The landlord was astonished, but was too well bred to press him to stay. The truth is, our friend had been far more seriously ‘hit’ by simple Nan than he had supposed, or was even yet inclined to admit. Try as he would, sleep refused to come to his tired brain; mocking visions of ‘what might have been’ flitted through his waking dreams; and he arose in the morning more tired than when he went to bed. The post brought him two letters; one of them, he said, required his instant presence in London on an important matter of business; after that, he would go to Switzerland to join his friend in the fishing; and meantime, he would have reluctantly to bid them farewell. Porteous was both surprised and vexed; his daughter was neither, for she felt it would be happier for them both to be apart—at least for the present.
LANDSLIPS.
Scarcely less alarming than the fall of an avalanche, and sometimes, indeed, far more destructive, are those sudden descents of earth and other materials commonly known as landslips. The cause of these remarkable calamities—for such they commonly are—may be briefly described. The strata of a mountain or lesser elevation are often found to deviate considerably from a horizontal position; and if shale or any other substance pervious to water forms the lowest stratum, a landslip may take place. For instance, if there be an abundance of rain or melted snow, which percolates down so as to soften the lower stratum, the upper strata are liable to be loosened, and, in process of time, to slide away. Such was the case in Shropshire towards the close of last century, as related by Mr Fletcher of Madeley. This took place at a spot on the Severn between the Grove and the Birches. ‘The first thing that struck me,’ says Mr Fletcher, ‘was the destruction of the little bridge that separated the parish of Madeley from that of Buildwas, and the total disappearing of the turnpike road to Buildwas Bridge, instead of which, nothing presented itself to my view but a confused heap of bushes and huge clods of earth, tumbled one over another. The river also wore a different aspect; it was shallow, noisy, boisterous, and came down from a different point. Following the track made by a great number of spectators who came from the neighbouring parishes, I climbed over the ruins and came to a field well grown with ryegrass, where the ground was greatly cracked in several places, and where large turfs—some entirely, others half-turned up—exhibited the appearance of straight or crooked furrows, as though imperfectly formed by a plough drawn at a venture. Getting from that field over the hedge into a part of the road which was yet visible, I found it raised in one place, sunk in another, concave in a third, hanging on one side in a fourth, and contracted as if some uncommon force had pressed the two hedges together. But the higher part of it surprised me most, and brought directly to remembrance those places of Mount Vesuvius where the solid stony lava had been strongly marked by repeated earthquakes; for the hard beaten gravel which formed the surface of the road was broken every way into huge masses, partly detached from each other, with deep apertures between them, exactly like the shattered lava. This striking likeness of circumstances made me conclude that the similar effect might proceed from the same cause, namely, a strong convulsion on the surface, if not in the bowels, of the earth.’
This conjecture was not confirmed by facts and circumstances related by others; indeed, the latter part of his description proves, almost beyond question, that the various results described were occasioned by a landslip, and not by a shock of an earthquake, of which no one heard anything.
He continues: ‘Going a little further towards Buildwas, I found that the road was again totally lost for a considerable space, having been overturned, absorbed, or tumbled, with the hedges that bounded it, to a considerable distance towards the river. This part of the desolation appeared then to me inexpressibly dreadful. Between a shattered field and the river, there was that morning a bank, on which, besides a great deal of underwood, grew twenty-five large oaks; this wood shot with such violence into the Severn before it, that it forced the water in great volumes a considerable height, like a mighty fountain, and gave the overflowing river a retrograde motion. This is not the only accident which happened to the Severn, for, near the Grove, the channel, which was chiefly of a soft blue rock, burst in ten thousand pieces, and rose perpendicularly about ten yards, heaving up the immense quantity of water and the shoal of fishes that were therein.’
John Philips in his work on Cider alludes to Marcley Hill as the scene of a landslip:
I nor advise, nor reprehend, the choice
Of Marcley Hill; the apple nowhere finds
A kinder mould; yet ’tis unsafe to trust
Deceitful ground; who knows but that, once more,