Max Brand

Name: The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past
Author: Max Brand

The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

Summary

“The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past”, published in 1920, is a work by Max Brand. It explores elements such as Black Bart, Dan Barry and Byrne.

Quotes from The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (Max Brand)

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ The wind blew through the open door—it was Dan Barry. The wild geese called from the open sky—for Dan Barry. These are the things which lead him. These the forces which direct him. You have loved him; but is love merely a giving? No, you have seen in him a man, but I see in him merely the animal force."
She said after a moment: "Do you hate him—you plead against him so passionately?"
He answered: "Can you hate a thing which is not human? No, but you can dread it. It escapes from the laws which bind you and which bind me. What standards govern it? How can you hope to win it? Love? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ In reality he was no more a man than Black Bart is a man. He had the face and form of a man, but his instincts were as old as the ages. The animal world obeys him. Satan neighs in answer to his whistle. The wolf-dog licks his hand at the point of death. There is the profound difference, always. You try to reconcile him with other men; you give him the attributes of other men. Open your eyes; see the truth: that he is no more akin to man than Black Bart is like a man. And when you give him your affection, Miss Cumberland, you are giving your affection to a wild wolf! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ Don't you see that he is simply more in tune with the animal world? And it's really no more reasonable to expect Black Bart to remember you than it is to expect Dan Barry to remember you? It's quite plain. When you go back to the beginning man was simply an animal, without the higher senses, as we call them. He was simply a brute, living in trees or in caves. Afterwards he grew into the thing we all know. But why not imagine a throw-back into the earlier instincts? Why not imagine the creature devoid of the impulses of mind, the thing which we call man, and see the splendid animal? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ No mystery at all. Barry is simply a man who is closer akin to the brute forces in nature. See! By the eternal heavens, he's dragging that beast—that dumb beast—back from the door of death!"
Barry had ceased his rapid manipulations, and turned the big dog back upon its side. Now the eyes of Black Bart opened, and winked shut again. Now the master kneeled at the head of the beast and took the scarred, shaggy head between his hands. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ Instantly, Barry began to work at expanding and depressing the lungs of the huge animal as he might have worked to bring a man back to life.
"Watch him!" whispered the doctor to Kate Cumberland. "He is closer to that dog—that wolf, it looks like—than he has ever been to any human being!"
She would not answer, but she turned her head quickly away from the man and his beast.
"Are you afraid to watch?" challenged Byrne, for his anger at Barry's blunt refusals still made his blood hot. "When your father lay at death's door was he half so anxious as he is now? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ This was the sight which Doctor Byrne and Kate Cumberland saw from the veranda of the ranch-house as they turned and looked back before going in.
"A funeral procession," suggested the doctor.
"No," she answered positively. "If Black Bart were dead, Dan wouldn't allow any hands save his own to touch the body. No, Black Bart is alive! Yet, it's impossible."
The word "impossible," however, was gradually dropping from the vocabulary of Randall Byrne. True, the wolf-dog had seemed dead past recovery and across the eyes of Byrne came a vision of the dead rising from their graves. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Max Brand, The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (1920)

“ They escaped him, they soared above him. They followed no law or rhythm. They flew on wings and left him far below. The girl moved away from him as if led by an invisible hand, and now she stood at the extremity of the porch. ”

Max Brand

Summary

Quotes from The Night Horseman — XXIV. Doctor Byrne Looks Into The Past (Max Brand)

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