Ernest Bramah

“ I could not refrain from smiling at his simplicity.
"Suppose, Bobbie," I said, "assuming the frankly absurd, and supposing that our spring did contain an unknown matter in solution, how much do you think that there would be in a gallon of water? The 'something new' would not be floating about in it like a duck's egg, you know."
"Well, admitting that it would be so minute that no test could detect it, and no microscope show it even if it could be collected, it would only be a thousandth part of what you could get from a thousand gallons," replied the foolish boy. "That might be appreciable." ”

“ Looking through the doorway I saw blue sky among the clouds, though a thin aftermath of rain still drifted in the air and the gutters by the road still poured like open sluices. Birds that had roosted at the approach of the unnatural gloom were again venturing forth and the dripping trees were sparkling beneath the reappearing sun.
Within the room were the sounds of chairs pushed back and feet grinding upon the sanded floor. All were engaged upon departure. I stepped out into the moorland-scented air and without a word to any—for was I not but a listener and recorder?—I resumed my journey. ”

“ Do you covet power? Then in some new and far-off region a gigantic empire shall be founded that will hail you queen. Riches? Such profusion shall be poured into your lap that the name of Crœsus shall wither off the records of the world like a poor and trivial thing. Fame? Then in poem and romance of unrivalled brilliance the name of Christabel shall be enshrined to receive the homage of a thousand generations long after the glories of Petrarch's Laura and Dante's Beatrice have faded from the memory of the age. ”

“ Yen Sung made a rapid calculation in his mind, converting the date into its equivalent in his own system of time. Twice, three times, he repeated the process in his anxiety, and then, as the unevadable fact was driven home to him, he leaned forward in trembling anxiety.
"You must not go forth to-day, lady Edith; you cannot go," he whispered fearfully. "It is a day of the blackest omen and the direst possibilities. It is the one day of an entire cycle of years when all the diverging lines of evil, from whatever cause arising, meet in one irresistible concentration. ”

“ Now, as I have indicated, this was my name—Frank Staples. But the extraordinary thing was that I did not know a soul in England, while the man in the motor-car seemed to have been positively expecting me.
I approached the door to investigate when I became aware of the presence of a second occupant.
For years I had had in my mind a fairly well-defined portrait of a woman's face. The features were small and regular, the poise of the head imperious, the expression wayward and piquant, and the whole set with a dark and brilliant beauty. ”

“ Apparently, there is no simple middle way, no sheltered, obvious path. Either I am to have no existence, or I am to have decidedly too much: on the one hand banished into space as a mythical creation; on the other regarded askance as the leader of a double (literary) life. But there is one retort still left whereby to confound the non-existers and the dualists alike—I can produce both a "Kai Lung" and a "Max Carrados" between one pair of covers, and here they are. ”

“ Drowning men, one reads, see their whole past lives in a flash. I was drowning, metaphorically, in the Campton water; certainly I was experiencing most of the actual sensations; and for the next few minutes I enjoyed the mortification of a kaleidoscopic view of my future life if only I had stood in my nephew's shoes. A new element! Not merely undetected before in the Campton spring, but new to science. What might have been! I saw long vistas of platforms, myself enthroned on each; unending crowds of black-coated men eagerly surrounding one central figure—myself ”

“ By his side lay the form of the old-looking young gallery first-nighter. Even to this day my frontal bone carries the scar of his well-aimed opera-glasses, on that occasion when, in the stalls of the Hilaric during the Royal performance, nothing but Sybil's presence of mind in flinging open her umbrella had saved me from a fatal blow. Both were crushed almost beyond recognition.
Dawn was within an hour of breaking when my seventeenth car—a taxi-cab of obsolete pattern—broke down in the quaint old High Street of Plyhampton. ”

“ How, for that matter, will you prepare yourself? If by the accomplishment of no great work, in prayer at least?"
"Or the next place to it—in bed, doubtless," yawned the Marquis. "Must to Flambernard, then, that he finds another Keeper of the Routes. Within—six months or six weeks was it, did we say?"
Now at this point, illogically enough, the physician hesitated for a moment to confirm the death-sentence. Hautepierre, as both his friends and enemies well knew, was a gallant gentleman at heart, his airs and languors nothing but the mint-marks of his class in a time when all men took a pose. ”

“ There is this difference, however, that whereas you very justly would destroy a worthless libertine, my errand is to give timely warning to a virtuous nobleman whose chivalrous protection of my family, even at the risk of his own life, has placed me under an everlasting obligation."
"A dangerous business in these times," remarked Dumont significantly.
"Otherwise there would be little merit in it. However, Dumont, I am as good a citizen as you at heart, and to prove it I will accompany you and take part in whatever risk your adventure may entail." ”

“ There were mandarins in official robes; trees of gnarled, fantastic growth; tigers, elephants and serpents; a wonderful street scene, with stalls, merchants, beggars, a procession of priests, and all the details of a busy thoroughfare; a child-bride in her ornamental wedding-chair; and a number of fearsome objects which could only be accounted for as evil demons, though more probably in Yen Sung's mind they stood as the embodiment of beneficent spirits. It was a collection which must have occupied all his spare hours almost from the day of his arrival. ”

“ When Lukie woke and opened her eyes to see a man in a black mask standing over her with the wood-chopper she didn't wait to hear what he had to say. She opened her mouth, and the next minute there would have been a screech that would have woke all Roffey if she had got it out. But the instant she opened her mouth there was no need for Lukie to yell: it was Mo Andrews who did that, and dropping his sack and tools he lit out in a beeline for home, the worst scared burglar that ever picked a lock. ”

“ For a minute there existed a doubt whether Die Wasser-jungfer had been attacked or become the victim of her own magazine. So well known and apprised were the insignificant forces upon which England could call for battle in the air, and so unequivocal had been the wording of the ultimatum as to the terrible reprisal that would follow a wanton—as it was then deemed it must be—attack on the Krupplins, that some desperate mischance was the first thought in every German mind ”

“ Even while he contended with the self-opinionated Lieu, in a distant quarter of the city a wealthy lacquer merchant, Kwok Shen by name, was seeking to shape afresh this obscure and unknown youth's immediate fate, urged by the pressing mould of his own insistent need. "It is easier for a gnat to bend a marble tower than for a man to turn destiny aside,” pronounced the Venerable, the Sagacious One, in the days when knowledge was, but how many now, in the moment of their test, acquiescently kowtow? ”

“ They made the earth heavy in his path, directed the rain into a denser volume where he was, knit the brambles together before him at each hedge, and impeded him in every way to an unending accompaniment of swirling, shrieking, riotous devilry. There were earth spirits, wind spirits, water spirits, fire spirits, and the outcast band. The accusing shadows of his ancestors walked by his side, desirous of arguing with him on many subjects, while the Great Dragon, floating above all, wrote unmoved with an iron pen upon a marble slate. ”

“ The nature of the man was romantic, impractical and ambitious; that of the woman narrow and commonplace. On the eve of their wedding day they stood together on the shore of one of the most beautiful bays of this richly-endowed coast, watching the play of the moonlight upon the rippling water—a time and a situation well calculated to bring out, one must admit, all that was stirring and impassioned even in the most sluggish nature. ”

“ It would not have required a great effort to imagine him whining or pricking up his ears, and when at last I turned to go he followed me like a hungry but obedient animal slowly retiring from a butcher's shop.
"Aren't I to be allowed in there, uncle, to do things?" he asked in a low voice, a whisper indeed, when I had locked the door, and as we walked away he took my hand—or, rather, tried to take my hand—in his eagerness.
"Oh, no, Bobbie," I replied very decidedly. "It is hardly the place for little boys to amuse themselves in. ”

“ A half-burned twig lay on his hearth; deftly, in spite of his bandaged hands, Yen Sung wound the chain about it; then, as fast as his weak limbs would carry him, he sought the house.
"See!" he exclaimed, bursting into the great kitchen where Edith's mother chanced to be engaged alone; "the fair one of your house has gone forth on a most perilous journey and the charm upon which she alone relied for protection has escaped her unperceived. ”

“ You shouldn't always have been so jolly stiff, Hilda, you know."
"I am delighted that you have found a lady who seems to be quite the reverse," replied Hilda pleasantly.
Thus had fate, in the shape of Nymph Aurelia again, been pulling benevolently at the reins of my destiny.
"For a practical young man, brought up in a new country, you seem to be strangely fanciful," remarked Hilda a week later, when I told her about these things.
"It is true," I admitted. "I am always having visions, seeing fairies, hearing voices, and touching posts. ”

“ There was still a small shoulder of mutton in the house, and Sir Henry, none too pleased I thought, consented to make shift with that, and now, now," continued the unfortunate woman wringing her hands afresh, "Mary has just told me that the mutton has disappeared and a strange dog has been seen making out of the yard with something in its mouth.”
"Oh, that's vastly awkward," said Will, hitting his boot with his riding-whip as though he might thereby drive an inspiration upwards. "Sir Henry has the reputation of an epicure, one hears." ”

“ At all cost she must be overtaken and the safeguard restored to her at once. Every second was precious, every step she took full of danger. He had no means of communicating with the house; the yard beneath his window was deserted. In spite of the honourable doctor's warning, Yen Sung himself must set in motion the means for her deliverance.
He moved quickly, feverishly, but with due caution, or he might utterly defeat his end; for who could say but that his unworthy touch might destroy the virtue of the charm or immediate death be the fruit of his presumption? ”

“ We wanted men, reliable, devoted men, such as you could have put in our way. We wanted facilities of a dozen kinds. Most of all, we wanted time. Practice, unending practice, is the secret of alatics. We even wanted money; money, good lord! and you are on the point of paying an indemnity of a hundred millions to save London!"
"We are taking a terrible risk if we permit this forlorn hope, Mr. Reed," said Mollineux.
"So are we, Sir William," replied Reed caustically. "Strictly in a personal way you cannot take a greater one than we shall. ”

“ The next moment the double doors of the French window that overlooked the bustling turmoil of Kensington's busiest thoroughfare were flung frantically open and there sprang into the room a young girl whose dazzling beauty was, if possible, heightened by the breathless excitement under which she was labouring.
"Dr. Humdrum," she exclaimed, throwing aside the luxuriant crimson opera cloak that had hitherto concealed the supple perfection of her lithe form, "save me! Help me!" and a look of baffling terror swept across her mobile features. ”

“ The "Dragon" has long passed away, but before it sank into its final stage of senile decrepitude it enjoyed an era of prosperity which overshadowed all its former glories. Gradually it began to be known that at the "Dragon" of Swafton, and nowhere else, was to be obtained a certain pie of exquisite flavour and secret condiments. Sir Henry Verney carried the fame of them round about town and all the most celebrated cooks went to the "Dragon" in their spare time, unsuccessfully endeavouring to detect the wonderful herb to which the dish was said to owe its piquancy. ”

“ He said that he meant to have a thousand pounds yet, and he didn't care whether you gave it or someone else."
"A thousand pounds!" cried Mr. Lester, really much relieved to know the worst at last. "Oh, ridiculous, preposterous, unheard-of! No one would give it, eh?"
"No, indeed," agreed the maiden. "I don't think that all the old money in the world would be worth that. It's just a big number that he has got into his head."
"It's grotesque," fumed the dealer. "I don't mind telling you, my dear, as it's no good now, that seven-hundred-and-fifty was the limit I was prepared to go to. ”

“ Gently here, monsieur; we go slowly for a little while and pick our way." He lifted up Berthe as he spoke, and Hautepierre, stumbling across a spade, found that a mass of fresh loose earth and rubble-stone was strewn about the path. "Through here," cried Louis, and seemed to melt away into the wall. The Marquis groped his way through a rough, low aperture and passed into an atmosphere of Stygian dark and noisome damp. ”

“ By now it will be all over the place, and the owner of the land, and the tenant, and the lord of the manor, and the Crown agent will all be there at this moment, screwing the last denier out of him."
"No, no, no," exclaimed Lester, with a deprecating gesture. "It won't be like that at all, my dear fellow. You're a good business man in your own line, I don't deny it; but you've got no romance, Scott; no imagination. This honest yokel Clay is certain to be a shrewd, sober, thrifty son of toil of the kind that has made this England of ours what it is. ”

“ That moment closed the life-history of Die Wasser-jungfer. To her consorts, from the vantage-ground of their skillfully maintained line towards the south-east, it seemed as though the pilot-ship had suddenly turned into a tormented thing of fire, in which all her parts, human and inanimate, strove for disentanglement. Then darkness closed over the space again, the fantastic shreds of wreckage fell earthward, and even littered their own decks, and the scudding constellation of blazing tags of fabric and cordage was carried beyond their sight. ”

“ It was an infallible specific against leprosy and shipwreck, and, in token, Yen Sung had never contracted leprosy or been shipwrecked. If only he had provided himself with a similar protection against the perils of fire he would certainly have escaped his present plight; but one cannot foresee everything. A charm of universal potency excited his wonder and admiration. It did not occur to him that Edith might not be speaking quite literally—that her geometrical device was a symbol more efficacious when carried in the heart than when worn among the garments. ”