Bradamante

“ She grew up very tall and strong, as well as fair to see, and soon put on man’s armour, and began to take her part in tournaments, and it was rare indeed that she failed to carry off the prize. In truth, it was not long before her skill was said to be equal to that of Roland’s cousin, the renowned Rinaldo.
Of course so wise and beautiful a maiden had no lack of wooers, but Bradamante listened to none, save only to the brave Roger, who had quitted the Moorish court to seek adventures in the lands of Charlemagne the emperor. ”

“ As this rejoices, as this sight is dear
To Bradamant, when, through their strife displaced,
Every suspicion from her breast is chased.
LIV
Bradamant took her sword, and to descry
The duel of those champions stood apart.
The god of war, descended from the sky,
She deemed Rogero, for his strength and art:
If he seemed Mars, Marphisa to the eye
Seemed an infernal Fury, on her part.
'Tis true, that for a while the youthful knight
Against that damsel put not forth his might. ”

“ She therefore—notwithstanding her mother's decree—sets out in the garb of a knight to challenge her recreant lover and defeat him by means of her magic lance.
After unhorsing on the way all those who venture to tilt with her, Bradamant meets Rogero, who, recognizing her in the midst of their duel, flatly refuses to continue the fight, and implores her to accompany him into a neighboring forest, where he promises to explain all to her satisfaction. They are, however, followed thither by the maiden who has nursed Rogero, who, jealous in her turn, now attacks Bradamant. ”

“ When an old fellow like me is called up in the middle of the night, he can't be expected to have his wits about him just at first. (Martha, bring us a light.) Sit down, Mr. Marchmont; there's a chair at your elbow. And now may I ask the reason——?"
"The reason I have disturbed you in this abrupt manner. The occasion that brings me here is a very painful one; but I believe that my coming may save you and yours from much annoyance."
"Save us from annoyance! Really, my dear sir, you——"
"I mystify you for the moment, no doubt," Paul interposed blandly ”

“ Mr. Bradby was somewhere handy, he argued, extremely ready and willing to finish him off, and it would never do to give him another chance. He had no idea that Mr. Bradby had died long years ago. Time had telescoped and he was back again in the early eighties. With the addled craftiness of a half-witted creature he set about escaping from the imprisoning walls of the gully-dungeon. Had it been anything else than a blind creek he would have found an exit by following the dry bed, and thus have disappeared entirely from this story. ”

“ Old Bradhurst stepped up to her.
"I hope your lordship is feeling better;" and then, surveying her from head to foot, with a broad grin on his features, "I declare, you look the picture of health, if I ever saw it. How old are you?"
Mary quickly responded, "Fourteen years."
"Fourteen," returned Bradhurst: "well, I don't think you will shed much blood. You look more like a deuced handsome girl than any man I ever saw." ”

“ The wise Brahmin knew nothing of this, and merely said, for the sake of a few rupees, what Farebwala told him to say. For the bribe of a hundred rupees, he would have declared the herdsman's child to be the son of a rajah.
"Who are you, O ass, and son of an ass, who would pour contempt on holy devotees!" cried the angry Brahmin.
The youths around, easily moved to mirth or to mockery—as the chaff is whirled round by a light puff of wind—joined in the insulting Cry, "O ass, and son of an ass!" ”

“ His ideal of duty captivates the doer more than his own agency therein. The noblest men are made by the contemplation of their models. Like the great Apostle, they are not disobedient unto the [12] heavenly vision. Among earth's worthies, modest and unconscious of greatness, there stands the figure of William Bradford.
We find him first as a native of Austerfield, England, on the south border of Yorkshire. ”

“ Mr. Marchmont wishes me to stay. It suits me to stay. What does it matter what people say of me? What do I care for any one's opinion—now?"
"Olivia," cried the young man, "are you mad?"
"Perhaps I am," she answered, coldly.
"Why is it that you shut yourself from the sympathy of those who have a right to care for you? What is the mystery of your life?"
His cousin laughed bitterly.
"Would you like to know, Edward Arundel?" she said. "You shall know, perhaps, some day. You have despised me all my life; you will despise me more then."
They had reached Paul Marchmont's painting-room by this time. ”

“ And then he remembered what some knowing busybody had told him about Lord Bramber's cleverness, and the handsome settlement extorted from Mr. Topsparkle before he was allowed to carry off the lovely Judith.
"So good a settlement," said the gossip, "that her ladyship has but small inducement to remain constant to a fossil husband. She may elope whenever she likes, for she will be handsomely provided for even in her disgrace. Lord Bramber is a man of the world, and able to look ahead." ”

“ It is no less than sacrilege for a man who can write after this fashion to sit down at the Lord’s table with us, professing to be of us.”
“You are right, Elder,” replied Bradford sternly, “and I leave the spiritual matter to you; but it is my duty, and one not to be slighted, to drive this traitor out of our body politic. He must leave Plymouth at once. Say you not so, Captain Standish?” ”

“ He noted the wedding-ring, and two or three trumpery turquoise and garnet rings on her left hand. Her day of splendour was past, and the spoils of her youth had vanished.
"A hundred ain't much, if your client is a rich woman," she said. "Of course, I can guess who she is—Lady Perivale. I've been told I'm like her. If it's her, she can afford to pay two hundred quid as easy as one. And I ain't going to stand up in court and tell my life and adventures for a lower figure."
"You are a hard one, Mrs. Randall."
"I'm a hard-up one, Mr. Faunce. ”

“ Go now, and I will send for thee in a day or two. But see thou keep a quiet tongue. Say not one word so much as to the rushes, or thou shalt have no husband at all. Mind that!"
"Oh, I'll not speak, I'll not forget, trust me to do all your honor's bidding," cried the girl joyfully, and Bradford gazing at her in compassionate wonder rejoined,—
"Well, go now, and remember. Stay, send me one of the lads, no matter which. The first one thou seest." ”

“ I am a drowning man, you see, and catch at the frailest straw that floats past me. I believe in you, Edward, as much as I distrust Paul Marchmont. If the day ever comes in which my little girl should have to struggle with this man, will you help her to fight the battle? ”

“ Bradbury.
He nodded approval. He muttered, “Bradbury, I’ve thought to die on a night like this! To go out on the storm. Hark to the wind and the voices in it! And the wind blows from the sea. Oh, God, there’s many a soul of the dead men out of the sea rides with the wind to-night!”
“Sir,” cried Mr. Bradbury, shuddering, “the p. 238dead shall not rise from the sea till the last trump sound!”
“I’ll have the boy by me,” the old man whispered. “I’ll have him watch. I’ll lie upon my bed; I’ll rest—if he’ll watch by me.”
“Surely, sir,” said Charles, “I am willing to sit with you!” ”

“ Bradford to Mr. Cushman.
Loving and kind friend, I most heartily thank you; and would be right glad to see you here, with many other of our old and dear friends, that we might strengthen, and comfort one another, after our many troubles, travels, and hardships. I long greatly for friends of Leyden, but I fear, I shall now scarce ever see them, save in heaven; but the will of the Lord be done. We have rid ourselves of the company of many of those, who have been so troublesome unto us; though I fear we are not yet rid of the troubles themselves. ”

“ Bradbury’s apprehension grew with the darkness and the storm. When he drew up the glass and sat down, he did not lie back on his cushions or muffle his shawl about his ears; he leaned towards the window, staring forth into the dark, seeming, too, by his impatient wave of his hand when I would have spoken, to be listening intently. I strained my ears to hear, but for the time heard nothing save the rumble of wheels, and the rushing of the wind; afar a thunderous sound as the beating of the sea, no more, until the wind was cut from us in a dip of the road, as if we p. ”

“ If we don't get to some place where it widens out very soon, we might as well write each other's epitaphs. We've got to hurry like—listen! What was that?'"
"From the blackness in back of us came a sudden loud, menacing roar, growing in volume every second."
"Come on, boys, quick!" yelled Bradhurst, setting us the example by forging ahead faster than before. "There's a big wave coming that'll fill this place up to the roof, and the Lord help us if it overtakes us here." ”

“ And though she dared not lift her eyelids to the young soldier's face, that handsome, earnest countenance, with the chestnut hair lit up with gleams of gold, the firm lips shaded by a brown moustache, the pensive smile, the broad white forehead, the dark–blue handkerchief tied loosely under a white collar, the careless grey travelling–dress, even the attitude of the hand and arm, the bent head drooping a little over the fire,––were as present to her inner sight as if her eyes had kept watch all this time, and had never wavered in their steady gaze. ”

“ I wish that you would cultivate his acquaintance, my dear boy, for he is the sort of man it is good for a fellow to know—undaunted in disaster, falling only to rise again, he is bound to succeed in the long run. It is easy to see how much Mr. Mallom thinks of him, and the pride he has in him. But Edgar Bradgate is proud, and rightly so. He will not live on his stepfather, but will make his own way in the world or starve, and that is the right spirit to show.”
“Oh, Grace, what shall I do? To think that I have been keeping Mr. Bradgate’s property from him for so many weeks, and he so poor ”

“ And then a sudden flush of passionate emotion rose to his face, as a new thought flashed into his mind. What if this helpless girl had been detained by force at Marchmont Towers?
"Olivia," he cried, "whatever baseness this man, Paul Marchmont, may be capable of, you at least must be superior to any deliberate sin. I have all my life believed in you, and respected you, as a good woman. Tell me the truth, then, for pity's sake. Nothing that you can tell me will fill up the dead blank that the horrible interval since my accident has made in my life. ”

“ Should not God and our dear Elder have required his blood at your hand?”
A great silence was the only answer, and presently Bradford spoke again, and now in the tone of assured conviction and well-grounded authority that in some [Pg 338] moods the human soul yearns to hear, especially an ardent, impetuous, and loving soul like that of Standish; a nature that, while the impulse lasts, will dare heaven and hell and earth to achieve its purposes, and when the revulsion comes distrusts all that is within, and turns like a drowning man to some external authority. ”

“ You must invite Mr. Faunce to a quiet little luncheon some day. There is no question of class distinction with a clever man like that."
Lady Perivale smiled. She was accustomed to her friend's enthusiasms and ultra-Liberal ideas.
"It's time for me to go home, Grace. I asked Johnson to order a cab at eleven. Oh, by-the-by, it is ages since you took a cup of tea in my cottage. I wish you'd come at five o'clock next Saturday. I have picked up an old print or two—genuine Bartolozzis—rural subjects—that I am dying to show you."
"I should love to go to you, Sue. But you may have people." ”

“ This time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look of alarm.
"But I'm not ill, you know, Miss Marchmont," he said, laughing. "Our fellows are very glad of a wound when they feel home–sick. The 8th come home before long, all of 'em; and I've a twelvemonth's leave of absence; and we're pretty sure to be ordered out again by the end of that time, as I don't believe there's much chance of quiet over there."
"You will go out again!––––"
Edward Arundel smiled at her mournful tone.
"To be sure, Miss Mary. I have my captaincy to win, you know; I'm only a lieutenant, as yet." ”

“ He left the fireplace, and walked slowly up and down the room, stopping now and then to look out at the wintry sky, or the flat expanse of turf below it; but he was quite a different creature to that which he had been before his encounter with Edward Arundel. The chairs and tables palled upon him. The mossy velvet pile of the new carpets seemed to him like the swampy ground of a morass. The dark–green draperies of Genoa velvet deepened into black with the growing twilight, and seemed as if they had been fashioned out of palls. ”

“ Bradfield. He called to you by name!”
Mr. Bradfield turned in his seat, as if to have another look at the man; but they had turned a corner, and he was out of sight.
“Did he, though?” said he, as if in surprise. “Well, I daresay he’ll find me out, if he wants anything of me. People have a trick of doing that.” Then, as if dismissing the subject from his thoughts, he said, “Well, haven’t I been ‘good?’ Will you come out with me again?”
Chris laughed with some constraint. Mr. Bradfield certainly had behaved well, but she did not want to put his good behaviour to any further tests. ”

“ Youth and natural coquetry fortunately are stronger than the indifference of poverty. Had Barabant been fifty the girl would have continued her inspection undisturbed; but perceiving him to be in the twenties, and with a certain air of distinction, she hastily withdrew, covering her throat with an instinctive motion of her hand, and leaving Barabant, forgetful of his first disenchantment, to gallop through the delightful fields of a new romance. ”