Bill Sikes

“ That she had all the abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin, who would most probably have taken the alarm at once; but Mr. Sikes lacking the niceties of discrimination, and being troubled with no more subtle misgivings than those which resolve themselves into a dogged roughness of behaviour towards everybody ”

“ But he did not take his eyes off the robber for an instant during this action; and now that they sat over against each other, face to face, he looked fixedly at him, with his lips quivering so violently, and his face so altered by the emotions which had mastered him, that the housebreaker involuntarily drew back his chair and surveyed him with a look of real affright.
"Wot now?" cried Sikes. "Wot do you look at a man so for?"
The Jew raised his right hand and shook his trembling forefinger in the air; but his passion was so great that the power of speech was for the moment gone. ”

“ Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him, rather trying to turn his head than actually doing it, and said: "Is—it—the body—is it buried?"
They shook their heads.
"Why isn't it?" he retorted, with the same glance behind him. "Wot do they keep such ugly things above the ground for?—Who's that knocking?"
Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that there was nothing to fear; and directly came back with Charley Bates behind him. Sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy entered the room he encountered his figure. ”

“ You can’t do it without me, I know; but it’s best to be on the safe side when one deals with you.’
‘As you like, my dear, as you like’ replied the Jew. ‘Is there no help wanted, but yours and Toby’s?’
‘None,’ said Sikes. ‘Cept a centre-bit and a boy. The first we’ve both got; the second you must find us.’
‘A boy!’ exclaimed the Jew. ‘Oh! then it’s a panel, eh?’
‘Never mind wot it is!’ replied Sikes. ‘I want a boy, and he musn’t be a big ‘un. Lord!’ said Mr. Sikes, reflectively, ‘if I’d only got that young boy of Ned, the chimbley-sweeper’s! ”

“ Joseph Sikes, who ran a feed store in connection with and back of Baxter’s hardware establishment, and was a Godless man, set a good many people straight by sardonically observing that anybody as mean as Martin Floyd never would be cold in his grave, owing to the heat that was getting at him from below. ”

“ So, if you do make up your mind to speak without leave, say your prayers first.”
Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this warning, to increase its effect, Mr. Sikes continued.
“As near as I know, there isn’t anybody as would be asking very partickler arter you, if you was disposed of; so I needn’t take this devil-and-all of trouble to explain matters to you, if it warn’t for your own good. ”

“ He found something more than overdone home town pride in Rockvale, however. The narrow streets were filled with men, women and curious, wide-mouthed children. Horses, packed for long riding, with rifles bolstered to the saddles, were tied all along the rails of both the main hotel and the station. Curt Sikes was the center of a changing but ever interested group, but two of the Haines posse who had just come in without any report of capture, but with all the vivid news of the hold-up were now the main objects of attention. ”

“ Next morning we went to New York, and Henriette, taking my design to a theatrical property-man we knew on Union Square, left an order for its exact reproduction in gilt and paste.
"I am going to a little fancy-dress dance, Mr. Sikes," she explained, "as Queen Catharine of Russia, and this tiara is a copy of the very famous lost negligée crown of that unhappy queen. Do you think you can let me have it by Tuesday next?"
"Easily, madam," said Sikes. "It [Pg 92] is a beautiful thing and it will give me real pleasure to reproduce it. ”

“ I wish you had been the dog, Fagin, half a minute ago."
"Why?" inquired the Jew with a forced smile.
"'Cause the government, as cares for the lives of such men as you, as haven't half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill his dog how he likes," replied Sikes, shutting the knife up with a very expressive look; "that's why." ”

“ Sikes, still vigorous and strong, found in New York abundant opportunities for women to be useful. There was day's work, general house work, chamber work and cooking situations to be had without very much effort on the part of the seeker. Mrs. Sikes, whose work had chiefly been dressmaking and plain sewing, found the new field of labor quite irksome. The money realized from the sale of her property she must not let dwindle away too swiftly ”

“ Mis' Sykes was biddin' with the proceeds of the Ten Cent Tropical Fête that was to be. But we see, too, that this was a missionary cause if there ever was one, an' they wa'n't one of us that thought it irregular, or grudged it, or looked behind.
"I don't know whether you know how much five dollars rilly is—like you sense it when you've spoke it to a sale, or put it on a subscription paper in Friendship. There wasn't a sound in that store, everybody was so dumfounded. But none was so much as Silas Sykes. Silas was so surprised that he forgot that he was in public. ”

“ The wiseacres insisted that Grant had made a fatal mistake in paroling Pemberton’s army, and argued that the paroled men would, in a brief time, swell the ranks of other Confederate armies. The President had been patient until then, but when this argument was made, he turned on the critics, and, with a sly twinkle, asked: “Did you ever hear about Bill Sykes’s yellow dog?” They said they hadn’t. “Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “Sykes had a yellow dog he set great store by, but there was a lot of boys in town who didn’t share Sykes’s opinion. In fact, they regarded Sykes’s yellow dog as a nuisance. ”

“ It is from Anglo-Saxon sic, sich, Icelandic sikje, Norse siki. Sullivan says a sike is the drainage of a marsh, and that all sikes were once marshes. Natural productions have given names to several sikes, as the marshy hollows were the homes of trees, grasses, and animals ”

“ Sikes on the table was laying down laws of equipment at the top of his voice. "Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm going to stuff my pack absolutely bung full of socks. Man alive, I tell you nothing matters except socks. If you can keep on getting clean socks every—I'm going to stuff in socks enough to last me—" [1]
[1] A very short time afterwards, while the incident was fresh in his memory, Sabre heard that Sikes took out eleven pairs of socks and was killed, at Mons, in the pair he landed in. ”

“ The League demanded the restoration of the old liberties of the Empire, the abolition of trade monopolies, the abrogation of foreign law, the diminution of the number of clergy and of monks, the cessation of the drain of money through indulgences and other papal exactions. Seeing his opportunity in the weakness of the Council, Sickingen determined to attack the dominions of the Elector of Trèves, relying for support upon a Lutheran party which had been formed there. If he could win the country, he would at once establish the Reformed opinions, and gain for himself a splendid territory. ”

“ Why, George, this will keep the boys 99 talking, and they have to do something. Spend the money; the company is making it too fast anyway; they moved twenty-two thousand cars one day last week. Personally I’m glad to have a little fun out of it; it will be hell pure and undefiled long before we get through. This will be an easy way of letting Sinclair know I am here. Bill will report me confidentially to him as a suspicious personage.”
To the astonishment of Sykes, the superintendent confirmed over the telephone Dancing’s statement that he was to draw some expense money. ”

“ If that were the be–all and end–all of our campaign, I’d have nowt to do wi’ it. But it’s only th’ beginning, Ben, only th’ beginning.”
“And the end?” I asked.
“We’ll strike higher an’ further. Before many weeks are over I’ll throw off all disguise. I’ll call on every man that has a heart in his breast to join me in a march to London. We’ll strike into the great North–road. We’ll ransack every farm house by the way for arms and provisions. We’ll take toll of every man in every town who has got rich by grinding down the poor. ”

“ His figure is light, active, and graceful, and he is an excellent horseman. The country has few better heads than his. Always on the alert, he is full of resources, and no difficulties daunt him. Planter, Pope, and McKinstry are behind, waiting for tea and coffee, beans and flour, and army-wagons. Sigel gathered the ox-team and the farmers’ wagons and brought his division forward with no food for his men but fresh beef. His advance-guard is already across the Osage, and in a day or two his whole division will be over. ”

“ At the first sight of blood they would run to the forest like the sons of weaklings that they are."
"We must rouse Professor Wiseman at once," cried Billy.
"It is well," muttered Sikaso, "we shall need every man who can hold a rifle to-night but the professor is old, my brothers, and his heart is as a woman's."
"Well, he'll have to fight," said Billy with bloodthirsty determination. "I for one am not going to stand calmly by and have my throat cut, or worse still be taken prisoner by this old Muley-Hassan." ”

“ Sykes, I am not a Latin scholar; but if you will change your goose quill for the graver’s chisel, you shall inscribe on the corner stone of Co-op Mill a proud, a defiant Resurgam.”
“What! You intend to try again?”
“Certainly, I am already looking for premises below Mr. Tinker’s Mill. Unless the Holme takes to flowing uphill, I shall be safe from my present adversary, at all events.”
Mr. Sykes rose and grasped his client’s hand warmly. “That is good hearing, Mr. Pinder; you are a man. Ah! I don’t wonder at Miss —”; but here the man of law checked himself. ”

“ Sig’s a good scout even if he don’t look like Buffalo Bill. In fact, he’s all right in spite of his rough ways. He’d go farther for you than most of the men on this lot. If I wanted a favour I’d go to Sig before a lot of Christians I happen to know. And he’s a bully director if he is noisy. Baxter’s crazy about him, too. Don’t make any mistake there.”
“I won’t,” he answered, not knowing what he said.
She shot him a new look. “Say, Kid, as long as we’re talking, you seem kind of up against it. Where’s your overcoat a night like this, and when did you last—”
“Miss Montague! Miss Montague!” ”

“ Bill and Joe acted as advisers, and if one year's work is any criterion the quartette have administered the affairs most wisely, for in all the middle field there are no better or more contented miners than can be found at the Byram-Thorpe works.
In one year Skip was pronounced competent to take full charge of the store, and to-day it would be difficult to select a fellow better liked than he. On the Blacktown side of the mountain every one speaks of him in the most flattering terms, and at Farley's he is held up [Pg 273] to breaker boys as an example of how one may live down a bad reputation. ”

“ You know the kind of evening?
We straggled up to the depot, not in regular marching order at all, but just bunched, friendly. Mis' Sykes was walking at the head of her D. A. R. detachment, and she had sewed red and blue to her white duck skirt, and she had a red and blue flower in her hat, and her waist was just redded and blued, from shoulder to shoulder, with badges and bows. Mis' Sykes was awful patriotic as to colors, but I didn't blame her. She'd worn mourning so much, her only chance to wear the becoming shades at all was by putting on her country's colors. ”

“ As for Sikaso—after demolishing Billy's machine, he turned to the tribesmen and addressing them in stately tones said—as he afterward translated it to Frank:
"Village fools. You see there is no magic in the little black box. It is nothing but a child's plaything for the fat, spectacled idiot." (This part of the oration Frank did not communicate to Billy.) "You see I have smashed it. Do I fear? Do I look now like a man in terror of the white man's medicine. It is nothing. It is broken and gone like the cloud before the wind, like the shadow on the mountain side." ”

“ Well, Sikku had proved himself a fine fellow;—a promise was a promise;—they needed the cows sadly. One might as well make the best of the situation.
"Listen now, Sikku," said he. "Let us be good friends. What could you do with so much land while you are so little? Serve me faithfully for seven years, and I will then keep my promise and give you all the land you can see from Sipuri Mountain." ”

“ The motor had again “gone punk.”
“That smoke’s jest natch’ally drifted off,” remarked Sipes philosophically, as we floated idly on the gentle swells, “but we got enough to make us rich; wot do we care? I guess that ‘dark secret’ that Bill said this trip was, was set’n on them rocks w’en we fust come in the river. ”

“ Webster, perhaps noticing my silence and to give me time to gather my thoughts. “You see, Ben, a young man like you is scarcely his own master. If you had been ’Siah, now, it would have been different. A decent man is your servant, Brother Bamforth, and helps my infirmity mightily when he lights me home of a dark night, a decent man though with still a strong leaven of the old Adam and much given to the vanities of the flesh and idle conversation. But ’Siah is his own master though your man. ”

“ An' the noise kep' up, kind o' soft an' obstinate, an' we couldn't make it out.
"'We'd best go out there an' see,' says Mis' Sykes, low; 'the dear land knows what men will do.'
"So we watched our chance an' slipped out—an' I guess, for all our high ways, we was all three wonderin' inside, was we rilly doin' right. You know your doubts come thick when there's a noise in the entry. But Mis' Sykes acted as brave as two, an' it was her shut the door to behind us.
"An' there, right by that stone just outside the entry o' the church, set Mis' Timothy Toplady, milkin' her Jersey cow. ”