Philip Turner > Quotes

“In the untidy privacy of the Staff Room he had described Arthur as: 'Surprisingly cunning. Jolly adaptable for such a lump of a boy.' That Mr. Gillespie-Reeve found this surprising only showed his lack of knowledge of moorland sheep farmers, and the cunning and adaptability necessary on a bleak fellside on a dark winter night. But then he had only seen Arthur, large and solid and safe-handed, behind the wicket, or making a cheerful fool of himself over some abstruse problem in mathematics. He had never seen the same Arthur kneeling on an eighteen-inch ledge in a howling sleet-storm, using his inbred cunning and adaptability to coax an expensive and wayward ram back to safety, rather than have it fall to blackness over the edge, his only help his own wits and the unquestioning obedience of a sheep-dog.”
― Philip Turner, Sea Peril

“David went on through the dark churchyard, over the wooden bridge where the beck chuckled unseen beneath him and an owl hooted loud above him somewhere in the starry darkness beyond the black yew-trees. The moon had not yet risen above the horizon of the high moors. But already, like a herald of its coming, the stark shapes of the Black Rocks were sharply outlined: black cut-outs against a sky clear as a blue diamond.”
― Philip Turner, Sea Peril