H. C. Bailey

“ One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword.
"Oh, by your leave,"—Harry waved it oft—"I don't fight a drunken man."
"Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give us your staff."
"Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I fight the whole platoon?" ”

“ What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. A nightmare joke.
Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to oblige his enemies. ”

“ Lord, sir, it's to save your father from infamy, and your own name."
"The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried.
"I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce."
Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my life. But I believe I should thank you."
"Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce." ”

“ Captain McBean let himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. "D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now, mon cher, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?"
"I never could tell."
"Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? ”

“ While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he brought his small, battered box.
He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. "Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. ”

“ He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was essentially a nobody—a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a bar-sinister or a disreputable father. ”

“ Ma foi! I think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could think that peacock would be in anything crafty? ”

“ They don't know him there as we do, and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine."
"Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug.
"You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from Colonel Boyce full of windy promises—verbosa et grandis epistola. D'ye keep up your humanities?—in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. ”