Ellery H. Clark

“ Twilight was falling over The Birches, and Edward Carleton, seated alone on the piazza, gazed out over the darkening fields into a world of ever blending shadows and onward creeping dusk. Always, as long as the weather permitted, after his evening meal, he loved to sit there, puffing quietly at his big, old-fashioned, curved pipe, and letting his memory roam back at will through scene after scene from the long years that now lay behind him; or sometimes, more rarely, living in the present, content merely to gaze out on blossoming flower, and tree in full leaf ”

“ Gordon ran quickly up the stairs, silently extinguished the flickering gas jet in the hall, and knocked softly on the door. There was a moment of suspense, then a faint noise from within, and in another instant the door was opened, and Annie Holton, her light wrap drawn closely around her, stood before him.
Dim as was the light within, it was far brighter than the darkness in the hallway, so that for a moment the girl could hardly distinguish the tall figure, muffled in the long overcoat, that stood without. Then Gordon took a quick step forward. ”

“ Atherton, still under the spell of Blagden's eloquence, was gazing forth upon the crowded thoroughfare, with its hurrying throngs of pedestrians, and its multitude of motors, passing and repassing incessantly under the glare and brilliance of the bright white lights.
"I think," he slowly answered, "that anything is possible. Blagden is right. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred live and die in a rut. It has to be so; that is life. ”

“ By automobile, by coach and carriage, by steam yacht and railroad train and electric car, even by bicycle and on foot the crowds surged and flocked and fought their way, until by two o'clock thirty thousand people crowded grandstand and betting ring and paddock, keen, alert, active, on tiptoe with eagerness to see the Essex run.
High up in the grandstand Major McMurtrie, a trifle flushed, more than a trifle excited, eloquent in the extreme, seated himself beside Rose Ashton and Gordon, and with a wealth of gesture fought and refought for their benefit the bygone Handicaps of twenty years. ”

“ Henry Carleton had now perfectly regained his self-possession. He gazed at the young man with benevolence in his eye. “Yes, yes,” he assented, a little dreamily, “love, of course; that’s the great essential. With that I thoroughly agree. And yet, while with me Rose’s wishes are the first consideration—no, rather I should say the only consideration—still, as I understand you to say yourself, it must equally be a point of proper pride with every man to know that he is earning an honest living, amply sufficient for all future needs. I take it that you would hardly quarrel with that, Mr. Vaughan?” ”

“ Mills agreed, "but what kind of adventures are we going to have?"
"Oh, Tubby, Tubby," cried Blagden. "If there's a more prosaic man in the world than you are, I'd like to see him. Why, you miss the point of the whole thing. If we knew just what was going to happen to us, every day of our lives, where would the fun be? Where would be the romance, the thrill? If you could see an adventure coming half a mile down the road, then it wouldn't be an adventure; it has to bump into you from right around the corner. ”

“ Gordon sat motionless, his face showing no sign of emotion, but his race-card was torn in his hands, and his nails were gripped deep into the flesh. The girl, her lips parted, her breath coming in little gasps, oblivious of everything else, sat with eyes riveted on the flying Highlander, Bowman's crimson jacket gleaming, as the little jockey, riding far forward, brought into play the last ounce of skill and cunning for which he was famous as, nearing the wire at every stride, he lifted his willing mount along. ”

“ He seemed, indeed, to be not so much a human being as the living embodiment of all known rules of social etiquette, condensed, as it were, into the final perfect expression of a type, before whom and whose vast store of knowledge one could only bow, humbly praying that the mistakes of honest ignorance might graciously be forgiven. Helmar, following in his wake, felt properly sensible of the honor done him, as he was ushered up the broad, winding staircase to the entrance of the big square room at the front of the house, where his guide stopped, and most decorously knocked. ”

“ Beauty everywhere, on earth and in sky; beauty, it seemed to Atherton, in perfect unison with the thoughts which filled his brain.
"Ye shall be born again." The old Biblical phrase, long forgotten, echoed and re-echoed in his mind. And in his case he knew that it was true; that the events of the last three days had altered the whole current of his being. Already the old life--the feverish hours around the ticker, the crowd of gamblers, the close, stale air of the customers' room, the glare and dazzle of the lights--all of these things seemed part and parcel of another world. ”

“ No, they would never fly again; quietly enough they lay there, their bright, glossy feathers stained with a faint crimson, their wild, bright eyes closed in death.
With a swift revulsion of feeling the girl knelt over a mallard duck and drake, the little brown mate by some trick of fate, with her dusky head lying across the neck of her bright-plumed lord. "Oh, the poor darlings!" she cried pitifully. "Oh, Dick, we can't wish them alive again."
Gordon stood silent. The faint afterglow still hung in the fading west, but elsewhere all was dark. A star or two shone far up in the blue. ”

“ Surely Henry Carleton’s little evening had been enjoyed to the full by every one. And, as it chanced, even the humblest actor in it was to have his share of luck. Tom Satterlee, with some two thirds of his journey to Mr. Sheldon’s accomplished, suddenly gripped the reins more tightly as a warning blast fell on his ears, and a moment later a big motor whizzed past him from the rear. Instantly he recognized the chauffeur, driving alone, and the next moment his cheerful hail had brought the motor to a halt. ”

“ With his jack-knife he would fashion boats from shingles, imagine them in his mind to be racing yachts, under clouds of sail, and starting them, with scrupulous fairness, amid the ripples of the stream, he would run headlong down the field, just able to keep pace with the current, and watching with breathless interest the outcome of the contest, as the tiny craft swept around promontories, skirted the shallows, and finally crossed the finish line, to be rescued with a forked stick, and carried back up the meadow to race and race again. ”