Andrew Lang

“ I said, “thou wakest and dost not dream. One has sent me who loves thee, even my lady Elliot; and now listen, for the time is short. See, here I have the master-key, and when I have unlocked thy bonds . . . ”
“Thou hast not slain these men?” she asked. “That were deadly sin.”
“Nay, they do but sleep, and will waken belike ere the fresh guard comes, wherefore we must make haste.”
“When I have freed thee, do on thy body, above thy raiment, this doublet of mine, for it carries the cross of England, and, I being of little stature, you may well pass for me. ”

“ It is a strange thing that one who has learned not to blench from a bare blade, or in bursting of cannon-balls and flight of arrows, should so easily be daunted where a weak girl is concerned; yet so it was in my case. I know not if I feared more than now when Brother Thomas had me in the still chamber, alone at his mercy.
So the minutes went by, the sun and shade flickering through the boughs of the mulberry-tree, and the time seemed long. Perchance, I thought, there had been war, as Charlotte had said, and my lady had departed in anger with her father, and I was all undone. ”

“ She herself dipped a crust in wine and water, and presently, bidding her confessor, Pasquerel, wait for her in the little oratory, she asked me how I did, and told me what fear she had been in for me, as touching Brother Thomas, when she learned who he was, yet herself could not return from the field to help me.
“But now,” said she, smiling with a ravishing sweetness, “I hear you are in far greater peril from a foe much harder and more cruel—ma mie Elliot. Ah! how you lovers put yourselves in jeopardy, and take me from my trade of war to play the peacemaker! ”

“ Above the voices laughed, the smooth music murmured of all soft pleasures. Here, in the quiet of the hall, Wogan began to think the door would never open; he had a foolish fancy that he was staring at the lid of a coffin sealed down until the Judgment Day, and indeed the room might prove a coffin. He looked at his watch; only a poor quarter of an hour had passed since the door had closed. Wogan could not believe it; he shook his watch in the belief that it had stopped, and then a hubbub arose in the street. ”

“ They were all on me now.
“No, I keep him for better sport,” snarled Brother Thomas. “He shall learn the Scots for ‘écorcheurs’ (flayers of men) “when we have filled our pouches.”
With that he crammed a great napkin in my mouth, so that I could not cry, made it fast with a piece of cord, trussed me with the rope which he had bidden me tie across the path to trip the horses, and with a kick sent me flying to the bottom of the ditch, my face being turned from the road.
I could hear Giles and Aymeric steal across the way, and the rustling of boughs as they settled on the opposite side. ”

“ The steps shuffled back to the door.
'You have not the password,' said the voice through the judas.
'Damn the password,' whispered Wogan. 'I want George Kelly. I must see him in the name of the Blackbird. Hawks are abroad.'
'It is clean against all rules,' came the voice from within.
'Open, in the name of the cobbler's wax I once put on your chair, or I'll break the windows. You know me, Sam!'
Mr. Wesley knew Mr. Wogan. He undid the lock, Mr. Wogan smuggled himself within, and nearly choked Mr. Wesley in his embrace.
'It is a giant!' said Mr. Wesley, putting up his candle to Wogan's face. ”

“ He loves not that another should take his place at a tryst.”
“Maiden,” I said, beginning to understand why the gate was unlocked, and wherefore it went so smooth on its hinges, “I fear I have slain a man, one of the King’s archers. We wrestled together on the drawbridge, and the palisade breaking, we fell into the moat, whence I clomb by the hidden stairs.”
“One of the archers!” cried she, as pale as a lily, and catching at her side with her hand. “Was he a Scot?”
“No, maid, but I am; and I pray you hide me, or show me how to escape from this castle with my life, and that speedily.” ”

“ Shaking Bude, he offered him the beaker; the earl drained it at a draught. He shuddered, but rose to his feet.
‘Not a man alive on that doomed vessel,’ he was saying, when anew the still air was rent by the raucous notes of a megalophone:
‘Is your exhibit all right?’
‘Fit as a fiddle,’ answered Logan through a similar instrument.
‘Our exhibits are gone bust,’ answered Captain Noah Funkal. ‘Our professors are in fits. Our darkeys are all dead. Can your skipper come aboard?’
‘Just launching a boat,’ cried Logan. ”

“ I served him, and he sat and chuckled in his chair, being pleasured by the thought of his own wisdom. “Not a word of this to Elliot, though,” he said suddenly; “when there is a woman in a house—blessings on her!—it is anything for a quiet life! But, ‘nom Dieu!’ what with the fright you gave me, sitting there, whereas I deemed you were meat for eels and carp, and what with thy tale—ha, ha!—and my tale, and the wine, maybe, I forgot your own peril, my lad. ”

“ The secret of the Emu’s feathers involved the father of Lady Fastcastle, of his old friend’s wife, in a very distasteful way. Logan, since his marriage, had never shown any curiosity in the matter. His was a joyous nature; no one was less of a self-tormentor.
‘Well, old fellow,’ said Merton, ‘keep your dragon, and I’ll keep my Emu.’
‘I won’t keep him long, I assure you,’ said Logan. ‘Only for a day or two, I dare say; then you’ll know; sooner perhaps. But, for excellent reasons, I asked Bude and Lady Bude to say nothing about the hallucination of these second-sighted Highland fishers. ”

“ Choose the black, he is the swifter. If the hostler be awake, he expects me, and will take thee for me; mount, with no word, and ride to the eastern port. There show to the gate ward this signet of Sir Thomas Grey, and he will up with portcullis and down with drawbridge, for he has often done no less for me and that signet.
“Then, Madame, ride for Louviers, and you shall break your fast with the Bastard and La Hire.” Her white face changed to red, like the morning light, as on that day at Orleans, before she took Les Tourelles. ”

“ It is an old over-true tale, a tale not told by Chaucer. Pity for the poor, earnest, clear-sighted, not to be controlled, is the most admirable point in the nature of Langland. He returns to his complaint that men give gifts and gold to minstrels, while the poor suffer cold and hunger, and "lollers" (idle "loafers") , gain money in the abused name of Charity. Yet the poet is not so revolutionary as to attack the Game Laws! In irony or in earnest, he bids Lords to hunt every day in the week but Sunday, to hunt foxes, wolves, and other beasts. ”

“ I shall not go. But, Nick, how did you know my mind? 'Twas the last of minds you expected to take me in.'
'I am the devil. Have you not guessed it yourself?' replied Mr. Wogan, who was enjoying himself hugely. Perhaps it was the Florence, coming a-top of the Burgundy. He was quite easy about the discovery. 'But unpack,' he said. 'What befell you with the Bishop?'
'He received me oddly. The room was as dark as a wolf's mouth, being hung with black bombazine. There was a low fire in a brazier, that shone red on his Lordship's polished poll, for he wore no perruque. ”

“ You make me quite nervous.’
‘A client has come with what looks a promising piece of business. We are to disentangle—’
‘A royal duke?’
‘No. You!’
‘A practical joke,’ said Logan. ‘Somebody pulling your leg, as people say, a most idiotic way of speaking. What sort of client was he, or she? We’ll be even with them.’
‘The client’s card is here,’ said Merton, and he handed to Logan that of the Marquis of Restalrig.
‘You never saw him before; are you sure it was the man?’ asked Logan, staggered in his scepticism.
‘A very good imitation. Dressed like a farmer at a funeral. ”

“ It was body to body, weight against weight, short strokes at close quarters, and, over our heads, bills striking and foining at the English. Each man smote where he could; we wavered and swayed, now off our feet in the press, now making some yard of ground, and evil was the smell and thick the dust that arose. Meanwhile came the sound of the riving of planks from the other side of the palisade; above the steel points and the dust I saw the Maid’s pennon advancing with the face of my lady painted thereon, and I pressed towards it, crying “St. Andrew” with such breath as was in me. ”

“ George, however, seemed quite insensible to Mr. Wogan's weight.
'It will be my likeness,' he repeated to himself. 'I had it done for her by Mr. Zincke. I was right, Nick; she has forgiven me altogether.'
Mr. Wogan's head was now well above the window-sill, and he looked downwards upon Rose, who sat at the table.
'Yes, it's a likeness,' said Nick.
'I told you. I told you,' said the Parson. The man began to wriggle with satisfaction. 'You are wrong, Nick. You know nothing at all about women, after all. ”

“ Andrew Lang was perhaps the most versatile writer among English bookmen of his day. Verse or prose, religious research or translations, to each and all he gives his individual touch,—light, airy, humorous.
Fairies, Dreams and Ghosts are all his happy hunting ground, and he was one of the first to experiment with the old French Forms, in which he gave his own delightful fancy free play, while adhering strictly to the inflexible rules.
BALLAD OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST
I am an ancient Jest! ”

“ Andrew Lang’s graceful stanzas entitled “An Old Tune,” adapted from Gérard de Nerval’s dreamy Fantaisie, and which although very closely rendered fully equal the original in colour and fragrance, while surpassing it in melodiousness and rhythm. Nearly as much might be said of Mr. Edmund Gosse’s version of Théophile de Viau’s lovely sonnet, Au moins ay-ie songé que ie vous ay baisée, as also of the late Thomas Ashe’s phrasing of Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son mystère, which has been so variously rendered by various translators. ”

“ M. de Strasbourg was utterly dumbfounded. He staggered back against the panels of the carriage; his mouth opened and shut; it seemed there was no language sufficiently chaotic to express his discomposure. At last:
'You are a damned impudent fellow,' he gasped out in a weak sort of quaver.
'Am I?' asked Kelly. 'Shall we ask the lady?'
He peeped through the door. The lady was huddled up in a corner--an odd heap of laces, silks, and furbelows, but with never a voice in all the confusion. It seemed she had fainted.
Meanwhile M. de Strasbourg turned on the unfortunate coachman. ”

“ The Captain was still standing in the attitude of perplexity; only, instead of smoothing his cheek, he had tilted his peruke aside and was scratching his head to ease the labour of his recollections. At the sight of him the ancestor and his twenty-eight Cavaliers rode clean out of Mr. Wogan's mind. 'Sure, Thomas wouldn't have done it, but Nicholas will,' said he, and kicking up his heels he ran. He ran along Ryder Street, turned into Bury Street, raced a hundred yards or so up the cobbles, and thundered on the door of Kelly's lodging. ”

“ Those who surrounded me, a kind of body-guard of six young men, had entirely recovered their composure, and behaved to me with a deference that was astonishing, but reassuring. From this time, I ought to say, though permitted to go where I would, and allowed to observe even their most secret rites, enjoying opportunities such as will never fall to another European, I was never, but once, entirely alone. My worshippers, as they might almost be called, so humble was their demeanour, still kept watchful eyes upon me, as if I were a being so precious that they were jealous of my every movement. ”

“ They asked how it went with the Maid, and whether she would not fain be at home among her kine, or in the greasy kitchen? We would cry back, and for my own part I bade them seek the kitchen as pock-puddings and belly-gods, and that I cried in their own tongue, while they, to my great amaze, called me “prentice boy” and “jackanapes.” Herein I saw the craft and devilish enmity of Brother Thomas, and well I guessed that he had gotten sight of me; but his face I saw not.
Ill names break no bones, and arrows from under cover wrought slight scathe ”

“ Andrew Lang, who enjoys upon all occasions the courage of his convictions, has, in one of those pleasant papers, “At the Sign of the Ship,” given utterance to a sentiment so shockingly at variance with the prevalent theory of fiction, that the reader is divided between admiration for his boldness and a vague surprise that a man should speak such words and live. ”

“ What can we do? What have we against the man? “Loitering with intent”? And here Logan and I have knocked him down, and tied him up, and Logan wanted to torture him.’
‘Dear Mr. Merton,’ replied Mr. Macrae, with paternal tenderness, ‘you are overwrought. You have not slept all night. I must insist that you go to bed, and do not rise till you are called. The man is certainly guilty of conspiracy, that will be proved when the real Gianesi comes to hand. If not, I do not doubt that I can secure his silence. You forget the power of money. Make yourself easy, go to sleep ”

“ Do you know how it is done?’
‘No.’
‘Well, a miracle is not what you call logical proof, but I believe that you did see the Moa, and a still more extraordinary bird, Te-iki-pa.’
‘Yes, they talk of strange beasts, but “nothing is stranger than man.” Did you ever hear of the Berbalangs of Cagayan Sulu?’
‘Never in my life,’ said Merton.
‘Heaven preserve me from them,’ said Bude, and he gently stroked the strange muddy pearls in the sleeve-links on his loose shirt-cuff. ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us,’ he exclaimed, crossing himself (he was of the old faith) , and he fell silent. ”