Bart Ridgeley

“ Her voice was low, deep, and earnest. He bowed.
"My father gave him this horse, and he gave him to me, and I gave him that young man's name. Prince is a prince among horses, and that youth is a prince among men," proudly, and with increasing color.
"I thought that young man's name was Bart Ridgeley," very much disgusted.
"Arthur Barton Ridgeley. Prince bears his first name, and he bears me;" lowering her voice and turning away. ”

“ Then Julia turned to him, and, with a charming manner, asked: "Mr. Ridgeley"—she had not called him Bart, or Barton, since her return from Boston—"Mr. Ridgeley, what do the girls mean? Have you really been away?"
"Have I really been away? And if I really have, am I to be permitted to take your hand, and asked how I really do? as if you really cared?"
"Really," was her answer, "you see we have just received our fall fashions, and it is not the fall style this year to give and take hands after an absence."
"A-h! how popular that will be with poor masculines! Is that to be worn by all of you?" ”

“ Miss Walters.
"She seemed rather to like it," said Mrs. Ford.
"Indeed I did!" and the young ladies gathered about to congratulate her, and cast admiring glances at her partner.
"Mr. Ridgeley," said Mrs. Markham, "I was not aware that you were an accomplished waltzer."
"You forget," Bart answered mockingly, "that I am travelled; and you know my only aptitude is for the useless."
"I did not say that."
"You are too kind. I sometimes supply words to obvious thoughts."
"And sometimes to those that have no existence." ”

“ Ridgeley pondered over the revelation which her woman's intuitions had drawn from Barton. No woman can understand why a son of hers should fail with any natural-born daughter of woman, and she suspected that poor Bart had, with his usual impetuosity, managed the affair badly. No matter if he had; she felt that he was not an object of any woman's scorn; and this particular Julia, she had every reason to know, would live to correct her impressions and mourn her folly. She, however, was incapable of injustice to even her own sex ”

“ When she had finished, "By the way," remarked her father, "I understand that our travelled young townsman, who has just returned from foreign parts, was at the post-office this afternoon, and perhaps you met him."
"Whom do you mean?" asked Julia.
"Your mother's pet, Bart Ridgeley."
"Now, papa, that is hardly kind, after what you said of him the other day. He is not mother's pet at all. She is only kind to him, as to everybody. Indeed, he don't seem to me like anybody's pet, to be patted and kept in-doors when it rains, and eat jellies, and be nice. ”

“ I am sad for poor Bart, and I cannot sketch it.
The young lawyers had been there, seen, talked to, got acquainted with, were looked up to, deferred to, admired and flirted with, and had gone, leaving themselves to be talked about.
Two young girls, amid the fading light, with the rich warm blood of young womanhood in their cheeks, and its latent emotions sending a softened light into their eyes, with their arms about each other's waists, were pensively walking out of the dusky woods to the open fields, with a little ripple and murmur of voices, like the liquid pearls of a brook. ”

“ And Bart found himself in a marvellous forest, wandering with Julia, wondrous in her fresh and tender beauty, on through endless glades, amid the gush of bird-songs, and the fragrance of flowers.
And there in the dream land whence I called them, I leave them. Why should I awake them again? For them can another day so bright and happy ever dawn? I who love them, could have kept them for a bright brief space longer. I could have heard the sparkling voice of Bart, and the answering laugh of Julia—and then I should listen and not hear—look anxiously around and not see! ”

“ To Miss Markham and Miss Walters precisely the same, with a little of the chivalrous devotion of a knight to acknowledged beauty.
"The fall and winter style prevails, I presume," he said, in gay banter, as if anticipating that their gloved hands were not to be touched.
"Your memory is good, Mr. Ridgeley," said Julia, with a little laugh and a little flush.
"Forgetfulness is not my weakness," he replied.
"I was not aware you knew Mrs. Ford," said Mrs. Markham, observing the little flutter in Julia's cheeks, and thinking there was a meaning in Bart's persiflage. ”

“ Bart shook hands with, and looked at, each. Case had small but marked features—was too light, but his eyes redeemed his face; and his features improved on acquaintance. Ransom was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, of heavy build, dark, and with a quick, sharp eye, and jerky positive way. Kennedy was sandy—hair, face, eyebrows and skin, with good eyes.
"I think we shall like you, Bart," said Case, who had examined him.
"I hope you will; it must be very pleasant to be liked," said Bart vivaciously. "I've never tried it much." ”

“ As usual, one of the boys went to the Post Office on the day of the arrival of the Chardon paper; and brought in not only that journal, but the rumor in reference to Barton. His mother read and took it all in, and was standing in blank amazement and indignation, when Julia came flashing in, and found her still mutely staring at the article.
"Oh, Mrs. Ridgeley! Mrs. Ridgeley!" exclaimed the aroused girl, seizing her hands; "it is all false—every word of it—about Barton! Every single word is a lie!"
"I know it is; but how can that be made to appear? Men will believe it, if it is false!" ”

“ Cool, shrewd, adroit, wary and wily, never baffled, never off his guard and never bluffed; with a reserve of power and expedients always sufficient, with a courage that knew no blenching, he moved forward. He had more industry and patience, and was a better lawyer than Wade, but was his inferior as an advocate. They were opposed in the case in which Giddings appeared, and Bart already felt that in the atmosphere of the contest was the element of dislike on the part of Wade, and of cool, watchful care on the part of Giddings. ”

“ Barton was conducted to a spacious, cool room, luxurious to his eyes; yet he felt no weariness, but somehow supernaturally strained up to an awful tension.
"Why don't I shriek, and tear my hair, and make some fitting moan over this awful loss? Why can't I feel it? O God! am I a wretch without nature, or heart, or soul? He is dead! Why should he die, and now, plucked and torn up by the root, just at flowering? What a vile economy is this! ”

“ And without another word he strode off deeper into the woods, and was lost to the eyes of the young men.
"Is it possible," said Bart, "that this was an educated, strong, and brilliant mind, capable of dealing with difficult questions of law? I fear that he has worn or torn through the filament that divides the workings of the healthy mind from the visions of the dreamer—wrecked on the everlasting old rocks that jut out all about our shores, and always challenging us to dash upon them. Shall we know when we die? Shall we die when we know? ”

“ Bart went up immensely in popular estimation. Any man who knew a word of Latin was a prodigy. Bart not only knew Latin, but the difference between that and old law French. Who ever heard of that before? and he had lived among them from babyhood, and they now looked upon him in astonishment. "It does beat hell, amazingly!" said Uncle Josh, aside.
After brief consultation the court appointed the fathers of the defendants their guardians, when Bart remarked that his learned and very polite opponent having found nurses for his babies, he would proceed with the case, and called his witnesses. ”

“ Markham, and none to exhibit any sensibility at the treatment of Barton; her manner was an admirable specimen of the cool, neighborly, indifferently polite. She was by nature a thorough-bred and high-spirited woman; and had Julia openly murdered poor Bart, the manner of his mother would not have betrayed her knowledge of the fact to Mrs. Markham. That lady busied herself with some goods until Mrs. Ridgeley had completed her purchases, when she approached her with her natural graciousness, which was so spontaneous that it was hardly a virtue, and was met with much of her own frank suavity. ”

“ Ridgeley, our continent and our life, with our fresh, young, intense natures, seem to me to contain all the elements of poetry, and the highest drama," said Miss Giddings.
"So they seem to us, and yet how much of that is due to our egotism—because it is ours—who can tell? Of course there is any amount of poetry in the raw, and so it will remain until somebody comes to work it up. There are plenty of things to inspire, but the man to be inspired is the thing most needed." ”

“ The tempest subsided, the snow ceased, the wind sunk to whispers, and the young morning was rosy in the east.
Barton had kept the fire burning near Julia, and when the new light became decided, approached her, and not without some anxiety: "Miss Markham—Miss Markham—Miss Markham!" raising his voice at each repetition. She did not hear. "Julia!" in a low voice, bending over her. Her eyes opened to the rude roof over her, and she started, turned to him, flushed, and smiled: "Oh, we are still here in the woods! Is it day?"
"Yes; how do you feel? Can you walk?" ”

“ The people among whom Bart lived had not passed beyond the discipline of brute force, and he shared the usual fortune of heroes of this sort, of having his powers and achievements exaggerated, even by those under whose eyes he had acted.
A rumor reached Markham's and Parker's, from which it spread, that Bart's school had arisen against him, and the first version was that he was killed, or very dangerously wounded; that he defended himself with desperation, and killed one or two, but was finally overcome; that the neighborhood was divided and in arms, and the school-house had been burned. ”

“ She remembered that he had spoken of Bart in connection with Greer, when he came home from the Cole trial, which made her uneasy; she now wanted to know what it meant.
The Judge replied that there was a rumor that Bart was an associate of Greer, and engaged with him. "In what?" He didn't know; he was a supposed agent of Brown's, and a company. "What were they doing?" Nobody knew; but it was grossly unlawful and immoral. "Did anybody believe this of Bart?" He didn't know; things looked suspicious. "Do you suspect Bart of anything wrong?" He did not; but people talked and men must be prudent. ”

“ Ridgeley," said Miss Giddings, "can't you give us an American book?"
"'When the little fishes fly
Like swallows in the sky,'
An American will write an American book," said Bart, laughing. "But your question is a good answer to my solemn twaddle on literature."
"No, I don't quite rate it as twaddle," said Ida.
"Don't you though?" asked Bart.
"No," seriously. "Now what is the effect of our American literature upon the general character of English literature? We certainly add to its bulk."
"And much to its value, I've no doubt," said Bart. ”

“ The three in happy tears—tears, that soon vanish, went into the dear old house, into whose every room Bart rushed in a moment, calling for the boys, and asking a thousand unanswered questions, and coming back, with a flood of words, half tears and half laughs.
"So, Bart," said the proud and happy mother, "it is all right," with a look towards Julia. "I knew it would be."
"And, mother, you knew it, too?"
"A woman sees where a man is blind, sometimes," she answered. "And boys must find these things out for themselves. ”

“ General savagery may reign, like perpetual night, over a given region, but who can say how many races of savages have destroyed and devoured each other in its darkness?"
They had reached the forest, and Sartliff placed himself in an easy position at the foot of an old beech, extending his limbs and bare feet over the dry leaves, in such a way as not to injure any springing herb. "Mr. Ridgeley," said he, "I would like to know more of you. You young men are fresher, see, and what is better, feel quicker and clearer than the older and more hackneyed. ”

“ He'll answer some chap, some day, that wun't stan' it."
"The man that picks him up'll find an ugly customer; he'd be licked afore he begun. I tell you what, them Ridgeley boys is no fighters, but the stuff's in 'em, and Bart's filled jest full. I'd as liv tackle a young painter." ”

“ People in the country go by the almanac, instead of by events, as in cities; and May quickened into June, June warmed into July, and ran on to fervid August. Quiet ruled in the Ridgeley cottage, rarely broken, save when Julia galloped up and made a pleasant little call, had a game of romps with George, a few quick words with Edward; an enquiry, or adroit circumlocution, would bring out Bart's name, which the young lady would hear with the most innocent air in the world. She always had some excuse ”

“ I glory in your pluck and spunk," said Case, "and I think of your performance as Major Noah said of Adam and Eve: 'As touching that first kiss,' said he, 'I have often thought I would like to have been the man who did it; but the chance was Adam's.'"
"Ridgeley seems to be taken in hand by Miss Giddings," said Kennedy; "that would not be a bad opening for an ambitious man."
"Of the ripe years of twenty-three," put in Case. "The average age would be about right. She has led out one or two of each crop of law students since she was sixteen." ”

“ Quick to compassionate others, he had ever been relentless to himself, and refused to regard himself as an object of injustice, or as needing compassion. As he stood for a moment confronting himself, scorned, despised and humiliated, he felt for himself the measureless contempt to which he seemed to have fallen; yet, under it all, and against it all, he arose. "Oh, Bart! Bart! what a poor, abject, grovelling thing you really are," he said bitterly, "when the word of a girl so overcomes you! when the slap of her little hand so benumbs and paralyzes you! ”