Berwick

“ An unlovely waterside road, it is true, a maze of railway arches spanning it, and shabby houses hiding all but the merest glimpses of Tweedmouth church and its gilded salmon vane, referring to the salmon-fishery of the Tweed, but leading to a point of view whence the outlook to the north-west is really grand. There, across the broad estuary of the Tweed, lies Berwick, behind its quays and its enclosing defences. Across the river, in the middle distance, goes Berwick Bridge, its massive piers and arches looking as though carved out of the rock, rather than built up of single stones. ”

“ As the mother sat in her drawing-room patiently longing for her cup of tea, but content to wait Oliver's good pleasure—or rather that of James Berwick—she could hear the voices rising and falling, and she rejoiced to think of the intimacy which those sounds betokened.
Mrs. Boringdon was one of the many in whom the mere possession of wealth in others excites an almost hypnotic feeling of interest and goodwill. When in his presence—nay, when simply even in his neighbourhood—she never forgot that her son's intimate friend and one-time chief, James Berwick, was an enormously rich man. ”

“ North Berwick, however, is the golfer’s Mecca on this side of the Firth; and bathers, artists, and other seekers after the pleasures of the sea-shore succumb to its attractions in increasing numbers every season. The sands and the links, the sea lapping upon the beach, or chafing round Craigleith and the other rocky islets and points, exercise a potent spell. But North Berwick’s great lion, and a conspicuous landmark over sea and country for a score of miles around, is the natural pyramid of the “Law.” ”

“ Roger changed countenance so quickly that Berwick laughed aloud.
“I swear,” cried Roger, “I never knew—I never asked. Hang it, man, the devil take you and your questions.” Berwick laughed more than ever at this.
[135] “Come,” said he, “let us consult our good friend Madame Michot. I am but mortal, and I know not how to advise a man concerning a handsome girl whom he has seen daily for three years, who, he declares, has been his best friend, and he does not know whether she is in love with him or not!” ”

“ The well-lit room, the cheerful fire, the judicious refection on a side-table, were all circumstances which usually would have been agreeable to a wearied traveller, but Monsignore Berwick seemed little to regard them. Though a man in general superior to care, and master of thought, his countenance was troubled and pensive even to dejection. ”

“ Let us go out and see for ourselves if you aren't too timid."
"Anybody who survives the excitement of following your fortunes for a few weeks cannot be very timid," replied Berwick candidly.
Jim grinned, but made no reply, and in a few moments they emerged from the hay into the dusk of the loft. For a few seconds they made out nothing, and then from the deeper shadow a dim figure took shape, and advanced towards them. Jim was the nearest to her, and Berwick was very well pleased that this was so. Jim showed no uneasiness. ”

“ As nothing is positively known respecting the origin of Berwick, it is impossible that an uninspired antiquary should be able to decide whether it was "undignified" or not. Its first "kirk and mill"—the primary conditions of a town—were more likely to be founded by a noble than by a serf.
In 1174, Berwick, with the castles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh, was delivered up to Henry II. as security for payment of the ransom of William the Lion, King of Scotland, who had been taken prisoner when besieging Alnwick ”

“ How we came gradually to establish, at the office of Household Words, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. But we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was governess in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and returned; and that she had long been in the same family. We really knew nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable: so I suppose we insensibly invented the rest. For myself, my mother was not a more real personage to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became. ”

“ Berwick town is seen, on entering its streets, to be unexpectedly modern and matter-of-fact. The classically steepled building that bulks commandingly in the main thoroughfare and looks like a church is the Town Hall, and displays the arms of Berwick prominently, the municipal escutcheon supported on either side by a sculptured bear sitting on his rump and surrounded by trees. ”

“ Richard Warner—afterwards the author of a work on the Waverley Novels—describes the lower half of the river between Berwick and Kelso: 'The country around Berwick, though swelling into hills and sinking into vales, has neither beauty nor variety, the one being uniform and lumpish, the other wide and unwooded. A naked surface everywhere presents itself, unadorned with those indispensable features in agreeable landscape, lofty trees and spreading shrubs. ”

“ Boringdon have felt had any other young man, looking as James Berwick now looked, his fair hair tossed and rumpled with the constant ruffling of his fingers, come and thrown himself down in this free and easy attitude on one of the few comfortable chairs in Chancton Cottage! But his hostess smiled at him very indulgently, and turned a look of gentle reproach at her son's stern dark face. ”

“ And over all, and calmly and coldly speaking the survival of nature when the grandest works of man are dust, sounded the rustle of many branches in the heedless wind.
The day was setting over Norham as I drove away,—the red sun slowly obscured in a great bank of slate-coloured cloud,—but to the last I bent my gaze upon it, and that picture of ruined magnificence can never fade out of my mind. The road eastward toward Berwick is a green lane, running between harvest-fields, which now were thickly piled with golden sheaves, while over them swept great flocks of sable rooks. ”

“ Nothing, short of her marriage to someone else, will make me give her up." He repeated, and as he did so Boringdon fixed his eyes on his friend with a peculiar, and what Berwick felt to be a terrible, look: "Nothing—you understand me, Berwick—nothing but her marriage to another man." ”

“ Bert spoke so earnestly, that Bernice involuntarily glanced at her shoulder.
“Yes, it’s there,” said Bert gravely. “You see, Bernie, you think the world owes you a living, and the world is not sure that it does. So you’ve got to earn that living.”
“Earn my own living! Why, my father—”
“Oh, can’t you understand parables? I mean, you think Berwick owes you a liking, then, and really, you’ve got to make Berwick like you. Berwick, in this case, meaning the dozen or so boys and girls of our set.” ”

“ This double epoch ought for ever to furnish a device for the Regiment de Berwick! It will henceforth be seen upon your colours; every faithful subject will there read his duty, and behold the model he ought to imitate."
"The colours of Berwick," added Charles Philippe the Comte d'Artois, "are, and always will be, in the path to honour, and we will march at their head!" [21]
The king perished, and then followed the campaign of 1793, a period most disastrous to the emigrants ”

“ I cannot follow the brilliant career of those two captains. Brilliant as it was however, it came to nought, and chiefly by the soldiership which the duke of Berwick displayed in Spain itself. The English had landed an army there to which was added a contingent of Portuguese. Louis sent Berwick to oppose them with what few troops he could spare. It was now that{29} Berwick showed himself to be a past master of defensive warfare—a true Fabius. The English, superior in numbers, could advance nowhere against this adroit and sleepless adversary. ”

“ Without any further words Jim crawled to the edge of the thicket, leaving John Berwick in the grewsome company of the dead man, but Berwick took up a position where he could see the tall, shadowy figure of James Darlington as he advanced straight toward the stronghold of this gang of unmerciful pirates.
"That boy has them all beaten when it comes to unqualified nerve," muttered the engineer to himself; "the best fellow in an emergency I ever saw, and that's something." ”

“ Here, at least, Berwick felt with satisfaction, everything was absolutely as usual. He went through into a narrow passage, up a short steep staircase to the upper floor, and so to the old-fashioned bedroom and dressing-room which no one but he ever occupied, and which were both still filled with his schoolboy and undergraduate treasures. There was a third room on each of the floors composing the two-storied building which had been added to the Priory some fifty years before, and these extra rooms—two downstairs, one upstairs—were sacred to Mrs. Turke. ”

“ But alas! that mood had quickly changed; and the interview with Boringdon had reawakened the violent primeval instinct which had slumbered,—only slumbered,—during the illness of Barbara. The knowledge that another man loved her, with an ordinary, natural love by no means free from that element of physical attraction which Berwick himself had been striving, not unsuccessfully, to control in his own heart, had had a curious effect upon him. ”

“ When a neighboring church clock struck one, Berwick rose.
“Come,” he said, “a man must sleep sometimes. We shall be awake betimes in the morning. All of Orlamunde will be here to meet the Princess Michelle. She is to marry the Prince, you know.”
Berwick turned his back as he spoke to Roger, and went up the narrow stair.
Roger had a little room over Berwick’s head, and under the sloping roof. All night long Berwick heard him tossing and groaning and muttering. At daylight he became quiet, and Berwick, whose rest he had much disturbed, fell into a deep sleep. ”

“ Think of the exercise we have had since leaving the restaurant to join our friend on the sidewalk."
"A man who would put you to all that trouble to speak to him is no gentleman," declared John Berwick whimsically.
"He deserves to be hung," said Jim savagely; "anyone who would impose on a trustful nature like yours and make you run over twenty miles of landscape! But cheer up, John, I have a hunch that we will strike a pay streak of grub yet. Let's take one more scout around that mysterious castle yonder and then we will make a bee line for the nearest lunch counter." ”

“ Cool, self-possessed and cautious as a general, Marshal Berwick was at the same time not wanting in audacity and swiftness of action. He was a true general of the 18th century, not less in his care for the lives of his men than in his punctiliousness and rigidity in matters of discipline. ”

“ From the moment she had left the boat she had been reminded, and that intolerably, of another journey taken, not alone,—on the day of her marriage to Pedro Rebell. The last few months seemed obliterated, and Berwick for the moment forgotten. She was haunted by two very different presences,—that of her mother, and that of the West Indian planter, whose physical nearness, which had ever, from their marriage day onward, filled her with agonised revolt and terror, she seemed now to feel as she had not felt it for years, for he had soon tired of his victim. ”

“ Fuller, when guessed,” said Berwick staring at the peacock, “but I assure you that I don’t wonder it has been hard to solve, and had not the accident of the silver ring, or rather that of the letter ‘K’ on the silver ring led you to the truth, I doubt if you would ever have solved it.” Berwick still eyed the bird steadily. “Most extraordinary! Ferrier was too clever, however, if I may say so; he concealed the treasure so well that the man he intended to benefit never did. ”

“ The knowledge that Boringdon might be mistaken,—that Barbara might, after all, never be free,—made the matter scarcely more tolerable. Oliver had so spoken that at the time his words had carried conviction. Berwick asked himself why he had not told her the whole truth, and then let her be the judge as to what they should do. He had always been aware that there were the two streaks in his character—the two Stuart streaks—that of extreme nobility, and that which makes a man capable of acts of inexplicable betrayal. ”

“ With what emotion, with what sympathy she had described to him her interview with Lord Bosworth; there had been such complete comprehension of his attitude, such keen distress that Madame Sampiero had repulsed him!
[pg 325] But, deep in Berwick's heart, something told him that Barbara's attitude to him and to their joint future was changing, and that she was in very truth on the eve of surrender. Nature, so he assured himself to-night had triumphed over convention, and, as a still voice also whispered, proved stronger than conscience. ”

“ I hold my tongue and watch the chaos as gravely as I can, while Berwick labours to make the jarring elements of his party harmonize, and offends every one in turn by trying to talk to him in his own way. I observe this generally irritates people; nobody likes to be so well understood.
"I can hardly judge at present, but I don't think Arlington's suit will prosper, and you will laugh when I tell you why: it is not that the youth is too shy and the maiden too cold; it is not the officiousness of the Berwicks;—it is because Lord Arlington has some thirty or forty thousand a-year. ”

“ In the list of prisoners to be exchanged on both sides, Luxembourg observed that the name of Berwick was wanting. He learned for what fate he was reserved; he seized the duke of Ormond one of his own prisoners, and sent William word that whatever measure was meted out to Berwick, should be measured again to Ormond. Ormond was a favorite of William, and Berwick was exchanged for him. [2]
{25}
In all this dreadful fighting the best soldier in Europe remains nearly inactive ”