y anxiously.
"None, I assure you. I have been well for some time, but did not leave because I preferred to stay there, than to return to Lady Sydney."
"No quarrel, I hope? No trouble of any kind?"
"No quarrel, but--well, why not? You have a right to know, and I will not make a foolish mystery out of a very simple thing. As your family, only, is present, I may tell the truth. I did not go back on the young gentleman's account. Please ask no more."
"Ah, I see. Quite prudent and proper, Miss Muir. I shall never allude to it again. Thank you for your frankness. Bella, you will be careful not to mention this to young friends; girls gossip sadly, and it would annoy Lady Sydney beyond everything to have this talked of."
"Very neighborly of Lady S. to send the dangerous young lady here, where there are two young gentlemen to be captivated. I wonder why she didn't keep Sydney after she had caught him," murmured Coventry to his cousin.
"Because she had the utmost conte
irs. His footsteps crossed the hall, and there was a pause at the door; I drew a long, sick breath with difficulty, and saw my face white in a little mirror, and he came in and stood at the door. There was an unutterable horror shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by holding the back of a chair with one hand, his lower lip trembled like a horse's, and he gulped and stammered unintelligible sounds before he spoke.
"I have seen that man," he began in a dry whisper. "I have been sitting in his presence for the last hour. My God! And I am alive and in my senses! I, who have dealt with death all my life, and have dabbled with the melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. But not this, oh! not this," and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut out the sight of something before him.
"Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester," he said with more composure. "I can do nothing in this house. Good-bye."
As I watched him totter down the steps; and along the pavement towards his house, it se
ll ask me for proof." He paused. "And if you could give them proof, or if this Sir Giles would let them have it, do you think they would restore it to us?"
"Will you at least try, sir?" Ali asked.
"Why, no," the Ambassador answered. "No, I do not think I will even try. It is but the word of Hajji Ibrahim here. Had he not known of the treachery of his kinsmen and come to England by the same boat as Giles Tumulty we should have known very little of what had happened, and that vaguely. But as it is, we were warned of what you call the sacrilege, and now you have talked to him, and you are convinced. But what shall I say to the Foreign Minister? No; I do not think I will try."
"You do not believe it," the Hajji said. "You do not believe that this is the Crown of Suleiman or that Allah put a mystery into it when His Permission bestowed it on the King?"
The Ambassador considered. "I have known you a long while," he said thoughtfully, "and I will tell you what I believe. I know that your
tal conflict of life, within the possibilities of the human mind as we know it. We permit ourselves also a free hand with all the apparatus of existence that man has, so to speak, made for himself, with houses, roads, clothing, canals, machinery, with laws, boundaries, conventions, and traditions, with schools, with literature and religious organisation, with creeds and customs, with everything, in fact, that it lies within man's power to alter. That, indeed, is the cardinal assumption of all Utopian speculations old and new; the Republic and Laws of Plato, and More's Utopia, Howells' implicit Altruria, and Bellamy's future Boston, Comte's great Western Republic, Hertzka's Freeland, Cabet's Icaria, and Campanella's City of the Sun, are built, just as we shall build, upon that, upon the hypothesis of the complete emancipation of a community of men from tradition, from habits, from legal bonds, and that subtler servitude possessions entail. And much of the essential value of all such speculations lies in this a
and toAgatha, who was looking charming in white and pink,with glittering wheat-ears in her hair, when Wilsoncame twitching at my sleeve.
"You want something positive, Gilroy," said he, drawingme apart into a corner. "My dear fellow, I have aphenomenon--a phenomenon!"
I should have been more impressed had I not heard thesame before. His sanguine spirit turns every fire-flyinto a star.
"No possible question about the bona fides this time,"said he, in answer, perhaps, to some little gleam ofamusement in my eyes. "My wife has known her for manyyears. They both come from Trinidad, you know. MissPenclosa has only been in England a month or two, andknows no one outside the university circle, but Iassure you that the things she has told us suffice inthemselves to establish clairvoyance upon an absolutelyscientific basis. There is nothing like her, amateuror professional. Come and be introduced!"
I like none of these mystery-mongers, but the amateurleast of all. With the paid perfo
the saloon he heard a snicker from behind him. He, thinking it was one of his late tormentors, paid no attention to it. Then a cynical, biting laugh stung him. He wheeled, to see Shorty leaning against a tree, a sneering leer on his flushed face. Shorty's right hand was suspended above his holster, hooked to his belt by the thumb-a favorite position of his when expecting trouble.
"One of yore reg'lar habits?" he drawled.
Jimmy began to dust himself in silence, but his lips were compressed to a thin white line.
"Does they hurt yu?" pursued the onlooker.
Jimmy looked up. "I heard tell that they make glue outen cayuses, sometimes," he remarked.
Shorty's eyes flashed. The loss of the horse had been rankling in his heart all day.
"Does they git yu frequent?" he asked. His voice sounded hard.
"Oh, `bout as frequent as yu lose a cayuse, I reckon," replied Jimmy hotly.
Shorty's hand streaked to his holster and Jimmy followed his lead. Jimmy's Colt was caught. He
y rankling in my heart, picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness of a New York slum I longed for steak and stout, slippers and a pipe, with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul.
It was a wild, black kind of night, and the weirdness of it showed up as I passed from light to light or crossed the mouths of dim alleys leading Heaven knows to what infernal dens of mystery and crime even in this latter-day city of ours. The moon was up as far as the church steeples; large vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and her, and a strong, gusty wind, laden with big raindrops snarled angrily round corners and sighed in the parapets like strange voices talking about things not of human interest.
It made no difference to me, of course. New York in this year of grace is not the place for the supernatural be the time never so fit for witch-riding and the night wind in the chimney-stacks sound never so much like the last gurgling cries of throttled men. No! the world was ver
fell sick, remote from assistance, in the solitude of their country houses.
Thus did the plague spread over England with unexampled rapidity, after it had first broken out in the county of Dorset, whence it advanced through the counties of Devon and Somerset, to Bristol, and thence reached Gloucester, Oxford and London. Probably few places escaped, perhaps not any; for the annuals of contemporaries report that throughout the land only a tenth part of the inhabitants remained alive.
From England the contagion was carried by a ship to Bergen, the capital of Norway, where the plague then broke out in its most frightful form, with vomiting of blood; and throughout the whole country, spared not more than a third of the inhabitants. The sailors found no refuge in their ships; and vessels were often seen driving about on the ocean and drifting on shore, whose crews had perished to the last man.
In Poland the affected were attacked with spitting blood, and died in a few days in such vast numbers
e city council was backed by a large body of serious opinion throughout the country. A proof of this, if proof were needed, is to be found in the circumstances that gave rise to the Apologie of Sidney.
The attack on the stage had been opened by the corporation and the clergy. It was soon joined by the men of letters. And the essay of Sidney was an answer neither to a town councillor, nor to a preacher, but to a former dramatist and actor. This was Stephen Gosson, author of the School of Abuse. The style of Gosson's pamphlet is nothing if not literary. It is full of the glittering conceits and the fluent rhetoric which the ready talent of Lyly had just brought into currency. It is euphuism of the purest water, with all the merits and all the drawbacks of the euphuistic manner. For that very reason the blow was felt the more keenly. It was violently resented as treason by the playwrights and journalists who still professed to reckon Gosson among their ranks. [Footnote: Lodge writes, "I
y anxiously.
"None, I assure you. I have been well for some time, but did not leave because I preferred to stay there, than to return to Lady Sydney."
"No quarrel, I hope? No trouble of any kind?"
"No quarrel, but--well, why not? You have a right to know, and I will not make a foolish mystery out of a very simple thing. As your family, only, is present, I may tell the truth. I did not go back on the young gentleman's account. Please ask no more."
"Ah, I see. Quite prudent and proper, Miss Muir. I shall never allude to it again. Thank you for your frankness. Bella, you will be careful not to mention this to young friends; girls gossip sadly, and it would annoy Lady Sydney beyond everything to have this talked of."
"Very neighborly of Lady S. to send the dangerous young lady here, where there are two young gentlemen to be captivated. I wonder why she didn't keep Sydney after she had caught him," murmured Coventry to his cousin.
"Because she had the utmost conte
irs. His footsteps crossed the hall, and there was a pause at the door; I drew a long, sick breath with difficulty, and saw my face white in a little mirror, and he came in and stood at the door. There was an unutterable horror shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by holding the back of a chair with one hand, his lower lip trembled like a horse's, and he gulped and stammered unintelligible sounds before he spoke.
"I have seen that man," he began in a dry whisper. "I have been sitting in his presence for the last hour. My God! And I am alive and in my senses! I, who have dealt with death all my life, and have dabbled with the melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. But not this, oh! not this," and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut out the sight of something before him.
"Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester," he said with more composure. "I can do nothing in this house. Good-bye."
As I watched him totter down the steps; and along the pavement towards his house, it se
ll ask me for proof." He paused. "And if you could give them proof, or if this Sir Giles would let them have it, do you think they would restore it to us?"
"Will you at least try, sir?" Ali asked.
"Why, no," the Ambassador answered. "No, I do not think I will even try. It is but the word of Hajji Ibrahim here. Had he not known of the treachery of his kinsmen and come to England by the same boat as Giles Tumulty we should have known very little of what had happened, and that vaguely. But as it is, we were warned of what you call the sacrilege, and now you have talked to him, and you are convinced. But what shall I say to the Foreign Minister? No; I do not think I will try."
"You do not believe it," the Hajji said. "You do not believe that this is the Crown of Suleiman or that Allah put a mystery into it when His Permission bestowed it on the King?"
The Ambassador considered. "I have known you a long while," he said thoughtfully, "and I will tell you what I believe. I know that your
tal conflict of life, within the possibilities of the human mind as we know it. We permit ourselves also a free hand with all the apparatus of existence that man has, so to speak, made for himself, with houses, roads, clothing, canals, machinery, with laws, boundaries, conventions, and traditions, with schools, with literature and religious organisation, with creeds and customs, with everything, in fact, that it lies within man's power to alter. That, indeed, is the cardinal assumption of all Utopian speculations old and new; the Republic and Laws of Plato, and More's Utopia, Howells' implicit Altruria, and Bellamy's future Boston, Comte's great Western Republic, Hertzka's Freeland, Cabet's Icaria, and Campanella's City of the Sun, are built, just as we shall build, upon that, upon the hypothesis of the complete emancipation of a community of men from tradition, from habits, from legal bonds, and that subtler servitude possessions entail. And much of the essential value of all such speculations lies in this a
and toAgatha, who was looking charming in white and pink,with glittering wheat-ears in her hair, when Wilsoncame twitching at my sleeve.
"You want something positive, Gilroy," said he, drawingme apart into a corner. "My dear fellow, I have aphenomenon--a phenomenon!"
I should have been more impressed had I not heard thesame before. His sanguine spirit turns every fire-flyinto a star.
"No possible question about the bona fides this time,"said he, in answer, perhaps, to some little gleam ofamusement in my eyes. "My wife has known her for manyyears. They both come from Trinidad, you know. MissPenclosa has only been in England a month or two, andknows no one outside the university circle, but Iassure you that the things she has told us suffice inthemselves to establish clairvoyance upon an absolutelyscientific basis. There is nothing like her, amateuror professional. Come and be introduced!"
I like none of these mystery-mongers, but the amateurleast of all. With the paid perfo
the saloon he heard a snicker from behind him. He, thinking it was one of his late tormentors, paid no attention to it. Then a cynical, biting laugh stung him. He wheeled, to see Shorty leaning against a tree, a sneering leer on his flushed face. Shorty's right hand was suspended above his holster, hooked to his belt by the thumb-a favorite position of his when expecting trouble.
"One of yore reg'lar habits?" he drawled.
Jimmy began to dust himself in silence, but his lips were compressed to a thin white line.
"Does they hurt yu?" pursued the onlooker.
Jimmy looked up. "I heard tell that they make glue outen cayuses, sometimes," he remarked.
Shorty's eyes flashed. The loss of the horse had been rankling in his heart all day.
"Does they git yu frequent?" he asked. His voice sounded hard.
"Oh, `bout as frequent as yu lose a cayuse, I reckon," replied Jimmy hotly.
Shorty's hand streaked to his holster and Jimmy followed his lead. Jimmy's Colt was caught. He
y rankling in my heart, picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness of a New York slum I longed for steak and stout, slippers and a pipe, with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul.
It was a wild, black kind of night, and the weirdness of it showed up as I passed from light to light or crossed the mouths of dim alleys leading Heaven knows to what infernal dens of mystery and crime even in this latter-day city of ours. The moon was up as far as the church steeples; large vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and her, and a strong, gusty wind, laden with big raindrops snarled angrily round corners and sighed in the parapets like strange voices talking about things not of human interest.
It made no difference to me, of course. New York in this year of grace is not the place for the supernatural be the time never so fit for witch-riding and the night wind in the chimney-stacks sound never so much like the last gurgling cries of throttled men. No! the world was ver
fell sick, remote from assistance, in the solitude of their country houses.
Thus did the plague spread over England with unexampled rapidity, after it had first broken out in the county of Dorset, whence it advanced through the counties of Devon and Somerset, to Bristol, and thence reached Gloucester, Oxford and London. Probably few places escaped, perhaps not any; for the annuals of contemporaries report that throughout the land only a tenth part of the inhabitants remained alive.
From England the contagion was carried by a ship to Bergen, the capital of Norway, where the plague then broke out in its most frightful form, with vomiting of blood; and throughout the whole country, spared not more than a third of the inhabitants. The sailors found no refuge in their ships; and vessels were often seen driving about on the ocean and drifting on shore, whose crews had perished to the last man.
In Poland the affected were attacked with spitting blood, and died in a few days in such vast numbers
e city council was backed by a large body of serious opinion throughout the country. A proof of this, if proof were needed, is to be found in the circumstances that gave rise to the Apologie of Sidney.
The attack on the stage had been opened by the corporation and the clergy. It was soon joined by the men of letters. And the essay of Sidney was an answer neither to a town councillor, nor to a preacher, but to a former dramatist and actor. This was Stephen Gosson, author of the School of Abuse. The style of Gosson's pamphlet is nothing if not literary. It is full of the glittering conceits and the fluent rhetoric which the ready talent of Lyly had just brought into currency. It is euphuism of the purest water, with all the merits and all the drawbacks of the euphuistic manner. For that very reason the blow was felt the more keenly. It was violently resented as treason by the playwrights and journalists who still professed to reckon Gosson among their ranks. [Footnote: Lodge writes, "I