Booth Tarkington

“ Then he brought it to his lips. His eyes passed around the line of faces; and as they swept by Charlton's, their exchange of glance seemed to me like the flashing of gems crossing their rays.
“A name! A name!” was the cry, as we rose to honor the toast. “A name!”
“Most willingly,” he answered, “and without encroachment on any man's prerogative. My dear cousin and old friend, George Vestries, will take only as I give—in friendship to him and his—this toast from the memory of the one innocent time in a life not too innocent. ”

“ I cried.
“I will not be taken alive,” she said. “Who loves me drinks my toast!”
Vestries fell in his chair with a groan and dropped his head on his arms. Never have I felt a more consuming pity than for that woman then. For one instant, for the merest flicker of time, she lost the bravery of her bearing, and I saw her lip quivering, her hand shaking wildly. I stepped toward her, my hand uplifted, when Jerningham thrust himself between us and caught my wrist as she gave one last look at her pitiful lover. ”

“ Are there two kinds? Is loyalty to your country to be divided from loyalty to your King?”
There was a stir among us, an oath, a sharp cry of “Treason!” and George Vestries staggered back from the table. But she lifted the long glass above her head with a joyous gesture. “To King Charles! To King Charles! A speedy end to Oliver Cromwell and his traitors! Who loves me drinks the toast!” ”

“ And then I heard George Vestries make a sort of moan; I saw his cousin's eyes flash again, and I understood who had come among us. “I will put thee to the test,” she had written. “Be ready, love, be ready.” No man stood before us, but there, uplifting her glass, girt with a soldier's arms, stained with a soldier's riding, stood the maid of Charles Stuart's court, the tragic waif, Anne Wilding. ”

“ I boast there were never soldiers more precise in their duty, nor, at that time, more devoted to Oliver; but we were concerned in the political issue, not the religious; we nourished the Republic in its cradle with our glad blood; and faith! a divine, or a ranting corporal in our camp might only curse us into sweeter drowsing. Vestries was, in seeming, a man of the temper of those who fought about me. Sooth, we all liked him, 'tis the truth; he became my near friend and familiar; and so I came to know true case between him and Anne Wilding. ”

“ But had I been George Vestries—ah, well, the old must strive for mildness; he dribbled at his fate, and the land owned him.
A party of Royalists at supper would have pledged the King in the first glass; and I saw Mistress Wilding's purpose. My duty was plain; she had borne arms against the Commonwealth, and, by her own confession, engaged in plots against it; but I was not dog enough to interrupt her before she finished with her lover and had done with what she intended. ”

“ Does ever a soldier fall without a name upon his lips as his soul is spent? It is in that final test he finds which name he loved the best—for a soldier does not live long enough to discover it before!”
“There spake the sailor!” shouted Chesley.
“Pledge the name,” Jerningham pursued, laughing. “The name you dream might come upon your lips if you fell to-night, though God forbid the thought! Drink to something better and worse than war or men. ”

“ I can sigh out no toast to a whining damsel, and, being a bad hand at carpet-dancing, let me say for you: Lord save any lady from my drinking! But since it needs be a toast gallant, I pledge not a woman, but Woman, the Creator's last gift to man—and would He had been less generous! To Woman, then! A hearty health; drink deep; much happiness to her, say I! I call the guest of honor.”
Amid a great outcry against me, his lordship rose and bowed. I have been all my life a hard republican, but I like to speak of John Lawrence by his title ”

“ I had my mouth open to say so, but Jerningham at once bade the landlord to entreat the gentleman's presence, and, almost as he spoke, the stranger appeared upon the threshold and bowed with grace, though not uncovering.
The picture he made, framed in the low doorway, I can see well to-day, here in my exile among the Dutch. Cavalier from head to foot! Not tall, delicately fashioned, a proud, slender figure wrapped in a long riding cloak; with muddy boots of buff; a long rapier in a frayed velvet scabbard ”

“ Thou needst not protest and filly-fally with a lady that is not for bearing with thee much further, yet likes thee dear. Ah, sir, my love has gone a great way; thine shrank back at the first hardship—but now comes, still reaching timid hands after me! ”

“ I may prate of conscience a little, for loyalty hath rewarded our folk sadly, making it a sore task to write to one under such arms as you bear. “Yet do I put love over conscience—nay! con science is the finer part of love! ”

“ His reputation (which had lately gone over the country) led us to expect another man, something of the rough blade, for he had commanded a sloop whose doings cost Parliament no little stress of imagination to acquit of piracy. She had fought wildly on many coasts, ever with such stirring abandon as brought her off safely; so we looked to discover in her master a spice of the bravo, but we found such flavor lacking in him. He carried about him, rather, the air of the antechamber. When he bowed, we felt the soldier, but the soldier at court ”

“ That evening I and Major Hatton, Captain Vestries, Captain Merrifield, Lieutenant Chesley, of my regiment, and Colonel Lorrimer and a half-score of other officers of a division of foot, which was quartered at Rochester, supped at “The Parliament Man,” an inn, late “The King's Arms,” redubbed again since that day. 'Tis the honest hosts of England and their signs that are the politicians' almanac.
Vestries was our host, making the feast in honor of his kinsman, Jerningham, who had just come up from the sea (where he had served our cause) to join us at Rochester. ”

“ Charlton, as if desirous of causing him to feel one of us, and apparently much taken, as were we all, with the odd charm of the stranger's presence. The latter gave him a quick smile, but I observed that his eyes turned sharply from Jerningham to the Captain, who was bent low over the table, his head in his hands.
“I would not offend against your patience,” said my lord. “Reproach me, but not her I honor, if the toast be long. Brothers of the board, Colonel Breed has given us a right word. Roving on many shores, I have ever found women to be alike: tender jades, harsh as flint ”