Bohun

“ He imparted the idea of never being put out over any earthly thing. The movement displayed his cool white waistcoat, across which fell a dainty gold chain with its transparent sapphire seal of rare and costly beauty.
"You have begun summer early!" remarked the doctor, glancing at Captain Bohun's attire.
The clothes were of a delicate shade of grey; looking remarkably cool and nice in conjunction with the white waistcoat. Captain Bohun was always well dressed; it seemed a part of himself. To wear the rude and rough attire that some men affect nowadays, would have been against his instincts. ”

“ North knew that he spoke in the sincerity of belief. Arthur Bohun possessed in an eminent degree the pride of his father's race. That innate, self-conscious sense of superiority that is a sort of safeguard to those who possess it: the noblesse oblige feeling that keeps them from wrong-doing. It is true, Arthur Bohun held an exalted view of his birth and family: in so far as that his pride in it equalled that of any man living or dead. ”

“ He was glad that he, not Bohun, must answer to that call. He was glad that no man would doubt his courage because, let come what would come, he stayed hid in safety here. The grain would be winnowed out from the chaff now—someone had just said so. He would escape that blast, and Bohun was not afraid of it. Not afraid as he— Fiennes—was afraid. Bohun was laughing when he came back, and Fiennes loved him for it—loved him for the big muscles and the brutish black moustache and the deep chest-laughter and the eyes warm with a kind of terrible content. ”

“ Bohun exclaimed.
“Yes... I don’t want to be melodramatic, but there’s trouble coming there; and if you’re the friend of them all, you can help—more than you know. Only none of the other business—”
Bohun flushed. “She doesn’t know—she never will. I only want to be a friend of hers, as you put it. Anything else is hopeless, of course. I’m not the kind of fellow she’d ever look at, even if Markovitch wasn’t there. But if I can do anything... I’d be awfully glad. What kind of trouble do you mean?” he asked.
“Probably nothing,” I said; “only she wants a friend. And Markovitch wants one too.” ”

“ What is the matter with Edmund North?"
Captain Bohun explained the illness and its cause. Her work dropped on her knee as she listened; her face grew pale with interest. She never once interrupted him; every sympathetic feeling within her was aroused to warm indignation.
"An anonymous letter!" she at length exclaimed. "That's worse than a stab."
"A fellow, writing one of malice, puts himself beyond the pale of decent society: shooting would be too good for him," quietly remarked Captain Bohun. "Here comes a summons for you, I expect, Ellen." ”

“ A dull light was smouldering in Bohun's eyes. He held himself stiff as iron, and his jaw was thrust out a little. Fiennes wondered how long he was going to suffer that detaining hand.
"Look here," said the Major, and his voice was unsteady, "we're into a bigger thing than private sins and sorrows now. Pity help us all! Come along and help me look after my girl, Bohun. Men and countries are both going into the melting-pot. It's only the way they'll come out that matters now, man." ”

“ And this was Arthur Bohun's present position. It is not possible, as was just remarked, to imagine one more cruelly difficult. Bound by every tie of honour to Ellen Adair, only not married to her through a mere chance, she waiting for him now--each hour as it passed--to return and complete the ceremony; and loving her as he should never love any other in this world. ”

“ Since Arthur Bohun had quitted the army and recovered from the long sickness that followed on his wound, Dallory Hall had been his ostensible home. Latterly he had made it really so; for Dallory Ham contained an attraction from which he could not tear himself. Ellen Adair had his heart's best love: and, far from her he could not wander. A pure, ardent love, honourable as every true passion must be in an honourable man, but swaying his every action with its power. Sir Nash Bohun invited him in vain. ”

“ Fiennes understood. Bohun, even in this moment, was saying with the others—
"What the deuce brings him back here? Hasn't the fellow the decency to know that he's down and under? He's no sport if he can't accept the fortune of war better than this."
Fiennes preferred this attitude in Bohun to a stammering pity and regret. He sat down with the comfortable consciousness that he had turned their intimate talk into awkward conversation, and that Nina de Cazelet winced every time she looked at him. ”

“ Bohun would, of course, have indignantly denied that he was out to help anybody, but that, nevertheless, was the direction in which his character led him; and once Russia had stripped from him that thin coat of self-satisfaction, he had nothing to do but mount his white charger and enter the tournament.
I’ve no idea when he first thought of Nina. He did not, of course, like her at the beginning, and I doubt whether she caused him any real concern, too, until her flight to Grogoff. That shocked him terribly. He confessed as much to me. She had always been so happy and easy about life. ”

“ In 1176 Bohun was present at the convention of Falaise, when the Scottish king recognised the supremacy of the English crown. He died 6 April 1187, and was buried at Lanthony, Gloucestershire; having married Margaret, eldest daughter of Milo of Gloucester, earl of Hereford, and constable of England (d. 1140) , on the failure of whose male line those honours were carried over through the same Margaret to the house of Bohun. ”

“ This change of men produced an immediate and total change of system; for Bohun was as strong a Tory as a conscientious man who had taken the oaths could possibly be. He had been conspicuous as a persecutor of nonconformists and a champion of the doctrine of passive obedience. He had edited Filmer's absurd treatise on the origin of government, and had written an answer to the paper which Algernon Sidney had delivered to the Sheriffs on Tower Hill. Nor did Bohun admit that, in swearing allegiance to William and Mary, he had done any thing inconsistent with his old creed. ”

“ And because to Bohun the moment was supreme, he understood, even as he came to her, that it would pass void into the void. Through disrepute, danger, unsuccess, he had beaten out his way, bluffing, taking chances, bruising and being bruised, better than some men, worse than a good many, not given to the graces of renunciation and self-denial, impatient of mercy and tenderness as of weaknesses which crippled a man. ”

“ This afternoon, when they were pacing the beach, unobservant of the little clouds rising in the west, was the marriage eve. It is the last day they need thus walk together as mere formal acquaintances: for at that little church whose spire is not a stone's-throw away, they will tomorrow be made man and wife. A strange light sits on Arthur Bohun's cheek; the light of intense happiness. The day and the hour are drawing near to its realization: and not so much as a thought has crossed his mind that any untoward fate can arise to mar it. ”

“ In some inexplicable way this wiped the livid fury from Bohun's face. "For Heaven's sake, Fiennes—— But even that doesn't give you any right over me."
"Never mind right. Let's say power," suggested Fiennes.
A passing woman brushed Bohun's shoulder, and his quick apology and smile aroused Fiennes' admiration and made him the more bitter because of it.
"You have no power which an honourable man could use," said Bohun then. ”

“ She saw that Bohun was lonely and miserable and, now that the first awkwardness was passed and he was no longer a stranger, she was able, gently and unobtrusively, to show him that she was his friend. I think that she had not liked him at first; but if you want a Russian to like you, the thing to do is to show him that you need him. It is amazing to watch their readiness to receive dependent souls whom they are in no kind of way qualified to protect—but they do their best, and although the result is invariably bad for everybody’s character, a great deal of affection is created. ”

“ Bohun told me that the upper Pearl estate was one of the healthiest on the island. How could he have been so grossly deceived?"
"Deceived? Not he; all humbug."
"But he surely does not know the estate is so unhealthy?"
"Not know it? Bohun not know it? Certainly he does. Every body knows it. Every estate has its reputation, and the reputation of the Pearl estates, both of them, is NOTORIOUSLY BAD. No man, unless his courage or his fortune is desperate, will take a situation on either of these plantations." ”

“ And--in the very midst of these obligations--to have made the sudden and astounding discovery that Ellen Adair was the only woman living who must be barred to him; whom, of all others, of all the numbers that walked the earth, he must alone not make his wife. The position would have been bewildering to a man without honour; to Arthur Bohun, with his fastidiously high standard, it was simply terrible.
For the few hours that James Bohun lasted, Arthur did nothing. ”

“ BOHUN. That's because you think an impression of sincerity will produce a better effect on Miss Clandon than an impression of disinterestedness. (Valentine, utterly dismantled and destroyed by this just remark, takes refuge in a feeble, speechless smile. Bohun, satisfied at having now effectually crushed all rebellion, throws himself back in his chair, with an air of being prepared to listen tolerantly to their grievances.) Now, Mr. Crampton, go on. It's understood that self is put aside. Human nature always begins by saying that.
CRAMPTON. But I mean it, sir. ”

“ No man with a smirch on him would be good enough for Major de Cazelet's daughter, nor, when it came to the question of the girl herself, would he be good enough for Nina de Cazelet.
An old story, time-buried, of temptation and shame; an old story, grimly and courageously outlived; an old story, dug up in its naked, yellowed bones, to stand for ever between these two! Fiennes shot another glance at the man beside him, and a shiver ran through him. He could never have endured what Bohun was enduring in such iron movelessness. ”

“ Bohun appeared in London at the head of an armed force, and took the lead in denouncing the favourites, who were sentenced to forfeiture and exile. But in October the king appeared in the field, and with unwonted vigour attacked his enemies in detail. ”

“ Fiennes was among them, hanging on his sticks, with patches of red on his thin face and a queer kind of desperate devil in his eyes. Bohun went over to him, and Fiennes' lips drew back a little from his teeth. He put a hot, shaking hand on Bohun's wrist.
"Just help me out—can't stand the crowd," he said, and Bohun got a strong arm about the shrunken body and bore him out into the corridor. That hot hand clung to his wrist still.
"Do you hear what they're saying?" whispered Fiennes. "We'll need every fit man—every fit man. Are you going to fight, Bohun? Are you?" ”

“ This is a fantastic world, Bohun, and nothing is impossible for it. Suppose he were to select some one, some weak and irritable and sentimental and disappointed man, some one whose every foible and weakness he knew, suppose he were to place himself near him and so irritate and confuse and madden him that at last one day, in a fury of rage and despair, that man were to do for him what he is too proud to do for himself! Think of the excitement, the interest, the food for his cynicism, the food for his conceit such a game would be to Semyonov. ”

“ But the most fastidious man living could not have taken exception to what she said. She spoke quite as a lady. Captain Bohun's appearance that day at Eastsea--coupled with the remembrance of his frequent sojourns at Niton when they were staying there, and his constant visits to her house at Dallory Ham--had revived a faint idea that had sometimes presented itself to her mind, namely, that he might be growing attached to Ellen Adair. Mrs. Cumberland did not wish to enlarge on this point; it might be, or it might not be; Captain Bohun si! ”

“ A tall, slender, and very handsome man, younger than Dr. Rane, opened the door slowly. There was a peculiar refinement in his proud fair features; a dreamy look in his dark blue eyes. An attractive face at all times and seasons, whose owner it was impossible to mistake for anything but an upright, well-bred gentleman. It was Arthur Bohun; Captain Bohun, as he was very generally called. He was the only son of Mrs. North by her former marriage with Major Bohun, and of course stepson to Mr. North. ”

“ He was so very young, so very helpless, and yet—that sense of his youth had pathos in it too, and I suddenly liked young Bohun—for the first time.
“Look here, Bohun,” I said, trying to speak with a proper solemnity. “Don’t be a young ass. You know that it’s hopeless, any feeling of that kind. She does care for her husband. She could never care for you in that way, and you’d only make trouble for them all if you went on with it.... On the other hand, she needs a friend badly. You can do that for her. Be her pal. See that things are all right in the house. Make a friend of Markovitch himself. ”

“ It's very good of you. My coat and dinner can certainly wait."
"I have brought Miss Dallory here for your sake, Arthur Bohun," was the rejoinder, spoken with emphatic meaning. "She is the young lady you will do well to think of as your future wife."
Madam went out of the room with much stately rustle, and swept downstairs. Another minute, and the door opened again to admit Richard North. Captain Bohun had not progressed further in dressing, or stirred from his place, but was leaning against the window-frame, whistling softly. ”