Blyth

“ You were out after hours with Miss Blyth. I’m not going to ask any questions, and I’ll listen to no explanations; young women who scour the streets at midnight are not the sort I like. We are judged by the company we keep. You were Mary Blyth’s companion last night; you’ll be her companion again. With her, you’ll draw what is due to you; with her, you’ll clear yourself off these premises inside half an hour. Now, stop it!”
Emily began crying.
“Oh, Mr. Slaughter, I’ve done nothing! it isn’t fair! I’ve nowhere to go to!”
“Oh, yes, you have, you’ve outside this office to go to. ”

“ I must see Miss Blyth, and at once, on a matter of grave importance.”
“Don’t talk to me, sir; my time is valuable. This is neither the hour nor the place at which we are accustomed to allow a stranger to see the young women in our employ. And as, in any case, this particular young woman is no longer in our employ, I repeat that you cannot see Miss Blyth.”
“Oh, yes, you can—for here is Miss Blyth.”
Darting past the porter, who seemed pretty slow-witted, I was back again in the office. A stranger was confronting the indignant Mr. Slaughter. ”

“ It would be waste of time and money to cable to the Norwegian ports for news of them—they're not gone there, that I'll swear."
"Scarterfield," said I, feeling convinced on the matter. "If the man's Baxter, and he's after that stuff, he's gone north. The stuff is near Blyth! Dead certain!"
"I dare say you're right," he said slowly. "And as I've found out all there is to find out here in Hull, I suppose a return to Blyth is the most advisable thing. After all, we know what to look out for on that coast—a twenty-ton yawl, with an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Chinaman aboard her. Very well." ”

“ This is Miss Purvis, the feminine friend whom Miss Blyth chose to be her sole companion. Other conditions were attached to the bequest equally mysterious. Indeed, it would really seem as if there was something in that house in Camford Street the existence of which the late Mr. Batters was particularly anxious should be concealed from the world. Miss Blyth only entered on the occupation of her property yesterday. Yet Miss Purvis came at an early hour this morning to tell me that something extraordinary had happened in the middle of the night. ”

“ He turned it over in his mind before he answered.
“There’s no Miss Blyth here now, but there was. I believe her name was Mary. I could soon find out. She’s left some time; directly after I came. I can’t think where she went. I’ve heard the name, but I can’t remember. I might inquire if you like, and let you know to-morrow night.”
I agreed. He did inquire. The next night he let me know. Miss Blyth had gone to a big shop, which he named, at Clapham. The next day, being engaged, I let Rudd go over to Clapham to see what he could do. ”

“ Before introducing myself to Mary Blyth, I would spend a day in endeavouring to discover something about the late Benjamin Batters, and, particularly, I would try to learn how it was that, after his death, his affairs had chanced to fall into my hands.
I work, live, eat and sleep in my chambers. As it happens I am the only person on the premises who does so. There used to be others. But now, with the exception of my set, what were living rooms are used as offices, and I am the only actual resident the house contains. After dark—sometimes before—the workers flit away. ”

“ I hope that nothing has happened to Miss Blyth.”
“Do you think that I should be here if nothing had happened to Pollie?”
The question was put with an amount of vigour which, in one so fragile, was almost surprising. I was delighted to see in her such a renewal of vigour. It made me feel more at my ease.
“I am only too fortunate, Miss Purvis, whatever the object of your visit. If you will permit me I will get you a cup of tea; that’s what you’re wanting. I live so much alone I’m accustomed to do all sorts of things for myself. Here’s a gas stove; in five minutes the water will be boiling ”

“ The anger that had seethed through Master Blythe boiled.
They meant to press him into service as a cabin-boy!
Master Blythe was surprised to hear his own voice say as coolly as a New England breeze: "I am a ship's master, young sir, and I warn you not to lay a hand on my person!"
A dead silence smothered the taproom. Master Blythe heard Old Ben gasp. Even the huge bos'n was startled. The ensign was furious. His lips rolled apart. "Damn your impertinence! When the king wants a man—high or low—he gets him! ”

“ It is only when the blood runs aged that we can look on any extreme beauty of nature without wishing to obscure it, so unbearable to our diseased perceptions is the flawless.
At length he made up his mind to the right course. Christmas was over and done with—a somewhat dismal hermit-time to him—and early in the new year Blythewood and his sister were to journey to London. He would ride with them; would spend a few days in town, and while there, would endeavour to induce the lawyer Creel to some explanation of that enigma of his inheritance. ”

“ Blythewood knows him well, and has a high opinion of him. What then? What favourable view can I possibly take of his reticence and evasiveness? For all I know, Blythewood himself may be the chief of a colony of pads and cut-throats. I am a lamb amongst wolves—knowing nought of the neighbourhood; moving in the dark. I am drowned and overwhelmed in a sea of mysteries—in a cursed Lake of Wine. And there, there, there! Luvaine’s fabulous stone! ”

“ As Blythe glanced down and away from this stirring outlook, she could just distinguish among the dark figures of the steerage the small white face of the child upturned toward the sky; and again a sharp pang took her, a feeling that the little creature did not 18 belong among those rough men and women. No wonder that the beautiful Italian eyes always sought the sky ”

“ Your old Gazelle came in on Saturday with all her Nets gone to pieces; the Lugger Monitor came in here yesterday to alter her Nets—from Sunk to Swum, I believe. So here is a Lowestoft Reporter for you: and you may never have it after all. But, if you do, do not forget what I have told you. Your Father thinks that you may have missed the Herring by going outward, where they were first caught: whereas the Herring had altered their course to inshore. . . . Better to miss many Herrings than have the Stone.
“E. FG.”
p. ”

“ If faith can move mountains, it is perhaps no wonder that the implicit and energetic faith of which Blythe Halliday was possessed proved equal to the removal of a small child from one quarter to another of the big ship. The three persons concerned in bringing about the change were easily won over; for Mrs. Halliday was quite of Blythe’s mind in the matter, Mr. Grey had little difficulty in bringing the Captain to their point of view, while, as for Giuditta, she hailed the event as the first step in the transformation of her small Signorina into the little “great lady” she was born to be. ”

“ Presently he strolled away, easy and nonchalant; but inwardly he carried a load of dread and he saw clearly that he must learn where he stood with little Miss Blythe, or not know the feeling of easiness from one day to the next. Better, he thought, to be the recipient of a painful and undeserved ultimatum, than to breakfast, lunch, and dine with uncertainty.
The next day, there being some dozens of people almost in earshot, Mr. Blagdon had an opportunity to speak to little Miss Blythe. Under the circumstances, the last thing she expected was a declaration; they were in full view of everybody ”

“ There was an old person of Blythe,
Who cut up his meat with a scythe;
When they said, "Well! I never!" he cried, "Scythes for ever!"
That lively old person of Blythe. ”

“ Blythe cried, setting her thick cup down on the deck, and tumbling off her chair in a snarl of steamer-rugs; “You’ve been down in the steerage finding out about the little Signorina!”
“Who told you?”
“You did! You looked so pleased with yourself! Oh, do tell me all about her!”
“Well, I’ve had a long talk with the woman. Shall we walk up and down?”
And off they went, with that absence of ceremony which characterises life on 29 shipboard, leaving Mr. DeWitt to bury his cities all unaided and unapplauded. ”

“ Blythe is one of the social leaders of Riverville and has a lovely home. But this city isn't large enough to justify any one's keeping a social secretary. He said so. It's just a big, commonplace, hustling manufacturing town like a hundred others in the middle West. I didn't like to ask any personal questions about Mrs. Blythe of Orphant Annie. (That's the name I couldn't help giving the young reporter in my own mind. He was introduced as Mr. Sandford Berry.) He looks the character to perfection ”

“ The Elsie was a yacht which belonged to a syndicate of Woodbridge yachtsmen, of whom Mr. Silver (a Woodbridge friend of FitzGerald’s) was one and Mr. Manby was another. The two friends who went to Mutford Bridge to look at the lugger were (so far as Posh can remember) Mr. Silver and Mr. Cobbold, of Cobbold’s Bank. Posh says that the lugger was a beauty. But nothing came of the visit, and the Woodbridge man did not buy her. ”

“ It seemed just the place to live a lazy, lounging life, free from all care or trouble, one’s hardest work to float in a canoe across the lake, and there, under the shelter of some giant trees, and lulled by the rippling of the water, sleeping or waking, dream away. ”

“ William Hall’s steam launch towed us in.
p. 196I believe that when the little ten-ton Buttercup (unbeaten at her best) came down and gave the poor old Red Rover the worst dressing down she had ever experienced it broke Mr. Nightingale’s heart. He died soon after, and he left a direction in his will that the Red Rover should be broken up and burnt. It would, I think, have been a kinder and better direction to have left the yacht to Fred Baldry, who had steered her to victory so often. ”

“ I shall miss my Hobby, which is no doubt the last I shall ride in this world: but I shall also get eased of some Anxiety about the lives of a Crew for which I now feel responsible. . . .”
On January 20th FitzGerald wrote another letter to Laurence on the same subject.
“. . . I should certainly like a large Oil-sketch like Thackeray’s, done in your most hasty, and worst, style, to hang up with Thackeray and Tennyson, with whom he shares a certain Grandeur of Soul and Body. As you guess, the colouring is (when the Man is all well) the finest Saxon type: with that complexion which Montaigne p. ”

“ Sheltered by those hillocks, and stretching from them to the sea, forming a semicircle of which this road may be called the line, and the sea, the inlet of Flensburg, and the Slei the outside, lies Angeln, a country which possesses even a greater interest to Englishmen than the quiet beauty which it shows to all comers, inasmuch as it is the reputed home of the race which gave their land its back-bone and its name. ”

“ And I know that there is no Disease in the World which makes a young Man old sooner than Stone: No Disease that wears him more. You should take plenty of Tea; some Gin and Water every night; and no Ale, or Beer ”

“ Behind the park and on towards the sea were woods in which a sportsman would find, no doubt, plenty of amusement. The village is a long one, and as a royal residence should be clean and well-to-do-looking, with some good houses of much higher pretensions than peasants’ cottages. On the other side of the road is another and smaller lake, connected with the larger one by a stream which turns a mill, and upon this lake stands another large house. ”

“ Very easy of access, Slesvig, which no one formerly visited, because it led nowhere and had no special attractions, could boast no mountains or waterfalls, no world-compelling ruins or galleries, will now draw the curious who delight to gaze upon the theatre of important events, and charm while it fills with wonder all those Englishmen who love the rural beauty of their native land. ”

“ I hereby desire my Heirs executors and Assigns not to call in the Principal of any Mortgage by which Joseph Fletcher the younger of Lowestoft stands indebted to me; provided he duly pays the Interest thereon; does his best to pay off the Principal; and does his best also to keep up the value of the Property so mortgaged until he pays it off. ”

“ Then Posh began to have the fingering of a good deal of money, and FitzGerald had already had reason to doubt his abilities to keep his credit and debit sides of account in proper order. Moreover, the usual autumn gales had been bringing the stormy and dark nights which are as profitable as they are dangerous to the drifters. ”

“ The traveller who, instead of making his way from Slesvig to Flensburg by the rail, chooses, perhaps from a desire to follow in the steps of the armies, the road, will find himself after he gets a mile or two out of Slesvig on a heath, broken only two or three times on the whole of the rest of the distance—some twenty miles—by villages, cultivated land, and bits of wood. ”

“ Every new discovery of FitzGerald’s life seems to create new wonder, new admiration for him; and there are, I hope, few who will read without some emotion not far p. 28from tears the sentence in his sermon to Posh.
“Do not let a poor, old, solitary, and sad Man (as I really am, in spite of my Jokes) , do not, I say, let me waste my Anxiety in vain. ”