Atkins

“ I shall be very good to the poor girl, whom I love already. I don’t know anything about law, Mr. Atkins, but is not some other guardian also necessary—some one to see to the property, you know?”
“There are three trustees appointed to look after the estate during Miss Wynde’s minority,” answered Atkins. “Sir John Freise is one. You know him well, my lady, and a more incorruptible, honest-souled gentleman than he does not exist. He is a man of fine business capacity, and Sir Harold could not have chosen better. ”

“ Jane, who with an air of resignation stood by him, paid no heed to Atkins' complaints. She only gave a slight shrug of her shoulders, and persisted in an obstinate silence.
"We cannot possibly remain here longer in the rain!" continued Atkins in renewed vexation; "You certainly cannot. So far as I can determine, our postilion's injuries are not dangerous, and he declares that B. is only an hour's distance at the furthest. ”

“ Atkins was the same man I saw first sitting on a log down by the bayou. He was neat looking and kept his hair and beard trimmed, and there was a different look in his face, and even his walk was different. He used to sort of slouch along, but now he had a sort of a snap to his step, and if you didn’t know him you would think he was a regular, respectable man of business instead of a tramp that wasn’t more than half reformed. ”

“ Atkins, with a gloomy look; "she has written us but few letters, and they have been very short and unsatisfactory. I suppose she has sense enough to know that no news is better than bad news, and having nothing pleasant to tell about herself, she thinks she will tell us nothing at all. But if I ever get her home again, I will keep her here. I assure you, her first year in Lowell shall also be her last."
"Husband, I told you my fears, and if you had set up your authority, Abby would have been obliged to stay at home; but perhaps she is doing pretty well. ”

“ Though this was all but a fiction of his own, yet it had its desired effect; Atkins fell upon his knees to beg the captain to intercede with the governor for his life; and all the rest begged of him, for God’s sake, that they might not be sent to England. ”

“ Atkins, who now, with an expression of mingled surprise and terror, cried:
"Professor Fernow!"
Henry trembled; this outcry gave him a certainty as to whose eyes they were which had beamed upon him from under the helmet. Every drop of blood vanished from the face of the young American; with one single glance he took in the whole appearance of the officer standing before him; a second flew back to the house where Jane still lingered. He seemed to comprehend something. ”

“ Everybody loves Thomas Atkins who knows him; cheerful and kindly, ready to do anyone a good turn, heroic in action, patient in suffering, tender and chivalrous to women, he has set us all an example in this war. ”

“ His name was William Atkins, but he was usually called Black Will. Atkins was a lively fellow, with a good deal [Pg 15] of coarse humour. He was one of those men who neither fear God nor regard man, and who take pleasure in turning religion and every thing serious into ridicule. With him young Wildgoose passed many of his leisure hours; and sometimes on a Sunday evening they used to join a party of idlers at the Fighting Cocks, a lone public house, about a quarter of a mile from the village. ”

“ Atkins had meantime saluted Lieutenant Fernow, who with calm politeness now turned to both gentlemen.
"I regret that it must be I who announce to you unpleasant tidings; but the desired continuation of your journey is impossible. No one can pass; the guards have strict orders to make everyone turn back, whoever he may be."
"But, Professor Fernow, we must go on!" said Atkins in vexation, "and you know us well enough to assure the authorities that we are not spies." ”

“ Alison's lips curled in scorn. "Give yourself no anxiety as to our future married happiness, Mr. Atkins! I believe that I am in all respects a match for my future wife.--But it must be time for us to go to Doctor Stephen's. May I ask you to get ready?"
Atkins lingered a moment. "Henry," he said entreatingly, "whatever may happen between you two, spare Jane; she has fearfully suffered in these last months."
"Has she spared me?" asked Alison with an icy coldness. "The proud Miss Forest would have cast me aside as a worthless burden, had not another's life rested in my hands. ”

“ I tell you it is impossible for any one who does not know the password to go from here to the mountains. We have a triple line of outposts."
These words failed to pacify Atkins. "You do not know Alison!" he said. "He is an uncontrollable nature whom circumstances and education have subdued only to outward seeming in making him simply a man of business. If such a nature once bursts its long accustomed barriers, it passes all bounds. In his present mood he is capable of anything." ”

“ Atkins is one of the staff of servants attached to the Mansions, whose particular office it is to wait on the occupants of chambers on the first floor: a discreet man, who has a pretty intimate knowledge of the manners and customs of those on whom he attends. ”

“ The American got no further in his pious wishes for the future weal of Germany. Jane had suddenly risen, and stood erect and tall before him; her eyes flamed down upon the little man as if she would annihilate him.
"You quite forgot Mr. Atkins, that I too am a German by birth, and the child of German parents," she said.
Atkins stood there as if thunderstruck. "You, Miss Jane?" he asked, scarce believing his ears.
"Yes, I! and I will not hear my fatherland spoken of in this way. Keep your revilings and your hopes for Mr. Alison's ears; he shares your wishes; but do not utter them in my presence ”

“ Jane glanced at him somewhat scornfully. "But all this at least gives you a change," she said not without irony. "You found Germany so dull, past all endurance."
"Yes, I did find it so!" growled Atkins, "but I would rather endure the former dulness than be here among a crazy people, whose only praiseworthy virtues, humility and modesty, are now entirely discarded. Do you suppose that they now respect us foreigners, that they concern themselves at all about us? I am horribly neglected at my hotel; every care and attention is for the German officers. ”

“ Atkins, to fear no treachery on your part."
"And have you told Henry?"
"Yes, as much as I have told you, nothing more!"
"This is German simplicity which I cannot at all understand!" muttered Atkins; then laying his hand on the young man's arm, he said with almost frightful earnestness.
"Lieutenant Fernow, follow my advice. Do not go to the mountains to-night. Your life is threatened; yours alone. Delegate this duty to one of your comrades." ”

“ Will Atkins, for his own particular, added that if any man would take him away, and offer to carry him home to England, and make him captain of the best man-of-war in the navy, he would not go with him if he might not carry his wife and children with him; and if there was a clergyman in the ship, he would be married to her now with all his heart. ”

“ Atkins and his idiosyncrasies remain an inscrutable enigma to our French allies.
And if the British soldier appears incomprehensible to the nimble-minded French, one can readily perceive that to the slow and methodically-thinking German he must seem merely mad. The French marvel that he is never "serious"; the Boche is perplexed to find that Hymns of Hate and other laborious insults afford him the keenest possible enjoyment. The secret lies in Mr. Atkins's sense of humor, which is another way of saying his sense of proportion. ”

“ Dad said the man he used to be was coming to life, and that that original man must have been a pretty good one. Mr. Atkins and Dad got to be real good friends, and Mr. Atkins even came to dinner to our house once. It was hard to persuade him at first, but Dad managed it, and Mother said afterward that she didn’t see why folks objected to Mr. Atkins, because his table manners was as good as almost anybody’s in town.
I told her if she could hear Catty always nagging at the poor old feller about how to eat, and such things, she wouldn’t be surprised a bit. ”

“ Atkins; and he laid down the New Hampshire Patriot, and peered over his spectacles, with a look which seemed to say, that an event so uncommon deserved particular attention.
"Why, she says that she means to go to Lowell, and work in the factory."
"Well, wife, let her go;" and Mr. Atkins took up the Patriot again.
"But I do not see how I can spare her; the spring cleaning is not done, nor the soap made, nor the boys' summer clothes; and you say that you intend to board your own 'men-folks' and keep two more cows than you did last year; and Charley can scarcely go alone. ”

“ Upon this discourse, however, and their promising, as above, to endeavour to persuade their wives to embrace Christianity, he married the two other couple; but Will Atkins and his wife were not yet come in. After this, my clergyman, waiting a while, was curious to know where Atkins was gone, and turning to me, said, "I entreat you, sir, let us walk out of your labyrinth here and look; I daresay we shall find this poor man somewhere or other talking seriously to his wife, and teaching her already something of religion." ”

“ There was none of the kidding and horseplay that would have been normal in such a group. Each man seemed intent on the purpose for which he had come, and was absorbed with his own thoughts. Ken took a double-bitted ax and followed Atkins along the trail. He moved away from the others and began cutting one of the young trees Atkins had marked.
By noon he was bathed in sweat, and his arms and back ached. He had thought he was in good condition from his football and track work, but he seemed to have found new muscles that had never come into play before. ”

“ I’d rather I was a wild Injun eatin’ raw meat,” says he.
“You hain’t no Injun, Dad. You’re a business man, and livin’ respectable. And more ’n that, you’re goin’ to keep on that way till every man and woman and baby in this town will point to you and say, ‘There goes Mr. Atkins, the respectablest man that ever lived.’”
“It’s an awful prospect,” says Mr. Atkins, that gloomy you would have thought he was just going to be taken out and drownded. “I don’t calc’late ever to be happy again.”
“Wait,” says Catty, “till we kin afford to git you them dress-up clothes....” ”

“ The Blacks may calculate upon Neva’s ignorance, and hope to avail themselves [197] of the facilities of Scottish law in marrying her to Rufus.”
“It is very probable,” said Atkins, knitting his brows.
“Young Black has the start of us. He must have arrived at Inverness to-day. I came here to propose, Atkins, that we start for the north by the earliest morning train. We are on the right track now,” said Lord Towyn. “Let us follow it up promptly.”
“We will go in the morning,” declared Atkins.
“I shall go also,” said Sir Harold. ”

“ It is a shame, a miserable, burning shame!”
“It is unjust, scandalous!” muttered Artress.
“Sir Harold thought the sum sufficient, and I must say I agree with him,” declared Atkins. “Your ladyship was contented with the provision at your marriage. If the allowance was unsatisfactory, why did you not expostulate with Sir Harold at that time? Why wait until he is dead to accuse him of injustice?”
“We will not argue the matter,” said Lady Wynde superciliously. “I shall not contest the will. And now about my rich young step-daughter. Who are her appointed guardians?” ”

“ It is difficult to imagine that Brother Boche, who on the other side of that ring of star-shells is conducting a precisely similar undertaking, is able, with all his perfect organisation and cast-iron methods, to achieve a result in any way superior to that which Thomas Atkins reaches by rule of thumb and sheer force of character. ”

“ The steward, seeing that he was not wanted, went quietly from the room, intent upon securing his dinner.
Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise approached our hero, and the baronet laid a kindly hand upon the young earl’s shoulder.
“Forgive us for interrupting your happy reverie, Lord Towyn,” he said, “but we are very anxious. Miss Wynde writes from Brussels, and in good spirits? We have been troubling ourselves for nothing?”
The young earl did not look around, nor did he speak. He only clutched the letter tighter in his fingers.
“We have got into a panic for nothing,” said Atkins, smiling. ”

“ Atkins shrugged his shoulders. "In Germany there certainly may be extravagantly sentimental heads, that would have no regard at all for a million, and are in a position to unhesitatingly turn their backs to an heiress, if they happen to be not quite pleased with her. Will you reproach Mr. Alison, because he knows better how to estimate such advantages? Those gentlemen in their exalted manly pride may appear very magnanimous, but--they will never become millionaires."
"You are right," said Jane hastily, and in a voice of icy coldness. "To every one his own." ”

“ Atkins. “Just thrown away his talents, and misused his eloquence in denouncing the Compromise Measures, and Mr. Webster, and Slavery, and all the best interests of his country.”
“Be Jove, he’s a fool, that’s what he is,” remarked Thomas, caressing his military whiskerage.
“He’s worse, Tom,” replied his father; “he’s a traitor, and ought to be indicted for treason.”
“Does he move in good society here, Mr. Atkins?” blandly asked Mr. Lafitte.
“He! Why, sir, he’s a rank Disunionist!” exclaimed the merchant. “A Disunionist received into good society! ”