think it necessary to lift or remove before the presence in which he then stood--he folded his arms on his chest and surveyed his young friends, if friends they were, much at his leisure.
"What!" he began, delivering his words in a voice no longer nasal, but deep--more than deep--a voice made purposely hollow and cavernous--"what! has the miracle of Pentecost been renewed? Have the cloven tongues come down again? Where are they? The sound filled the whole house just now. I heard the seventeen languages in full action: Pa