Genre Fiction. Page - 201

l Considine told us how he disliked the University."

"Not in so many words?" Philip asked.

"Contrapuntal," Sir Bernard said. "When you've heard as many speeches as I have, you'll find that's the only interest in them: the intermingling of the theme proposed and the theme actual."

"I can never make out whether Roger's serious," Philip said. "He seems to be getting at one the whole time. Rosamond feels it too."

Sir Bernard thought it very likely. Rosamond Murchison was Isabel's sister and Roger's sister-in-law, but only in law. Rosamond privately felt that Roger was conceited and not quite nice; Roger, less privately, felt that Rosamond was stuckup and not quite intelligent. When, as at present, she was staying with the Ingrams in Hampstead, it was only by Isabel's embracing sympathy that tolerable relations were maintained. Sir Bernard almost wished that Philip could have got engaged to someone else. He was very fond of his son, and he was afraid that the approaching marriage would

enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong. This love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important occasion, and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of the king. In after years such things became commonplace enough, but then they were in no slight degree novel and startling.

The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges in order that the youn

ew faces, many faces, long rows of faces, some pale, some red, some laughing, some horrified, some shouting, some swearing--a long row of faces that swept through the smoke, following a line of steel--a line of steel that flickered, waved, and dipped.

CHAPTER III

THE VICTORY

The bandmaster marshalled his music at the head of the column of occupation which was to march into Louisburg. The game had been admirably played. The victory was complete. There was no need to occupy the trenches, for those who lay in them or near them would never rally for another battle. The troops fell back behind the wood through which they had advanced on the preceding day. They were to form upon the road which had been the key of the advance, and then to march, horse and foot in column, into Louisburg, the place of honour at the head being given to those who had made the final charge to the last trench and through the abattis. Gorged with what it had eaten, the dusty serpent was now

ecause he did not know them, but because he estimated them correctly. He may have suffered, as we suffer, from critics who, of all the world's literature, know only "the last thing out," and who take that as a standard for the past, to them unfamiliar, and for the hidden future. As we are told that excellence is not of the great past, but of the present, not in the classical masters, but in modern Muscovites, Portuguese, or American young women, so the author of the Treatise may have been troubled by Asiatic eloquence, now long forgotten, by names of which not a shadow survives. He, on the other hand, has a right to be heard because he has practised a long familiarity with what is old and good. His mind has ever been in contact with masterpieces, as the mind of a critic should be, as the mind of a reviewer seldom is, for the reviewer has to hurry up and down inspecting new literary adventurers. Not among their experiments will he find a touchstone of excellence, a test of greatness, and that test will seldom

up, like you said."

Buck laughed shortly. "I'll be waiting. I don't like that lanky bastard. I reckon I got some scores to settle with him." He looked at me, and his face twisted into what he thought was a tough snarl. Funny--you could see he really wasn't tough down inside. There wasn't any hard core of confidence and strength. His toughness was in his holster, and all the rest of him was acting to match up to it.

"You know," he said, "I don't like you either, Irish. Maybe I oughta kill you. Hell, why not?"

Now, the only reason I'd stayed out of doors that afternoon was I figured Buck had already had one chance to kill me and hadn't done it, so I must be safe. That's what I figured--he had nothing against me, so I was safe. And I had an idea that maybe, when the showdown came, I might be able to help out Ben Randolph somehow--if anything on God's Earth could help him.

Now, though, I wished to hell I hadn't stayed outside. I wished I was behind one of them windows, looking

gt; me of all ambiguities, Perform what desperate enterprise I will? I'll have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates; I'll have them read me strange philosophy, And tell the secrets of all foreign kings; I'll have them wall all Germany with brass, And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg; I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,<27> Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad; I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring, And chase the Prince of Parma from our land, And reign sole king of all the<28> provinces; Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war, Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge,<29> I'll make my servile spirits to invent.

Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS.

Come, German Valdes, and Cornelius, And make me blest with your sage conference. Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius, Know that your words have won me at the last To practice magic and co

nies in window-sashes into the room. "Someoneis wrong. Is it I--or You?"

His thin lips drew themselvesback against his teeth in a mirthlesssmile which was like a grin.

"Yes," he said. "I am prettyfar gone. I am beginning to talk tomyself about God. Bryan did it justbefore he was taken to Dr. Hewletts'place and cut his throat."

He had not led a specially evillife; he had not broken laws, butthe subject of Deity was not onewhich his scheme of existence hadincluded. When it had hauntedhim of late he had felt it an untowardand morbid sign. The thinghad drawn him--drawn him; hehad complained against it, he hadargued, sometimes he knew--shuddering--that he had raved. Somethinghad seemed to stand aside andwatch his being and his thinking.Something which filled the universehad seemed to wait, and to havewaited through all the eternal ages,to see what he--one man--woulddo. At times a great appalled wonderhad swept over him at his realizationthat he had never known orthoug

ng his name on the fête day of his patron Saint Miguel, which some biographers have confounded with that of his birthday.

We may be forgiven for a few words about Alcala de Henares, since, had it only produced so rare a man as was Cervantes, it would have had sufficient distinction; but it was a town of an eventful historical record. It was destroyed about the year 1000, and rebuilt and possessed by the Moors, was afterwards conquered by Bernardo, Archbishop of Toledo. Three hundred years later it was the favorite retreat of Ximenes, then Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, who returned to it, after his splendid conquests, laden with gold and silver spoil taken from the mosques of Oran, and with a far richer treasure of precious Arabian manuscripts, intended for such a university as had long been his ambition to create, and the corner-stone of which he laid with his own hands in 1500. There was a very solemn ceremonial at the founding of this famous university, and a hiding away of coins and inscripti

r might have classed above herparents. They, moving from Kentucky into Indiana, from Indiana intoIllinois, and now on to Oregon, never in all their toiling days hadforgotten their reverence for the gentlemen and ladies who once weretheir ancestors east of the Blue Ridge. They valued education--felt thatit belonged to them, at least through their children.

Education, betterment, progress, advance--those things perhaps lay inthe vague ambitions of twice two hundred men who now lay in camp at theborder of our unknown empire. They were all Americans--second, third,fourth generation Americans. Wild, uncouth, rude, unlettered, many ormost of them, none the less there stood among them now and again sometall flower of that culture for which they ever hungered; for whichthey fought; for which they now adventured yet again.

Surely American also were these two young men whose eyes nowunconsciously followed Molly Wingate in hot craving even of a morningthus far breakfastless, for the young leader had o

u came out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that had put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand my dear--for the L, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in HIS voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it "Speak to me Emma!" which was far from a rational observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I think myself it WAS like me when I was young and wore that sort of stays.

But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost my p