"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in
which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the
Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near
the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through
which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The
valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on
the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you
are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town- the side away
from us- are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other
anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town
is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and
which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up
in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of
beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is
seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another
church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of
tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it
lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all
up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out
into the sea. it descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the
bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In
one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the
sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them,
through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long
looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come
and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now,
with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men
who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit
up here and talk.

The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite
wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end
of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs
along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow
crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two
piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then
suddenly widens.

It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to
nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between
banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on
this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp
edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At
the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather,
and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here
that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the
old man about this; he is coming this way...

He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all
gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is