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was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

threw

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was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

disguise

How many times the word 'disguise' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

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How many times the word 'mrs' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

pursued

How many times the word 'pursued' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

sleep

How many times the word 'sleep' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

catches

How many times the word 'catches' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

going

How many times the word 'going' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

hearted

How many times the word 'hearted' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

away

How many times the word 'away' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

course

How many times the word 'course' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

gripped

How many times the word 'gripped' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

rescued

How many times the word 'rescued' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

thoughtless

How many times the word 'thoughtless' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

self

How many times the word 'self' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

free

How many times the word 'free' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

designed

How many times the word 'designed' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

while

How many times the word 'while' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

burden

How many times the word 'burden' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

calmly

How many times the word 'calmly' appears in the text?

was making her suffer; her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood, endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the cause which he had made his own. Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild, devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent. "Dear heart," he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in the soft masses of her hair, "until you came I was so d--d fatigued." He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined his haggard face. "Is it not lucky, dear heart," he said a moment or two later, "that those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a week's growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning. They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy to think of such a thing." "Percy!" she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach. "I know--I know, dear," he murmured, "what a brute I am! Ah, God did a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift." Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands with kisses, entreating her forgiveness. "Dear heart," he said merrily, "I deserve that you should leave me to rot in this abominable cage. They haven't got me yet, little woman, you know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I'll cheat them even now, never fear." "How, Percy--how?" she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching physical weakness. "Well, dear," he said simply, "to tell you the truth I have not yet thought of that all-important 'how.' I had to wait, you see, until you came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility, eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where they have failed." He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite's sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through the laugh. "Once I know that the little King of France is safe," he said, "I can think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin." Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender, emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel prison. The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his life against an ideal. For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm jaw. Then he turned again to her. "My beautiful one," he said softly, "the moments are very precious. God knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to say? "Yes, Percy, I will listen," she replied. "And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?" "I would not have courage to do aught else," she said simply. "It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved," he said, tenderly placing his thin hand over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped; "your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes, is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will you do as I ask you?" And she replied firmly and courageously: "I will do just what you ask, Percy." "God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it." CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more rose to his knees. He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him. "Dear heart," he whispered, "I want to place these papers in your care. Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come and that I could give them to you then." He paused, and that, ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips. He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after a quarter of an hour's anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes' sleep, which seemingly had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength. But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while... No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards himself for so long? "It is your turn now," he had said even then to his bitter enemy. "Yes!" Chauvelin had replied, "our turn at last. And you will not bend my fine English gentleman, we'll break you yet, never fear." It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all, in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the will, the power still unconquered. He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of his own. "This first letter is for Ffoulkes," he said. "It relates to the final measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my instructions." "But the Dauphin surely is safe now," she urged. "Ffoulkes and the others are here in order to help you." "To help me, dear heart?" he interposed earnestly. "God alone can do that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in crushing out of me within the next ten days." Ten days! "I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after that, we shall see." "Percy," she exclaimed in an agony of horror, "you cannot endure this another day--and live!" "Nay!" he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance, "there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For the rest, 'tis in God's hands!" he added more gently. "Dear heart! you swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes' earnest appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out of France, and I'll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!" "Percy!" she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, "you speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own. Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious life for a forlorn cause? "I am very tough, m'dear," he said lightly; "'tis not a question of life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in this d--d hole; but what of that?" Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her solicitude. "I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of," he said gaily. "You cheat yourself, Percy," she rejoined with quiet earnestness. "Every day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life. But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life, is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own people?" She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper. Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers, the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the death-sentence of the man she loved. But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing one another, driven by the gale. "Poor mite," he murmured softly; "he walked so bravely by my side, until the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save." Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words: "It is accomplished." "But the Dauphin is safe enough now," was all that she said, after that one moment's silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened to break it at last. "Yes!" he rejoined quietly, "safe enough for the moment. But he would be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered. His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones. There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft, and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff. Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after myself, never fear." He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the excitement that Marguerite's presence had called forth, was threatening to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to speak. "If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep," he murmured involuntarily, "I could have held out until--" Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach. "Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute," he said, whilst the ghost of a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. "Dear soul, I must have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles, whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don't know how many minutes longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about Armand--" "Armand!" she cried. A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory. "We have no news of Armand," she said. "Sir Andrew has searched all the prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain at every thought of Armand." A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed like a shadow over her husband's face. But the shadow lifted in a moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her: "Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand." "Jeanne Lange!" she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of her voice, "the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother's folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on us all." "Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe, and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--" He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical look crept into his eyes. "I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety," he said after a slight pause, "but since then she has been set entirely free." "Free?" "Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news," he replied with a quick, mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "He had to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for Armand, they'll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter," he added, pressing a smaller packet into her hand, "is for him. Give it to him, dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she said simply. "I promise." Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt. "Then there is one thing more," he said. "There are others in this cruel city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you will--" "I promise, Percy," she said once more. "Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering, loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you will go, will you not?" "Yes, Percy," she replied. "I will go; I have promised." "Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes will drive the little party to Achard's farm in St. Germain, where other members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish. Achard's farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if... I know--I know, dear," he added with infinite tenderness. "See I do not even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either Achard's farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes's protection, until the time when I myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart," he entreated, smothering with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips; "it is all in God's hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear, dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur this promise now." And for the third time she reiterated firmly: "I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise on your precious life to do what you ask." He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying peremptorily: "That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; 'tis time you interfered." "Three minutes more, citizen," was the curt reply. "Three minutes, you devils," murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst a sudden light which even Marguerite's keen gaze failed to interpret leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand. Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed firmly on hers. "Put this in your kerchief, my beloved," he whispered. "Let it rest on your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step. Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the others orders to exchange the Dauphin's life for mine; then, when mine own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded. Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend." Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he desired. His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm. "Dear heart," he murmured, "do not look on me with those dear, scared eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake." He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety illumined his whole personality. "Do not look so sad, little woman," he said with a strange and sudden recrudescence of power; "those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even now." Then he went down like a log. The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he had said had puzzled her; but the word "shame" coming from his own lips as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes would never waver either. Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily. But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and determination. There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell. "Hola, citizen! Wake up," shouted one of the men; "you have not told us yet what you have done with Capet!" Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with a beautiful

escape

How many times the word 'escape' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

harbour

How many times the word 'harbour' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

ravine

How many times the word 'ravine' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

aside

How many times the word 'aside' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

licking

How many times the word 'licking' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

future

How many times the word 'future' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

down

How many times the word 'down' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

incorrigible

How many times the word 'incorrigible' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

sight

How many times the word 'sight' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

possible

How many times the word 'possible' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

bring

How many times the word 'bring' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

abruptly

How many times the word 'abruptly' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

mitchell

How many times the word 'mitchell' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

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How many times the word 'mozo' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

such

How many times the word 'such' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

looked

How many times the word 'looked' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

humiliated

How many times the word 'humiliated' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

workmen

How many times the word 'workmen' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

thick

How many times the word 'thick' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

remember

How many times the word 'remember' appears in the text?

was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who was building it, for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light." "I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison." "The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humour. As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough for her as long as it was Nostromo's suggestion. She could wait for her Gian' Battista's good pleasure there as well as anywhere else. My opinion is that she was always in love with that incorruptible Capataz. Moreover, both father and sister were anxious to get Giselle away from the attentions of a certain Ramirez." "Ah!" said Mrs. Gould, interested. "Ramirez? What sort of man is that?" "Just a mozo of the town. His father was a Cargador. As a lanky boy he ran about the wharf in rags, till Nostromo took him up and made a man of him. When he got a little older, he put him into a lighter and very soon gave him charge of the No. 3 boat--the boat which took the silver away, Mrs. Gould. Nostromo selected that lighter for the work because she was the best sailing and the strongest boat of all the Company's fleet. Young Ramirez was one of the five Cargadores entrusted with the removal of the treasure from the Custom House on that famous night. As the boat he had charge of was sunk, Nostromo, on leaving the Company's service, recommended him to Captain Mitchell for his successor. He had trained him in the routine of work perfectly, and thus Mr. Ramirez, from a starving waif, becomes a man and the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores." "Thanks to Nostromo," said Mrs. Gould, with warm approval. "Thanks to Nostromo," repeated Dr. Monygham. "Upon my word, the fellow's power frightens me when I think of it. That our poor old Mitchell was only too glad to appoint somebody trained to the work, who saved him trouble, is not surprising. What is wonderful is the fact that the Sulaco Cargadores accepted Ramirez for their chief, simply because such was Nostromo's good pleasure. Of course, he is not a second Nostromo, as he fondly imagined he would be; but still, the position was brilliant enough. It emboldened him to make up to Giselle Viola, who, you know, is the recognized beauty of the town. The old Garibaldino, however, took a violent dislike to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was not a model of perfection like his Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened him with his gun once." "But what of Giselle herself?" asked Mrs. Gould. "She's a bit of a flirt, I believe," said the doctor. "I don't think she cared much one way or another. Of course she likes men's attentions. Ramirez was not the only one, let me tell you, Mrs. Gould. There was one engineer, at least, on the railway staff who got warned off with a gun, too. Old Viola does not allow any trifling with his honour. He has grown uneasy and suspicious since his wife died. He was very pleased to remove his youngest girl away from the town. But look what happens, Mrs. Gould. Ramirez, the honest, lovelorn swain, is forbidden the island. Very well. He respects the prohibition, but naturally turns his eyes frequently towards the Great Isabel. It seems as though he had been in the habit of gazing late at night upon the light. And during these sentimental vigils he discovers that Nostromo, Captain Fidanza that is, returns very late from his visits to the Violas. As late as midnight at times." The doctor paused and stared meaningly at Mrs. Gould. "Yes. But I don't understand," she began, looking puzzled. "Now comes the strange part," went on Dr. Monygham. "Viola, who is king on his island, will allow no visitor on it after dark. Even Captain Fidanza has got to leave after sunset, when Linda has gone up to tend the light. And Nostromo goes away obediently. But what happens afterwards? What does he do in the gulf between half-past six and midnight? He has been seen more than once at that late hour pulling quietly into the harbour. Ramirez is devoured by jealousy. He dared not approach old Viola; but he plucked up courage to rail at Linda about it on Sunday morning as she came on the mainland to hear mass and visit her mother's grave. There was a scene on the wharf, which, as a matter of fact, I witnessed. It was early morning. He must have been waiting for her on purpose. I was there by the merest chance, having been called to an urgent consultation by the doctor of the German gunboat in the harbour. She poured wrath, scorn, and flame upon Ramirez, who seemed out of his mind. It was a strange sight, Mrs. Gould: the long jetty, with this raving Cargador in his crimson sash and the girl all in black, at the end; the early Sunday morning quiet of the harbour in the shade of the mountains; nothing but a canoe or two moving between the ships at anchor, and the German gunboat's gig coming to take me off. Linda passed me within a foot. I noticed her wild eyes. I called out to her. She never heard me. She never saw me. But I looked at her face. It was awful in its anger and wretchedness." Mrs. Gould sat up, opening her eyes very wide. "What do you mean, Dr. Monygham? Do you mean to say that you suspect the younger sister?" "Quien sabe! Who can tell?" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders like a born Costaguanero. "Ramirez came up to me on the wharf. He reeled--he looked insane. He took his head into his hands. He had to talk to someone--simply had to. Of course for all his mad state he recognized me. People know me well here. I have lived too long amongst them to be anything else but the evil-eyed doctor, who can cure all the ills of the flesh, and bring bad luck by a glance. He came up to me. He tried to be calm. He tried to make it out that he wanted merely to warn me against Nostromo. It seems that Captain Fidanza at some secret meeting or other had mentioned me as the worst despiser of all the poor--of the people. It's very possible. He honours me with his undying dislike. And a word from the great Fidanza may be quite enough to send some fool's knife into my back. The Sanitary Commission I preside over is not in favour with the populace. 'Beware of him, senor doctor. Destroy him, senor doctor,' Ramirez hissed right into my face. And then he broke out. 'That man,' he spluttered, 'has cast a spell upon both these girls.' As to himself, he had said too much. He must run away now--run away and hide somewhere. He moaned tenderly about Giselle, and then called her names that cannot be repeated. If he thought she could be made to love him by any means, he would carry her off from the island. Off into the woods. But it was no good. . . . He strode away, flourishing his arms above his head. Then I noticed an old negro, who had been sitting behind a pile of cases, fishing from the wharf. He wound up his lines and slunk away at once. But he must have heard something, and must have talked, too, because some of the old Garibaldino's railway friends, I suppose, warned him against Ramirez. At any rate, the father has been warned. But Ramirez has disappeared from the town." "I feel I have a duty towards these girls," said Mrs. Gould, uneasily. "Is Nostromo in Sulaco now?" "He is, since last Sunday." "He ought to be spoken to--at once." "Who will dare speak to him? Even the love-mad Ramirez runs away from the mere shadow of Captain Fidanza." "I can. I will," Mrs. Gould declared. "A word will be enough for a man like Nostromo." The doctor smiled sourly. "He must end this situation which lends itself to----I can't believe it of that child," pursued Mrs. Gould. "He's very attractive," muttered the doctor, gloomily. "He'll see it, I am sure. He must put an end to all this by marrying Linda at once," pronounced the first lady of Sulaco with immense decision. Through the garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder--his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista and the head mozo of the Casa Gould had been married for some years now. He remained squatting on his heels for a time, gazing fondly at his offspring, which returned his stare with imperturbable gravity; then, solemn and respectable, walked down the path. "What is it, Basilio?" asked Mrs. Gould. "A telephone came through from the office of the mine. The master remains to sleep at the mountain to-night." Dr. Monygham had got up and stood looking away. A profound silence reigned for a time under the shade of the biggest trees in the lovely gardens of the Casa Gould. "Very well, Basilio," said Mrs. Gould. She watched him walk away along the path, step aside behind the flowering bush, and reappear with the child seated on his shoulder. He passed through the gateway between the garden and the patio with measured steps, careful of his light burden. The doctor, with his back to Mrs. Gould, contemplated a flower-bed away in the sunshine. People believed him scornful and soured. The truth of his nature consisted in his capacity for passion and in the sensitiveness of his temperament. What he lacked was the polished callousness of men of the world, the callousness from which springs an easy tolerance for oneself and others; the tolerance wide as poles asunder from true sympathy and human compassion. This want of callousness accounted for his sardonic turn of mind and his biting speeches. In profound silence, and glaring viciously at the brilliant flower-bed, Dr. Monygham poured mental imprecations on Charles Gould's head. Behind him the immobility of Mrs. Gould added to the grace of her seated figure the charm of art, of an attitude caught and interpreted for ever. Turning abruptly, the doctor took his leave. Mrs. Gould leaned back in the shade of the big trees planted in a circle. She leaned back with her eyes closed and her white hands lying idle on the arms of her seat. The half-light under the thick mass of leaves brought out the youthful prettiness of her face; made the clear, light fabrics and white lace of her dress appear luminous. Small and dainty, as if radiating a light of her own in the deep shade of the interlaced boughs, she resembled a good fairy, weary with a long career of well-doing, touched by the withering suspicion of the uselessness of her labours, the powerlessness of her magic. Had anybody asked her of what she was thinking, alone in the garden of the Casa, with her husband at the mine and the house closed to the street like an empty dwelling, her frankness would have had to evade the question. It had come into her mind that for life to be large and full, it must contain the care of the past and of the future in every passing moment of the present. Our daily work must be done to the glory of the dead, and for the good of those who come after. She thought that, and sighed without opening her eyes--without moving at all. Mrs. Gould's face became set and rigid for a second, as if to receive, without flinching, a great wave of loneliness that swept over her head. And it came into her mind, too, that no one would ever ask her with solicitude what she was thinking of. No one. No one, but perhaps the man who had just gone away. No; no one who could be answered with careless sincerity in the ideal perfection of confidence. The word "incorrigible"--a word lately pronounced by Dr. Monygham--floated into her still and sad immobility. Incorrigible in his devotion to the great silver mine was the Senor Administrador! Incorrigible in his hard, determined service of the material interests to which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice. Poor boy! She had a clear vision of the grey hairs on his temples. He was perfect--perfect. What more could she have expected? It was a colossal and lasting success; and love was only a short moment of forgetfulness, a short intoxication, whose delight one remembered with a sense of sadness, as if it had been a deep grief lived through. There was something inherent in the necessities of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the idea. She saw the San Tome mountain hanging over the Campo, over the whole land, feared, hated, wealthy; more soulless than any tyrant, more pitiless and autocratic than the worst Government; ready to crush innumerable lives in the expansion of its greatness. He did not see it. He could not see it. It was not his fault. He was perfect, perfect; but she would never have him to herself. Never; not for one short hour altogether to herself in this old Spanish house she loved so well! Incorrigible, the last of the Corbelans, the last of the Avellanos, the doctor had said; but she saw clearly the San Tome mine possessing, consuming, burning up the life of the last of the Costaguana Goulds; mastering the energetic spirit of the son as it had mastered the lamentable weakness of the father. A terrible success for the last of the Goulds. The last! She had hoped for a long, long time, that perhaps----But no! There were to be no more. An immense desolation, the dread of her own continued life, descended upon the first lady of Sulaco. With a prophetic vision she saw herself surviving alone the degradation of her young ideal of life, of love, of work--all alone in the Treasure House of the World. The profound, blind, suffering expression of a painful dream settled on her face with its closed eyes. In the indistinct voice of an unlucky sleeper lying passive in the grip of a merciless nightmare, she stammered out aimlessly the words-- "Material interest." CHAPTER TWELVE Nostromo had been growing rich very slowly. It was an effect of his prudence. He could command himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day's delay. Sometimes during a week's stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. A transgression, a crime, entering a man's existence, eats it up like a malignant growth, consumes it like a fever. Nostromo had lost his peace; the genuineness of all his qualities was destroyed. He felt it himself, and often cursed the silver of San Tome. His courage, his magnificence, his leisure, his work, everything was as before, only everything was a sham. But the treasure was real. He clung to it with a more tenacious, mental grip. But he hated the feel of the ingots. Sometimes, after putting away a couple of them in his cabin--the fruit of a secret night expedition to the Great Isabel--he would look fixedly at his fingers, as if surprised they had left no stain on his skin. He had found means of disposing of the silver bars in distant ports. The necessity to go far afield made his coasting voyages long, and caused his visits to the Viola household to be rare and far between. He was fated to have his wife from there. He had said so once to Giorgio himself. But the Garibaldino had put the subject aside with a majestic wave of his hand, clutching a smouldering black briar-root pipe. There was plenty of time; he was not the man to force his girls upon anybody. As time went on, Nostromo discovered his preference for the younger of the two. They had some profound similarities of nature, which must exist for complete confidence and understanding, no matter what outward differences of temperament there may be to exercise their own fascination of contrast. His wife would have to know his secret or else life would be impossible. He was attracted by Giselle, with her candid gaze and white throat, pliable, silent, fond of excitement under her quiet indolence; whereas Linda, with her intense, passionately pale face, energetic, all fire and words, touched with gloom and scorn, a chip of the old block, true daughter of the austere republican, but with Teresa's voice, inspired him with a deep-seated mistrust. Moreover, the poor girl could not conceal her love for Gian' Battista. He could see it would be violent, exacting, suspicious, uncompromising--like her soul. Giselle, by her fair but warm beauty, by the surface placidity of her nature holding a promise of submissiveness, by the charm of her girlish mysteriousness, excited his passion and allayed his fears as to the future. His absences from Sulaco were long. On returning from the longest of them, he made out lighters loaded with blocks of stone lying under the cliff of the Great Isabel; cranes and scaffolding above; workmen's figures moving about, and a small lighthouse already rising from its foundations on the edge of the cliff. At this unexpected, undreamt-of, startling sight, he thought himself lost irretrievably. What could save him from detection now? Nothing! He was struck with amazed dread at this turn of chance, that would kindle a far-reaching light upon the only secret spot of his life; that life whose very essence, value, reality, consisted in its reflection from the admiring eyes of men. All of it but that thing which was beyond common comprehension; which stood between him and the power that hears and gives effect to the evil intention of curses. It was dark. Not every man had such a darkness. And they were going to put a light there. A light! He saw it shining upon disgrace, poverty, contempt. Somebody was sure to. . . . Perhaps somebody had already. . . . The incomparable Nostromo, the Capataz, the respected and feared Captain Fidanza, the unquestioned patron of secret societies, a republican like old Giorgio, and a revolutionist at heart (but in another manner), was on the point of jumping overboard from the deck of his own schooner. That man, subjective almost to insanity, looked suicide deliberately in the face. But he never lost his head. He was checked by the thought that this was no escape. He imagined himself dead, and the disgrace, the shame going on. Or, rather, properly speaking, he could not imagine himself dead. He was possessed too strongly by the sense of his own existence, a thing of infinite duration in its changes, to grasp the notion of finality. The earth goes on for ever. And he was courageous. It was a corrupt courage, but it was as good for his purposes as the other kind. He sailed close to the cliff of the Great Isabel, throwing a penetrating glance from the deck at the mouth of the ravine, tangled in an undisturbed growth of bushes. He sailed close enough to exchange hails with the workmen, shading their eyes on the edge of the sheer drop of the cliff overhung by the jib-head of a powerful crane. He perceived that none of them had any occasion even to approach the ravine where the silver lay hidden; let alone to enter it. In the harbour he learned that no one slept on the island. The labouring gangs returned to port every evening, singing chorus songs in the empty lighters towed by a harbour tug. For the moment he had nothing to fear. But afterwards? he asked himself. Later, when a keeper came to live in the cottage that was being built some hundred and fifty yards back from the low lighttower, and four hundred or so from the dark, shaded, jungly ravine, containing the secret of his safety, of his influence, of his magnificence, of his power over the future, of his defiance of ill-luck, of every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike--what then? He could never shake off the treasure. His audacity, greater than that of other men, had welded that vein of silver into his life. And the feeling of fearful and ardent subjection, the feeling of his slavery--so irremediable and profound that often, in his thoughts, he compared himself to the legendary Gringos, neither dead nor alive, bound down to their conquest of unlawful wealth on Azuera--weighed heavily on the independent Captain Fidanza, owner and master of a coasting schooner, whose smart appearance (and fabulous good-luck in trading) were so well known along the western seaboard of a vast continent. Fiercely whiskered and grave, a shade less supple in his walk, the vigour and symmetry of his powerful limbs lost in the vulgarity of a brown tweed suit, made by Jews in the slums of London, and sold by the clothing department of the Compania Anzani, Captain Fidanza was seen in the streets of Sulaco attending to his business, as usual, that trip. And, as usual, he allowed it to get about that he had made a great profit on his cargo. It was a cargo of salt fish, and Lent was approaching. He was seen in tramcars going to and fro between the town and the harbour; he talked with people in a cafe or two in his measured, steady voice. Captain Fidanza was seen. The generation that would know nothing of the famous ride to Cayta was not born yet. Nostromo, the miscalled Capataz de Cargadores, had made for himself, under his rightful name, another public existence, but modified by the new conditions, less picturesque, more difficult to keep up in the increased size and varied population of Sulaco, the progressive capital of the Occidental Republic. Captain Fidanza, unpicturesque, but always a little mysterious, was recognized quite sufficiently under the lofty glass and iron roof of the Sulaco railway station. He took a local train, and got out in Rincon, where he visited the widow of the Cargador who had died of his wounds (at the dawn of the New Era, like Don Jose Avellanos) in the patio of the Casa Gould. He consented to sit down and drink a glass of cool lemonade in the hut, while the woman, standing up, poured a perfect torrent of words to which he did not listen. He left some money with her, as usual. The orphaned children, growing up and well schooled, calling him uncle, clamoured for his blessing. He gave that, too; and in the doorway paused for a moment to look at the flat face of the San Tome mountain with a faint frown. This slight contraction of his bronzed brow casting a marked tinge of severity upon his usual unbending expression, was observed at the Lodge which he attended--but went away before the banquet. He wore it at the meeting of some good comrades, Italians and Occidentals, assembled in his honour under the presidency of an indigent, sickly, somewhat hunchbacked little photographer, with a white face and a magnanimous soul dyed crimson by a bloodthirsty hate of all capitalists, oppressors of the two hemispheres. The heroic Giorgio Viola, old revolutionist, would have understood nothing of his opening speech; and Captain Fidanza, lavishly generous as usual to some poor comrades, made no speech at all. He had listened, frowning, with his mind far away, and walked off unapproachable, silent, like a man full of cares. His frown deepened as, in the early morning, he watched the stone-masons go off to the Great Isabel, in lighters loaded with squared blocks of stone, enough to add another course to the squat light-tower. That was the rate of the work. One course per day. And Captain Fidanza meditated. The presence of strangers on the island would cut him completely off the treasure. It had been difficult and dangerous enough before. He was afraid, and he was angry. He thought with the resolution of a master and the cunning of a cowed slave. Then he went ashore. He was a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established on the Great Isabel, there would be no need for concealment. He would be able to go openly, in daylight, to see his daughters--one of his daughters--and stay late talking to the old Garibaldino. Then in the dark . . . Night after night . . . He would dare to grow rich quicker now. He yearned to clasp, embrace, absorb, subjugate in unquestioned possession this treasure, whose tyranny had weighed upon his mind, his actions, his very sleep. He went to see his friend Captain Mitchell--and the thing was done as Dr. Monygham had related to Mrs. Gould. When the project was mooted to the Garibaldino, something like the faint reflection, the dim ghost of a very ancient smile, stole under the white and enormous moustaches of the old hater of kings and ministers. His daughters were the object of his anxious care. The younger, especially. Linda, with her mother's voice, had taken more her mother's place. Her deep, vibrating "Eh, Padre?" seemed, but for the change of the word, the very echo of the impassioned, remonstrating "Eh, Giorgio?" of poor Signora Teresa. It was his fixed opinion that the town was no proper place for his girls. The infatuated but guileless Ramirez was the object of his profound aversion, as resuming the sins of the country whose people were blind, vile esclavos. On his return from his next voyage, Captain Fidanza found the Violas settled in the light-keeper's cottage. His knowledge of Giorgio's idiosyncrasies had not played him false. The Garibaldino had refused to entertain the idea of any companion whatever, except his girls. And Captain Mitchell, anxious to please his poor Nostromo, with that felicity of inspiration which only true affection can give, had formally appointed Linda Viola as under-keeper of the Isabel's Light. "The light is private property," he used to explain. "It belongs to my Company. I've the power to nominate whom I like, and Viola it shall be. It's about the only thing Nostromo--a man worth his weight in gold, mind you--has ever asked me to do for him." Directly his schooner was anchored opposite the New Custom House, with its sham air of a Greek temple, flatroofed, with a colonnade, Captain Fidanza went pulling his small boat out of the harbour, bound for the Great Isabel, openly in the light of a declining day, before all men's eyes, with a sense of having mastered the fates. He must establish a regular position. He would ask him for his daughter now. He thought of Giselle as he pulled. Linda loved him, perhaps, but the old man would be glad to keep the elder, who had his wife's voice. He did not pull for the narrow strand where he had landed with Decoud,

seated

How many times the word 'seated' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

those

How many times the word 'those' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

new

How many times the word 'new' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

wife

How many times the word 'wife' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

primrose

How many times the word 'primrose' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

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was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

ga.type

How many times the word 'ga.type' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

preferring

How many times the word 'preferring' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

ni

How many times the word 'ni' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

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was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

english

How many times the word 'english' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

demons

How many times the word 'demons' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

youth

How many times the word 'youth' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

distrusted

How many times the word 'distrusted' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

whereon

How many times the word 'whereon' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

months

How many times the word 'months' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

courteous

How many times the word 'courteous' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

doctrine

How many times the word 'doctrine' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

regia

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was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

kisses

How many times the word 'kisses' appears in the text?

was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a sudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at all; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any such like actions. The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some laughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the demons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown down. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work. --LILLY'S _Life and Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have possessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in 1651-2 published _Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of Eclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World. The edition of 1652 is inscribed, to his father. It would appear, as indeed it might be argued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer had omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his dedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue. From these expressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a follower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his son, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity of being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT This excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive, but we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of Scripture, that being dead he yet speaketh. We have already mentioned, in the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder; the few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was the eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of some consequence in East Lothian. His father enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He was, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to propitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot of 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of his own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable burgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the Queen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly L40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with the distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James Primrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by her dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first year. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George Heriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master, on the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years. His picture, (copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in the prime of life, is thus described: His fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it. --_Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting, that his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's Church, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector, has, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:-- Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612. Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the Cathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied the space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue. In the south aisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument, bearing the following inscription:-- _ Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii, Regia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis, filiae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu instructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER, Regis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non sine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in ipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui desiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa Jacet crudo abruta fato, Intempestivas Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos Annorum impleverat orbes, Pulchra, pudica, Patris delicium atque viri: Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam Mater, decessit, et inde Cura dolorq: Patri, Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen Tantum translata recessit; Nunc Rosa prima Poli Quae fuit antea soli. _ The loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so interesting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune to a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of _Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p. 39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND The English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James on account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at his coming first out of Scotland, but, says Osborne, which, through his whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the Tweed. Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published by the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's own diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and unpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors, and as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be. But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on the disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign, by causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or independent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in the opinion and conceit of all beholders, but idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies. It was even in vain that the vessels which brought up this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and confiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as one of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring payment of auld debts due to them by the King, which, it is observed with great _naivete_, is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing to his Majesty. The expressions in the text are selected from these curious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES The dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is thus described by a contemporary:-- He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of] his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a part of dress now laid aside]. He would make a great deal too bold with God in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher verging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than hope, that would daily make thus bold with God. --DALZELL'S _Sketches of Scottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER It will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic Scottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of his attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be met with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the imaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal attributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the antiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the worthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of fortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising under the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his most severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around him. For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy gentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had not been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men who were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste, when he suddenly singled out one of the party:-- Auld d'ye think my coat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a braw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the trade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century. Upon another occasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a nobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused of paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions of _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as if conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he volunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that the chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's ancestors had _killed_ them, --fame ascribing the origin of the latter family to a butcher. It may be well imagined, that among a people that have been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a general acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the proud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same scope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER Mrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs. Suddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and secret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents lost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of Somerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of Somerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master, King James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using yellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders, she appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the widow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from the description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was produced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars. Compare this curious passage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651, with the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in the Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN The credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander Ruthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John Ramsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger Ruthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir Anthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the King's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time was the fifth of August, upon which, proceeds the satirical historian, Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was unserviceable to the King. Note VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM Buckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition, was always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or opposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and Lord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what seemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office of Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely, had not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word. --WELDON'S _Court of King James and Charles._ Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY About this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train. Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page. Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line Of institution, from our ancestors Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the noblest way Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefully, to speak The language pure, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market, That titles were not vended at the drum And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship; every house became An academy, and those parts We see departed in the practice now Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so, Or think so enviously? do they not still Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace, To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring In armour; to be active for the wars; To study figures, numbers and proportions, May yield them great in counsels and the art; To make their English sweet upon their tongue? As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake; To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it, And carry messages to Madam Cressid; Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house; For exercise of arms a bale of dice, And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons From off my lady's gown: These are the arts, Or seven liberal deadly sciences, Of pagery, or rather paganism, As the tides run; to which, if he apply him, He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn, A year the earlier come to read a lecture Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle. The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._ He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the greatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: The 24 of November (1567), at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol. These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of _The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:-- I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days, a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie. But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young debauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute, and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with much arrogance. 'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he, 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee 'Tis pity; For such as you esteem us least, Who ever have been ready prest To guard you and your cuckoo's nest, The City' The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. 'Of London city I am free, And there I first my wife did see, And for that very cause,' said he, 'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest, Except he say he speaks in jest, He is a villain and a beast,-- 'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade, And free of London city made, Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade, In battle. And citizens, if need require, Themselves can force the foe retire, Whatever this low country squire May prattle.' The dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_ 12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p. 150.--BURBAGE Burbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay With his whole army; look the other way, And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse, Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried. RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE This is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady, at the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of the pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The circumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time. All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that his principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE Roger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London, 1697, p.70, observes of James I., The king was excessively addicted to hunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines; and to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as much as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and though he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged his head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days after. Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on horseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself in the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take the trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on. The trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded particular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among other nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those carried by sportsmen, which is labelled, King James's Hunting Bottle, with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the King's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in his drinking; However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers, when he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he drank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high country wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or two. --_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p. 325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK I cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue: FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO _ Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo Zucchero, the King's painter._ This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit, has been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully the meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt, as described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must have taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the picture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between the King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke of Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly towards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side of the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and looks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking fiercely. Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked between him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the Prince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord L. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court, mentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then proceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour in the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a

charissimae

How many times the word 'charissimae' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

laughter

How many times the word 'laughter' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

experience

How many times the word 'experience' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

intensely

How many times the word 'intensely' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

mechanically

How many times the word 'mechanically' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

sacrifice

How many times the word 'sacrifice' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

vibration

How many times the word 'vibration' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

seclusion

How many times the word 'seclusion' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

keenly

How many times the word 'keenly' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

mysterious

How many times the word 'mysterious' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

veins

How many times the word 'veins' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

sweating

How many times the word 'sweating' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

herself

How many times the word 'herself' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

stark

How many times the word 'stark' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

drawn

How many times the word 'drawn' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

outside

How many times the word 'outside' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

buried

How many times the word 'buried' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

listened

How many times the word 'listened' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

wonderment

How many times the word 'wonderment' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

home

How many times the word 'home' appears in the text?

was now no joke. Fred was nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement. And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a figure of shame. "What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the moment they were out of the church. "Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless, half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's singing set me off." "What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he asked. "It was so loud," she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. "What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. "It was Cousin Will's singing," she said. At which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and just as quickly closing his mouth again. "Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?" asked Brangwen. "No, it's not that," said Anna. "Only it tickled me--I couldn't tell you why." And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said: "I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas." "Oh, you go to church then!" said Brangwen. "Mother does--father doesn't," replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was called on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and font, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely, passing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic screen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed to be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown Presence. Almost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and Early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. "Have you been to Southwell?" he said. "I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the bells played a hymn. "Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy, round arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way those arches travel forward. "There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main body of the church--and that north porch--" He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt bent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self. And he was ready to go back to the Marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again, there recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only half articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes it had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it hesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing, an eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young tom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he talked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything, save his own instinctive affairs? Brangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the girl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her cousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen noted angrily and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow were struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him and her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let them remove themselves, or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were, as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his life was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the cup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time she looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange, vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. "That is beautiful," said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. "Beautiful!" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. "Why, what sort of a bird does he call it?" And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. "What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got on th' butter?" When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. "Do you like it?" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white surfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a little, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him; his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks close, closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other, and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in the midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant face that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. "Come with me, Will," she said to her cousin. "I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in." "You've no need to do that," retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted into the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way, and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and crying, in a whispering, whimpering sound. "Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you." It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms, and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness, with a travelling veil of rain. "I love you, Will, I love you," she moaned, "I love you, Will." He held her as thought they were one, and was silent. In the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the girl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them, blurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the night, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of self-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he or that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. "I love you, Will, I love you." The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this darkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly, seated, thrusting him on? "I love you, Will, I love you." He trembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with fulfilment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam. Now, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight, and a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two Angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that the Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk; others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight and of dusk, farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go, towards the moon? For they were separate, single. "We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could remain there in the broad, open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. "You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on, she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She turned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned to the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming near. They worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble, weaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers. And always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew away, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her, tried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him, to a meeting, till they should be together, till they should meet as the sheaves that swished together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies against him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was setting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming near. He waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space between them, and he went away, the work carried them, rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them, why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards her, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the silence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and silence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer. Till at last, they met at the shock, facing each other, sheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a moonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. "Put yours down," she said. "No, it's your turn." His voice was twanging and insistent. She set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her, and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued her, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon her, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms, darkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for him now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be entered, all the discovery to be made. Trembling with keen triumph, his

bunches

How many times the word 'bunches' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

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was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

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was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

fortune

How many times the word 'fortune' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

they

How many times the word 'they' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

doggedly

How many times the word 'doggedly' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

psha

How many times the word 'psha' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

makes

How many times the word 'makes' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

worldly

How many times the word 'worldly' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

seemed

How many times the word 'seemed' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

how

How many times the word 'how' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

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was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

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How many times the word 'nothing' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

give

How many times the word 'give' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

amount

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was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

learned

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was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

requests

How many times the word 'requests' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

during

How many times the word 'during' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

table

How many times the word 'table' appears in the text?

was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

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was rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not comfortable. Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life, before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her; and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week, month after month, without telling herself that her father was neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that which would be necessary between them. They reached home about eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now. The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table. "Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea. "Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit. "Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of yours." "Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her. "I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor." "I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa." "I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done." "Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones." "Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?" "He will know it by this time to-morrow." "Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?" "I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth." "But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible. "No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication." "For how long do you mean?" "Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told." "No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible." "You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on." "I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so." "But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his. When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before." "As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice. "No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you." "Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly." "And yet you will marry him?" "Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it." "You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony. "That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice. "What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?" "Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it." "Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad." "To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed." "Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?" "Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need." "I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise." "You are prejudiced against him, sir." "Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?" "We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent." "Psha!" ejaculated the father. "I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things." "What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor. "A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so." "With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer. "Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer. "Though it were only with my money, even that would be something." "Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation. Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father's wishes and your father's opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you." To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it. "Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked. "No, papa." "Nothing has been said about that?" "Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it." "Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor. "I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it. When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own." "And he has accepted it?" "He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word." "Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye. Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him, the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant, in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him. Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate. He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself, was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what he said. To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without further thought of marriage? Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life, its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the world. "If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune. But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute her? "It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be an end of all question of marriage for her. As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened, and the servant announced her cousin George. CHAPTER XXXV. Passion versus Prudence. It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place, she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had had a moment allowed to her for thought. She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter, more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her. "Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest Alice!" She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise. "Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace. She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?" She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her, and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment he inspired her with disgust rather than with love. "I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all." Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once offering to him the use of her purse. "Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner. Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to call me your husband." Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen, with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft winning words of love. "That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so much!" "And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of coming misery that was the most to be dreaded. "I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that former occasion. "Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones." "Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so, but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow cold." "I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man, Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be allowed to say that my heart is old." That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown very old." "Alice, that is hardly cheering to me." "You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned. Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them." There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her. Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless, or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted, he desired the luxury also. It was on a

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