Brechin

“ LAING, ALEXANDER (1787–1857) , the Brechin poet, was born at Brechin, Forfarshire, 14 May 1787. His father was an agricultural labourer. Laing spent only two winters at school, and when eight years old became a herd, but devoted much of his leisure to reading and writing. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a flax-dresser, and followed this occupation for fourteen years, when an accident permanently disabled him. ”

“ Next day Brechin made a dash at Inverurie; whereupon Bruce, in spite of remonstrances, determined to mount and fight, though, says Fordun, 'he could not go upright, but with the help of two men to prop him up.' He is said to have had 'near 700 men.' He advanced towards Oldmeldrum, and as the enemy retreated, pressed steadily upon them, pushing their retreat into flight, and pursuing them, Fordun says, as far as Fyvie. Buchan and Mowbray fled to England, while Brechin stood a siege in his own castle of Brechin. ”

“ The two supplementary volumes were mainly his own work. He was twice chosen bishop of Dunkeld, but the opposition of Bishop Skinner, afterwards primus, rendered the election on both occasions ineffectual. In 1808 he was consecrated assistant and successor to the bishop of Brechin, in 1810 was preferred to the sole charge, and in 1816 was elected primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, in which capacity he greatly aided in the introduction of many useful reforms, in fostering a more catholic and tolerant spirit, and in cementing a firm alliance with the sister church of England. ”

“ In 1844 he was ordained deacon and priest in the English Church, and held curacies at Aston, Rowant and St Thomas’s, Oxford; but being naturally attracted to the Episcopal Church of his native land, then recovering from long depression, he removed in 1846 to Stonehaven, the chief town of Kincardineshire. The same year, however, he was appointed to the vicarage of St Saviour’s, Leeds, a church founded to preach and illustrate Tractarian principles. In 1848 Forbes was called to succeed Bishop Moir in the see of Brechin. ”

“ A prodigious amount of fighting has raged round this peaceful-looking little town. It was not without bloodshed that Brychan the Irishman, in the fifth century, made this country his own with complete thoroughness, supplying it not only with a new name but with a new population (for he is said to have had forty-nine children) ; and Brecon was one of the many places that were attacked and overcome by the army of Alfred’s warlike daughter Ethelfleda ”

“ It might easily mean a fight of some sort, Brachey reflected. This mountain of a man could crush him, of course. Primitive emotion charged the air as each deliberately stud'ed the other.... It would hardly matter if he should be crushed. There were no police in T'airan to protect white men from each other. His wife would be relieved; a queer, bitter sob rose part way in his throat at the thought. There was no one else... save Betty. Betty would care! ”

“ BRECON, or Brecknock, a market town and municipal borough, the capital of Breconshire, Wales, 183 m. from London by rail, picturesquely situated nearly in the centre of the county, at the confluence of the Honddu with the Usk. Half a mile higher up the Tarell also falls into the Usk from the south. The ecclesiastical parish of Brecon consists of the two civil parishes of St John the Evangelist and St Mary, both on the left bank of the Usk, while St David’s in Llanfaes is on the other side of the river, and was wholly outside the town walls. ”

“ Brachey was aware of no glances of more than the usual passing curiosity from slanting eyes. He saw only the traditional peaceful countryside of the Chinese interior.
This sense of peace and calm had an effect on his moody self that increased as the day wore on. Life was turning unreal on his hands. His judgment wavered and played tricks with memory. Had it been so dangerous back there in T'ainan? Could it have been? He had to look steadily at the ragged, trudging figure of the erstwhile elegant Mr. Po to recapture a small degree of mental balance.... He had brought Betty away. ”

“ That was all the comment he made on the art treasures of Brescia, until after we were again in the carriage. Then he said: "What you fellows can see in pictures I can't make out. I never took no stock in them. Why should I want to look at a lot of angels in nightgowns doing a walk-around, or a man stuck as full of arrows as a pincushion, or a woman holding a fat baby, or a tramp with a big stick, and nothing on in the way of clothes except a bit of buffalo-hide? It's all nonsense to pretend that folks really do take, interest in such things. ”

“ Looking back from the top of a little hill, the three boys could see the village of Chief Ruku-Ru, which they had skirted, still sleeping after its exciting night. Ahead, through the long buffalo grass, wound the bearers under the direction of Wimba and Matse, each man either carrying a bundle on his head or else supporting on his shoulders one end of a pole from which was slung one of the more bulky articles of equipment, while a companion upheld the other. ”

“ Brecon is delightfully situated upon a gentle swell above the Usk, overlooking a fertile highly-cultivated valley enlivened with numerous seats, and enriched with several sylvan knolls. On one side of the town, beneath the majestic hanging groves of the priory, the impetuous Hondy loudly murmurs, p. 328and unites with the Usk a small distance beyond its handsome bridge. Though the town boasts many capital residences, yet, encumbered by a number of mean hovels even in its principal situations, and deficient in regulations of cleanliness, it fails to create any idea of importance. ”

“ If there was in Mr. Po's speech a softness of intonation and a faint difficulty with the r's and l's, the faults were not so marked as to demand changes of spelling in setting it down. He accepted a cigarette. Brachey lighted his pipe.
“You are quite at home in English,” remarked Brachey.
“Oh, yes! English is my professional matter in hand.”
“You have lived abroad?”
“Oh, no! But at Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, I made consumption largely of midnight oil. And among English people society I have broken the ice.”
Brachey settled back in the angular chair; pulled at his pipe; thought. ”

“ And behind him, indifferent to all the human world, responsive in his frigid way only to the beauties of the Japanese country-side and of the quaint, gray-brown, truly ancient city extending up and down the valley by its narrow, stone-walled stream, rode Mr. Jonathan Brachey.
The coolies, it would seem, had decided to act in concert. From shop to shop among the crowded little streets went the four rickshaws. Any mere human being (so ran Betty's thoughts) would have accepted good-humoredly the comradeship implied in this arrangement on the part of a playful fate ”

“ Brecon, occupying a highly picturesque situation, is the first place of any importance that the Usk comes to in its flight from the mountains. Two streams join the river at this point, the Tarel and the Honddu; and, as the town is ringed completely round with high mountains, it may be said to lie in the bottom of a huge bowl. Near by, the Beacons, twin peaks, the highest mountains in South Wales, tower to the sky, and add grandeur to the beauty of the neighbouring hills. In the reign of good Queen Bess, Churchyard was moved to verse at the sight of Brecon and its surroundings. ”

“ Three.
3 A man of Jonathan Brachey's nature couldn't know the power his nervous bold thoughts and words were bound to exert in the mind of a girl like Betty. In her heart already she was mothering him. Every word he spoke now, even the strong words that startled her, she enveloped in warm sentiment.
To Brachey's crabbed, self-centered nature she was like a lush oasis in the arid desert of his heart. He could no more turn his back on it than could any tired, dusty wanderer. He knew this. Or, better, she was like a mirage. And mirages have driven men out of their wits. ”

“ Not only did Berquin turn a deaf ear to the wise counsels of Erasmus, but his protectress, Marguerite, being moved by his courage, and herself also as imprudent as she was generous, persuaded herself that he was in the right, and supported him in his undertaking. She wrote to the king her brother, “Poor Berquin, who, through your goodness, holds that God has twice preserved his life, throws himself upon you, having no longer any one to whom he can have recourse, for to give you to understand his innocence ”

“ Wimba is staring hard at us. Poor fellow, he believes his end has come and what a look of dumb appeal. Up, Frank, it’s time to act I’m sure.”
From their place on the outskirts and a little to one side of the semi-circle of savages, Frank and Jack rose with white determined faces and advanced the few steps necessary to bring them face to face with Chief Ruku-Ru seated opposite across the open space surrounding him.
The tall warriors forming the chief’s guard, coal-black, six foot tall, magnificent specimens of manhood, stood aghast. What did the white strangers contemplate? ”

“ A red, angry glow spread over De Brecy's face; and Agnes herself was starting forward, as if to cling to him in that moment of anguish and indignation; but Agnes Sorel laid her hand upon her arm and held her back, whispering eagerly, "Do not oppose the king now. If you refrain, all may yet be well. Resist you can not, and opposition will be destruction."
"He has brought her up from her infancy, my lord the king," said Madame De Brecy, in an imploring tone. "I know of no one who could have so good a right to her guardianship as himself." ”

“ Having had his first sleep out, Breklin turns to his wife:
"What do you suppose the time to be now, Yudith?"
Yudith listens attentively.
"It must be past eight o'clock," she says.
"What makes you think so?" asks Breklin.
"Don't you hear the clatter of knives and forks? Well-to-do folk are having supper."
"We also used to have supper about this time, in the Tsisin," said Breklin, and he gave a deep sigh of longing.
"We shall soon forget the good times altogether," says Yudith, and husband and wife set sail once more for the land of dreams. ”

“ When they were back facing the battered bar young Breckenbridge explained, his business in no-man's-land.
“And this end of the county,” he wound up, “is sort of rough. If I'd ride around alone, packing that money, somebody's liable to get the best of me when I'm not looking for it. I've got to have a good man along to help take care of that roll. And I'd admire to have you make the trip with me.”
Curly Bill was a great deal slower at thinking than he was at drawing his gun and there was much food for thought in that bold proposition. He gazed at young Breckenbridge for some moments in silence. ”

“ There is a tract in the Cotton MSS. (Vesp. A, xiv.) , ‘De Brachan Brecheniauc et cognatione ejus,’ which states that Brecheniauc or Brecknock, in South Wales, received its name from him, and that he was son of Aulach, son of Cormac, king of Ireland. It gives him ten sons and twenty-six daughters, but while some of these sons and daughters are connected with localities in South Wales, others are stated to have founded churches or died in the north. ”

“ Before he could stir, Gherib smote him with the sword of Japhet flatlings on the nape of the neck, and he fell down in a swoon; whereupon the Marids swooped down on him and bound him.
When Bercan’s people saw their king a prisoner, they drove at the others, seeking to rescue him, but Gherib and the true-believing Jinn fell upon them and bravo for Gherib! indeed that day he pleased God who answereth prayer and slaked his vengeance with the enchanted sword! Whomsoever he smote, he clove him in sunder and before his soul could depart, he became a heap of ashes in the fire ”

“ Brachey found Mr. Po curled on the ground against a pack-saddle, smoking a Chinese pipe.
He rose at once, all smiles, and bowed half-way to the ground. But he thought it inadvisable to accept the invitation.
“I hate to be fly in ointments,” he said, with his curiously dispassionate quickness and ease of speech, “but it's really no go. Our own men would play game of thick and thin blood brother, but to village gossip monger I must remain muleteer and down and out person of no account. It's a dam' sight safer for each and every one of us.”
3 Betty tried to set the dingy room to rights. ”

“ The name Brecknock is an anglicized form of Brycheiniog, the Welsh name of the territory of Brychan (whence the alternative form of Brecon) , a Goidelic chieftain, who gained possession of the Usk valley in the 5th century. The Welsh name of the town, on the other hand, has always been Aber-Honddu (the estuary of the Honddu) . There is no evidence of any settlement on the site of the present town prior to about 1092, when Bernard Newmarch, after defeating Bleddin ab Maenarch, built here a castle which he made his residence and the chief stronghold of his new lordship. ”

“ Hampton laughed. Rafaela was a continual delight to him.
“It means,” said Jack, solemnly, “that if you don’t clear up this mystery, I’ll appeal to Donna Ana.”
35
Rafaela made a grimace. “Oh, that duenna. She sleeps. Not even your airplane wakes her. But when I hear it, I run. ‘Senor Jack will go search for my father who is missing four days,’ I say to myself. As I run, up comes that Pedro with a note. He would stop me. But I am so anxious to ask you to, please, go at once and search for my father, that I take his note and run. He looked after me and scratch his head. I see him, yes sir.” ”

“ Frank had started wriggling forward, and waited until he was close to Art and Farnum before replying. Then he repeated his assertion that he intended floating downstream until behind the slow-moving 151 herd of reindeer, when he would land and attempt to stampede them.
“You see how it is,” he said. “You yourselves admit that we’re in a tight place. Lupo’s forces have cover in that long grass, and can wait us out. Here among the trees there is no grass to hide us. The minute we get up and start to move around, we expose ourselves. ”