Various

“ It was my good fortune, a great many years ago, to be cantoned at Julbarri. I say ‘good fortune,’ for so I considered it; but I am afraid, if you had asked at our mess for votes as to whether I ought to qualify the word fortune with the adjective ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ I should have got very few to vote for my word. Good fortune I considered it, nevertheless; for I was an ardent sportsman; Julbarri was almost untried ground; and the neighbouring jungles abounded in game of many kinds, among which the rhinoceros, the tiger, and the leopard were by no means few and far between. ”

“ As Mr Dupuy got better, one firm resolve seemed to have imprinted itself indelibly upon his unbending nature—the resolve to quit Trinidad for ever at the very earliest moment, when convalescence and Macfarlane would combine to allow him. He would even sell Orange Grove itself, he said, and go over and live permanently for the rest of his days in England. ‘That is to say, in England for the summer,’ he observed casually to Nora; ‘for I don’t suppose any human being in his right senses would ever dream of stopping in such a wretched climate through a whole dreary English winter. ”

“ Nothing shows more the marvellous strength possessed by the tiger than the way in which he carries his victim away. I remember the first time I was shown where a tiger had dragged a full-grown bullock. I could not believe it possible; and it was not until after we had killed the robber—only an ordinary-sized tigress—and I had carefully gone over on foot the ground where she had dragged her prey, that I found that she had not only dragged the dead bullock—an animal, I should think, considerably beyond her own weight—over very rough ground and through a dense cane-brake ”

“ He was interested now, Maxwell thought, as he idly speculated upon his face.
‘Yes,’ Sir Geoffrey was saying, ‘I am firmly impressed with that belief.’ He had got upon his favourite topic, and was talking with great volubility. ‘There are certain gifted beings who can call spirits from the vasty deep, and, what is more, the spirits will come. My dear sir, they have been manifested to me.’
‘I should not wonder,’ Le Gautier replied, stifling a yawn in its birth. ‘I think you are quite right. ”

“ How do I know what tricks a lawyer might be up to?’
To this speech, in Mr Franklin’s best style, the solicitor made no reply; he was conscious of being ‘up to tricks’ of a rather elaborate nature. His client read the revoked will through with the same care as he had bestowed on that which superseded it. When he came to the signature, something about it seemed to arrest his attention; he turned it to the light and inspected it closely. Mr Blackford’s heart thumped uncomfortably against his ribs. ”

“ The best kind of khubber was when a bullock or any other large animal had been killed. The tiger usually prowls round some village or some place where cattle is pastured and kept for the night; and when he sees his opportunity, will spring on some unfortunate animal which has got separated from the rest of the herd, or has remained out too late in the jungle, heedless of the herdsman’s call home, will kill it with a blow of his paw, and drag it into some neighbouring jungle thicker and denser than that immediately around the village. ”

“ He admits that it is not free from the taint of quackery, and that the so-called massage practised in some of our hospitals and under the auspices of some nursing institutions is a painful exhibition of ignorance and incompetence, being simply a degenerate form of rubbing or shampooing. Having lately witnessed the progress of a number of cases under the care of Professor Mosengeil in Germany, he remarks that the massage of ‘medical rubbers’ is not massage at all, as the term is understood on the continent, and has little or nothing in common with it. ”

“ The money is to be invested, and the income to be paid to my niece Lucy Wedlake as long as she lives; after her death, the capital is to be divided equally among the children. If she has no children, it’s all to go to the Vintners’ Company. That cuts out Thomas Wedlake, doesn’t it? That’s all right.—Now about yourself. I suppose you consider that you’re an injured man, don’t you—hey?’
To this question, put with some approach to Uncle Franklin’s usual manner and tone, Mr Blackford found it difficult, in the then state of his emotions, to make any reply whatever. ”

“ We had reached the dessert stage, and Mrs Castleton was just pressing me to taste some specially delicious plantains which a neighbouring rajah had sent her the day before, when the bearer came in, and making a salaam, said to Castleton: ‘A man has just come from that little hamlet of Goree; he wants the sahib log to go out and shoot a leopard which has just killed one of his kids, and is now lying eating it in a small patch of jungle. ”

“ His life had been one of poverty tempered by knaveries too petty to attract punishment; his dream of success had been one of sudden and unearned wealth, coming without effort, to be applied only to selfish gratification. To such men, crime, as crime, presents nothing repulsive; they abstain from it only so long as it offers no advantage commensurate with the risk. ”

“ When the victim has been dragged to what the tiger considers a position of security, it will sit down and make a good meal, and then retire a short distance from its prey to some particularly thick bush or tuft of grass, and there remain until the following night, and then return for another meal. In consequence of this well-known habit, ‘a kill,’ as it is called, is the best of all khubber, and in such cases, if the tiger has not been disturbed, the sportsman is almost sure to find him lying somewhere close to the carcase ”

“ The Ulsterman has no special repute for gallantry, yet his simile for anything exceptionally simple is, ‘As easy as kiss.’ His favourite phrase when about to impart some very confidential information is, ‘Between you and me and the post.’ A person whose sanity is open to question is often described as ‘Wanting a square of being round’—a curiously inexact expression. ”

“ To the purer pleasures of honest labour, to the noble ambition of building up a modest fortune by dauntless perseverance and undeviating rectitude, in the hope that some day, with folded hands, he might fearlessly await the end in the quiet of an old age free from reproach—to all this he was utterly a stranger ”

“ The Gazette des Hôpitaux, in 1839, relates how massage is practised in the island of Tonga: ‘When a person feels tired with walking or any other exercise, he lies down, and his servants go through the various operations known under the names of Toogi-toogi, mili, or fota. The first of these words expresses the action of beating constantly and softly; the second, of rubbing with the palm of the hand; the third, of pressing and tightening the muscles between the thumb and fingers. ”

“ It is not surprising that in a province of such varied lineage, provincialisms should be numerous and curious. To guard against misconception, let it be understood that the educated Ulsterman speaks like educated people elsewhere—namely, with perfect correctness and scarcely appreciable accent. The peculiar words and phrases about to be enumerated are heard almost exclusively among the poorer ranks, or, if employed at all by the educated classes, it is only in jest and with a recognition of their provincial character. The majority of them are of Scotch origin ”

“ We kept three or four shikarees (native hunters) , who were constantly going about the villages and jungles within a radius of six or seven miles of cantonments; and as soon as they heard of a tiger having killed a bullock or any other animal, or as soon as they discovered the fresh footmarks of any animal worth going after, they would come in and give the khubber (news) ; and then those whose turn it was would send the elephants and their arms on towards where the game had been seen, and would follow themselves on horseback as quickly as possible. ”

“ With the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, a form of massage was the common accompaniment of the bath, and was used as a luxury, as a means of hastening tedious convalescence, and to render the limbs supple and enduring. Rubbing and anointing were sometimes done by medical practitioners themselves, or by the priests, or sometimes by slaves. Herodicus, one of the masters of Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C., first proposed gymnastics as a cure for disease. ”

“ So Harry was naturally anxious to get away from Orange Grove as quickly as possible, and he had made up{601} his mind that before he went he would not again ask Nora to reconsider her determination. His chivalrous nature shrank from the very appearance of trading upon her gratitude for his brave efforts to save her on the evening of the outbreak; if she would not accept him for his own sake, she should not accept him for the sake of the risk he had run to win her. ”

“ The Africans follow the same fashion; and with the Russians, flagellation and friction by means of a bundle of birch twigs are resorted to. After the subject has been well parboiled in a vapour bath, a pailful of cold water is then dashed over him, the effect of which is described as electrifying. After this, he plunges into the snow, and thus prepares himself to endure the rigour of the climate with impunity. The Siberians and Laplanders also are said to indulge in these luxuries.
To France belongs the credit of giving to modern medicine a scientific system of massage ”

“ I shall tell her to send for you when the right time comes; and then you can lay your hand upon the will and do what’s needful—which will bring a little more grist to your mill, to console you. Get the thing ready by to-morrow at this time, and bring it here with two witnesses, as before. Bring the old will as well; I wish to destroy it myself.’
‘That is hardly necessary,’ said the solicitor, catching at he knew not what straw of hope; ‘it will be effectually revoked by the later document.’
‘Don’t you argue with me; do as I tell you. I say I shall destroy it with my own hands ”

“ One of them threatened to kill me last night. If anything of that kind is to be attempted, they won’t find me an easy victim, Mr Blackford! I shall try to be beforehand with them, at anyrate. I’m not a man to be played with too long.’
And there was a look in the madman’s eyes{605} as he spoke, and a kind of quiver through his brawny muscles, which seemed to say that the moment was fast approaching when playing with him would be a very risky amusement indeed.
‘By George!’ said the solicitor to himself, wiping his forehead, when he was once more alone, ‘this is getting rather too warm. ”

“ A ‘heeler’ is a cock which strikes out well with his heels. In Ulster, the word is sometimes used for a bold forward woman.
When a child begins to nod and look sleepy, he is told that ‘Johnny Nod is coming up his back,’ which is understood as a signal for going to bed. ‘Potatoes and point’ is a curious phrase in which the poverty of the lower classes in Ireland finds unconscious expression. ”

“ The chief advocates of massage have been men of note; and although it is only recently that it has gained an extensive scientific consideration, it is gradually but surely obtaining a wider circulation and a higher place as a worthy therapeutical agent. ”

“ A mulgaradock is regarded as possessing power over the elements either to avert wind and rain, or to call down tempests on the heads of those who come under their displeasure. In order to calm a storm, he stands in the open air, spreads out his arms, shakes his mantle, made of skins, and gesticulates violently for a considerable time. In order to effect a cure, he proceeds much in the same way, but with rather less noise: he practises a mode of rubbing, and sometimes hits the patient with green rods which have first been heated at a fire, stopping at intervals to let the pain pass away. ”

“ The Ulsterman comes of a very mixed descent. Just as the Englishman was originally a compound of Saxon, Norman, and Dane, so in the Ulsterman’s veins flows the blood of Irish, Scotch, and English progenitors. The relative proportion of each element varies much according to locality and religion. On the shores of Antrim and Down, the population is in many places almost as purely Scotch as in Ayrshire or Lanark. In Belfast, Scotch blood predominates ”

“ If Visci should find out, it would be a case of twelve paces and hair-triggers; and I cannot sacrifice myself yet—not even for Genevieve.’
ULSTER PROVINCIALISMS.
The people of Ulster may fairly claim a larger share of public attention than has usually been accorded to them: they have rendered their province prosperous in a country which is a stranger to prosperity; they have established and maintained great industries in a country of decayed trade and ruined commerce. In the colonies, they have risen in a remarkable degree to positions of affluence and authority ”

“ A person who gapes with wide-mouthed wonder is said to look ‘like a duck in thunder.’ Similarity of political or religious opinion is expressed in Ulster by saying that two people ‘Dig with the same foot.’ ‘A dead man’s plunge’ is a peculiar Ulster expression ”

“ Burns says, ‘I’ll tak dunts frae naebody.’ A ‘founder,’ according to our dictionaries, is a term in farriery to indicate lameness caused by inflammation within the hoof of a horse. In Ulster, the word is often used to express a chill or wetting followed{599} by illness. A man after being exposed to the vicissitudes of weather becomes seriously ill without knowing what is the matter, and he expresses his condition by saying that he has got ‘a regular founder.’ ‘Head-beetler’ is used in the same vulgar sense as ‘Head-cook and bottle-washer’ in some localities. ”

“ Celsus, at the beginning of the Christian era, advised that rubbing should be applied to the whole body, ‘when an invalid requires his system to be replenished;’ and Pliny availed himself of a mode of treatment which was evidently much in fashion in his day, and derived so much benefit from the remedy, that he obtained for his physician, who was a Jew, the privileges of Roman citizenship. ”