The King's Highway

The King's Highway is a fiction short story. Trough the weather was hot and sultry, and the summer was at its height, yet the evening was gloomy, and low, angry clouds hung over the distant line of the sea, when, under the shelter of some low-browed cliffs upon the Irish coast, three persons stood together, two of whom were talking earnestly. About four or five miles .from the shore, looking like a spectre upon the misty background of clouds, appeared a small brig, with her canvass closely reefed, though there was little wind stirring, and nothing announced the approach of a gale, unless it were a long heavy swell that heaved up the boom of the ocean, as if with a suppressed sob. The three persons we have mentioned were standing together close at the foot of the rocks ; and though there was nothing in their demeanour which would imply that they were seeking concealment by the points and angles of the cliff— for they spoke loud, and one of them laughed more than once with the short but jocund laugh of a heart whose careless gayety no circumstances can repress-gyet the spot was well calculated to hide them from any eye, unless it were one gazing down from the cliffs above, or one looking towards the shore from the sea.