Burberry

“ Ernie was on the lift that evening. He stood in the corridor, listening to the hubbub in the hall, and waiting for the first rush of visitors who had arranged themselves and appropriated keys, when he saw a man emerge from Madame's private sitting-room at the end of the passage.
Then he came marching resolutely down the corridor, absorbed, swift, direct, with eyes neither to right nor left, wearing a Burberry, and the short tooth-brush moustache that was still the rage in the British Army; a young man of a type so familiar to Ernie that he smiled on recognizing it. ”

“ But now they had seen Buster Bear and Farmer Brown's boy meet face to face; and while it was true that Farmer Brown's boy had run away as fast as ever he could, it was also true that Buster Bear had done the same thing. He had run even faster than Farmer Brown's boy, and had hidden in the most lonely place he could find in the very deepest part of the Green Forest. It was hard to believe, but it was true. And right away everybody lost a great deal of the respect for Buster which they had felt. It is always that way. ”

“ The Burgrave's great laugh was echoing up to them from the inner recesses of the winding stairs.
"O Heavens!" said the lady suddenly.
Steven turned. The cry was so tragic, apparently so unwarranted. The Burgravine's eyes were dry, but there was real terror on her pretty face.
"Why did you come?" she whispered. "In the name of mercy! was it not evident that it was a trap?"
"A trap!" he stammered.
"Yes, yes! O, do you not feel it? He is watching us like a cat—a cat going to spring; and I am the wretched mouse waiting—waiting. O, I can stand it no longer! I shall go mad. ”

“ Angel! blessed woman!" cried Burr. "Accuse not yourself! we have only been led away by our feelings. You are young and I am young. Is it strange? You lost your husband while you were in the day of life, and nature—yes, nature itself required relief. No one can ever know—"
"There! there!" cried she pointing upward—"there in yon high heaven, is One who knows!"
Burr stopped her mouth with kisses, and forced her to the floor, when the act was repeated, which so completely enkindled the fervent passions of the lovely widow, that she thought no more of any thing but Burr and his embraces. ”

“ The major looked at him sternly. "See here, sir! If you attempt for a moment to hint that—"
"My dear Major Burbank," Astro replied amiably, "I hint at nothing. All I wish is to be able to distinguish between the astral emanations of those who frequent your place. It is possible that Mrs. Burbank was most affected by a woman; but it is not likely."
The major, still frowning, replied: "We lead a very quiet life. My friend Colonel Trevellian is the only close friend of the family. But I must tell you, sir, that my wife has of late confessed to me that she did not like him. ”

“ Doubtless, thought Lady Barbara, the prince charming of the golden one's imagination would prove to be a whiskered Adonis with a knotted club; but, even so, it were difficult to imagine more degraded or repulsive males than those of her own village. Almost anything—even a gorilla—might seem preferable to them.
As night approached, the girl saw little lights commence to twinkle in the northern village—the cooking fires, doubtless—and then she rose and turned her face toward the village of Abraham, the son of Abraham, of Jobab and Timothy and Jezebel, toward certain danger and possible death. ”

“ On my first visit he led me to a hilltop and pointed off toward a deep gorge where the Pepacton, although it is a placid stream near Roxbury, rises amid scenery wild and rugged. It drains this high pastoral country, where the farms hang upon the mountainsides or lie across the long, sloping hills. The look of those farms impressed me as the fields of England impressed Mr. Burroughs—"as though upon them had settled an atmosphere of ripe and loving husbandry." I was often reminded in looking upon them of that line of Emerson's: "The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the wide, warm fields." ”

“ The great bull gorilla that was Henry the Eighth rolled into the room. "Silence!" he bellowed, and crossing to the embattled pair he kicked and cuffed them until they desisted. "Where is the fair, hairless one?" he demanded, and then his eyes alighted upon Rhonda where she stood almost hidden by the great bulks of his wives.
"Come here!" he commanded. "God has come for you, but he'll never get you. You belong to me."
"Let him have her, Henry," cried Catherine of Aragon; "she has caused nothing but trouble."
"Silence, woman!" screamed the king; "or you'll go to the Tower and the block." ”

“ It's a long hike, Barbara, but we gotta make it—we gotta, for if daylight finds us in the Piman country we won't never make it. Anyway," he concluded optimistically, "it's all down hill."
"We'll make it, Billy," she replied, "if we can get past the sentry."
"What sentry?" asked Billy. "I didn't see no sentry when I come in."
"They keep a sentry way down the trail all night," replied the girl. "In the daytime he is nearer the village—on the top of this bluff, for from here he can see the whole valley; but at night they station him farther away in a narrow part of the trail." ”

“ Nu turned away and stepped out upon the ledge before the cave. His quick eyes scanned the panorama spread out before him in a single glance. They stopped instantly upon a tiny figure showing across the forest in the little plain that ran to the edge of the plateau before it dove into the valley beside the inland sea. It was the figure of a woman. She was running swiftly toward the declivity. Nu puckered his brows. There was something familiar about the graceful swing of the tiny figure, the twinkling of the little feet as they raced across the grassy plain. ”

“ A footfall on the steep pathway leading to the cave caught their attention. "Someone comes," said Jezebel.
"It is late," said Lady Barbara. "No one should be coming now to our cave."
"Perhaps it is a man from North Midian," suggested Jezebel. "Is my hair arranged prettily?"
"We had better be rolling a rock into position than thinking about our hair," said Lady Barbara, with a short laugh.
"Ah, but they are such beautiful men!" sighed Jezebel.
Lady Barbara drew a small knife from one of her pockets and opened the blade. "I do not like 'beautiful' men," she said. ”

“ Always to the right Burrows bore, until in a little while he struck the old Indian trail that followed the Nueces southward, and that passed, twenty-eight miles to the southeast, through Lone Elm.
Here Burrows urged the sorrel into a steady lope. As he settled himself in the saddle for a long ride he heard the drumming of hoofs, the hollow “thwack” of chaparral against wooden stirrups, the whoop of a Comanche; and Wells Pearson burst out of the brush at the right of the trail like a precocious yellow chick from a dark green Easter egg. ”

“ Bridge elevated his eyebrows a trifle. He had been mistaken, after all. At the farmhouse the farmer's wife greeted them kindly, thanked Billy for returning her pail—which, if the truth were known, she had not expected to see again—and gave them each a handful of thick, light, golden-brown cookies, the tops of which were encrusted with sugar.
As they walked away Bridge sighed. “Nothing on earth like a good woman,” he said.
“'Maw,' or 'Penelope'?” asked Billy.
“Either, or both,” replied Bridge. “I have no Penelope, but I did have a mighty fine 'maw'.” ”

“ He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had been seized by a number of the ape-creatures and borne through the tree tops to their village. His captors had been as inquisitive as to his strange clothing as had mine, with the same result. As we looked at each other we could not help but laugh.
"With a tail, David," remarked Perry, "you would make a very handsome ape."
"Maybe we can borrow a couple," I rejoined. "They seem to be quite the thing this season. I wonder what the creatures intend doing with us, Perry. They don't seem really savage. What do you suppose they can be? ”

“ Then, one by one, they entered their huts, and silence reigned within the village.
Billy crept closer. He eyed each hut with longing, wondering gaze. Which could it be? How could he determine? One seemed little more promising than the others. He had noted those to which Indians had retired. There were three into which he had seen none go. These, then, should be the first to undergo his scrutiny.
The night was dark. The moon had not yet risen. Only a few dying fires cast a wavering and uncertain light upon the scene. Through the shadows Billy Byrne crept closer and closer. ”

“ ANCESTRY AND FAMILY LIFE
I am, as you know, the son of a farmer. My father was the son of a farmer, as was his father, and his. There is no break, so far as I know, in the line of farmers back into the seventeenth century. There was a Rev. George Burroughs who was hanged (in 1692) for a witch in Salem. He was a Harvard graduate. I know of no other Harvard graduate by our name until Julian (Mr. Burroughs's son) graduated in 1901 from Harvard. My father's cousin, the Rev. John C. Burroughs, the first president of Chicago University, was graduated from Yale sometime in the early forties. ”

“ From beneath a live oak, on the summit of a low bluff, a man discovered them. He had been sitting there talking with a girl. Suddenly he looked up.
“Why, there’s Guy,” he said. “Who’s that with—why, it’s that fellow Allen! What’s he doing up here?” He rose to his feet. “You stay here a minute, Grace. I’m going down to see what that fellow wants. I can’t understand Guy.”
He untied the Apache and mounted, while below, just beyond the pasture fence, the boy turned sullenly toward Allen. ”

“ The Burgrave was elderly, to have so young a wife; but he was a handsome man, square-built and portly. His manners were very fine—so fine, indeed, as to be confusing to his guest, straight from England and English reticence. The Burgrave smiled frequently, and joked, too, to a vast extent, with his wife and niece; but it was noticeable to Steven that the former seemed ill at ease, and that the latter now and again regarded her relation with an eye in which surprise and contempt were mingled. ”

“ Away from one danger to possible dangers many fold more terrible. Barbara's heart was very heavy, for again she feared and mistrusted the mucker.
They followed down the little brook now to where it emptied into a river and then down the valley beside the river which grew wider and more turbulent with every mile. Well past mid-afternoon they came opposite a small, rocky island, and as Byrne's eyes fell upon it an exclamation of gratification burst from his lips.
"Jest de place!" he cried. "We orter be able to hide dere forever." ”

“ Burroughs daily amid these scenes; to realize how they are a part of him, and how inimitably he has transferred them to his books; to roam over the pastures, follow the spring paths, linger by the stone walls he helped to build, sit with him on the big rock in the meadow where as a boy he sat and dreamed; to see him in the everyday life—hoeing in the garden, tiptoeing about the house preparing breakfast while his guests are lazily dozing on the veranda ”

“ Opening it, he revealed a white powder, the minute crystals of which glistened beneath the light from the electric bulbs.
“It looks just like snow,” she said.
“Sure!” he replied, with a faint smile. “It is snow. Look, I’ll show you how to take it.”
He divided the powder into halves, took one in the palm of his hand, and snuffed it into his nostrils.
“There!” he exclaimed. “That’s the way—it will make you feel like a new woman.”
“But what is it?” she asked. “Won’t it hurt me?”
“It’ll make you feel bully. Try it.” ”

“ Burroughs has run in to see Robin several times this last week. They laugh and chatter away together in the jolliest fashion. Indeed, it is quite delightful to hear them; for Bobs has not a particle of shyness with his new friend, while she seems to find an almost painful pleasure in his society. The more we see her, the sweeter we think her; and there was not a dissenting voice when Ernie declared this evening that “Mrs. Burroughs is next door to an angel.” ”

“ CHAPTER XVII
"YOU ARE MY GIRL!"
MR. ANTHONY HARDING was pacing back and forth the length of the veranda of the ranchhouse at El Orobo waiting for some word of hope from those who had ridden out in search of his daughter, Barbara. Each swirling dust devil that eddied across the dry flat on either side of the river roused hopes within his breast that it might have been spurred into activity by the hoofs of a pony bearing a messenger of good tidings ”

“ Lady Barbara shook her head. "There is something that one does when one is embarrassed," she said. "I have read it repeatedly in the advertising sections of American periodicals, but I haven't that brand. However, any port in a storm," and she extracted a gold cigarette case from a pocket of her jacket and lighted one of the cigarettes.
"What didst she say, Jezebel?" demanded the Prophet—"and, in the name of Paul, what miracle is this? 'Out of his nostrils goeth smoke' is said of the behemoth of holy writ. ”

“ Yet here before him, in the full glare of the acetylene lamps, she stood eying him like an offended young goddess, precisely as though he were responsible and she meant to punish him. Mr. Burrow had not arranged his battle-front to receive that type of enemy. It dawned upon him that this was a very brave young woman and, although he admitted it reluctantly, a very beautiful young woman. ”