Cartoner

“ Cartoner followed the captain into the little, low cabin, which smelled of petroleum, as usual. The Minnie was a hospitable ship, according to her facilities, and her skipper began by polishing a tumbler with a corner of the table-cloth. Then he indicated the vacant swing-back bench at the far side of the table, and sat down opposite to Cartoner himself.
“Was up the Baltic,” he explained. “Pit props. Got a full cargo on board. Got an offer such as a poor sailorman couldn't afford to let slip to come to Dantzic and wait here till two gents came aboard. ”

“ If one man shoots another we like to see the gun, and we pay sixty centimes to look upon it. There are people who make an honest living by such exhibitions. If they cannot get the gun they put another in its place, and it is all the same. Now, your knife—the one the Señorita sharpens with a kiss—in my country it will have its value. Suppose I buy it; suppose we say five hundred pesetas?”
And Cartoner's voice was the voice of innocence.
There was silence for some time, and at last the knife came up handlewise between the leaves of the hydrangea. Spanish pride is always ready to shut its eyes. ”

“ The carter looked round in trepidation for the approaching cortège, and heartily wished himself a mile underground; when his shabby fare, jumping out, indulged in a good-natured laugh at the poor man's terror, telling him he need not fear, for he was no other than the Prince of Tun himself. That was the last occasion, however, on which the carter drove that cart and donkey, for the next day the Fifth Prince sent him a present of a new and handsome vehicle, with a good stout mule, by means of which he has been earning a comfortable living ever since. ”

“ All silent then, but the echoes rolling away.
“It is a Traitor and a Spy,” said Captain Carton, handing me the gun to load again. “And I think the other name of the animal is Christian George King!”
Shot through the heart. Some of the people ran round to the spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face; but his face itself would never stir any more to the end of time.
“Leave him hanging to that tree,” cried Captain Carton; his boat’s crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. “But first into this wood, every man in his place. And boats! Out of gunshot!” ”

“ For example, I have frequently seen a carter, or man in charge of a horse or donkey, when he wished it to move on, instead of quietly speaking to it, as even an English carter would, take the butt end of his heavy whip and lay heavily on the poor animal’s back, or even give it a violent kick. The carters lade their carts very heavily, and often—I might even say always—beyond the strength of the horse. I have observed a poor horse struggling with all his might to pull the improper load up a hill, the carter encouraging it by the whip all the time. ”

“ Horrid little carts—common carts—canary-coloured carts!'
"What are we to do with him?" asked the Mole of the Water Rat.
"Nothing at all," replied the Rat firmly. "Because there is really nothing to be done. You see, I know him from of old. He is now possessed. He has got a new craze, and it always takes him that way, in its first stage. He'll continue like that for days now, like an animal walking in a happy dream, quite useless for all practical purposes. Never mind him. Let's go and see what there is to be done about the cart." ”

“ And after laboriously straining at our light cart up the rise, the oxen would go floundering down this declivity in a wild scramble, slipping, falling, and dragging each other and the cart in a jumble of confusion till they reached firmer footing below. To ride was impossible; indeed everything on the cart had to be made fast, or it stood a great chance of being thrown out and lost. In any case, however, we rode but seldom, ranging out on either side of the path all day with gun and rifle, hoping for the chance of a shot that seldom came. ”

“ The commander had been gazing at the oncoming boat, as well as at the distant shore line, through his binoculars, and, almost mechanically, he gave orders to drop the anchors fore and aft.
“Going to stop, captain?” asked the millionaire ship owner.
“Yes. It will do no harm. And I want to see what these fellows in the boat are after.”
“I’ll come up on the bridge. I guess,” grunted Arnold. “Come on, Carter!”
The sacred bridge of a steamer is not going to be profaned by the feet of an uninvited person unless he happens to be the owner or some one of equal importance. ”

“ Carter felt his way along the rail, till his hand found a line that seemed, in the calm, to stream out of its own accord into the darkness. He hailed his boat, and directly heard the wash of water against her bows as she was hauled quickly under the counter. Then he loomed up shapeless on the rail, and the next moment disappeared as if he had fallen out of the universe. ”

“ To set out betimes and overtake the early carriers' carts on the road, each with its little cargo of packages and women with baskets and an old man or two, to recognize acquaintances among those who sit in front, and as I go on overtaking and passing carriers and the half-gipsy, little "general dealer" in his dirty, ramshackle, little cart drawn by a rough, fast-trotting pony, all of us intent on business and pleasure, bound for Salisbury—the great market and emporium and place of all delights for all the great Plain. ”

“ Old Carriers too, appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers (‘Peerybingle Brothers’ on the tilt) ; and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket showed him all these things—he saw them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire—the Carrier’s heart grew light and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. ”

“ Opposite Lord Carthew, as he sat at table, there hung a portrait of a man in armor, whose sinister light eyes seemed to follow his every movement. Look which way he would, from Stella Cranstoun’s beautiful face to the doctor’s plump, bland visage, or Lady Cranstoun’s washed-out countenance, Lord Carthew found his gaze fascinated and held by the pale, square, inscrutable face of the man in armor, about whose narrow, close-shut lips a bitter smile seemed to be playing. ”

“ Here all yet was still as night; the houses were shut up, and nothing was in view, nor in hearing, but a solitary cart, driven by a young carter, who amused his toil by the alternate pleasure of smacking his horse, and whistling to the winds. ”

“ Every now and then we met one of the huge, unwieldy carts which seem to be relics of a prehistoric age—rough plank affairs of enormous strength and a design so primitive as to be a constant source of wonder. They could only be pulled along at a slow walk and with vast effort by a couple of huge horses, and the load the cart was carrying never seemed to bear any proportion to the mechanism of its transport. ”

“ The country carts, in which they transport their produce from the interior, deserve notice. They are the most awkward, heavy and singular vehicles ever seen; and one of them passing through our streets, would attract as much notice as a moving menagerie. The cart is, in fact, about the height of a two story house, the sides and roof formed of flags and cane, but the bottom of hard and solid wood, which, with the wheels, are monstrously clumsy. ”

“ A short time before eleven o'clock a man dressed in seedy black cloth, with short iron-grey, whiskers and beard, and long iron-grey hair and wearing blue spectacles, turned into the street, and sat down in a crouching position on the axle-tree of a cart, whose shafts, like a pair of slender telescopes, pointed to the dim summer stars, or taken together the cart and man looked like a huge flying beetle, the body of the cart being the wings, the wheels the high elbowed legs, the man the body of the insect and the two long shafts the antennae thrust upwards in alarm. ”

“ So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen and projecting mouths of guns; so they climbed on board somnambulous, and looked blindly about them at the tall spars, the white decks, and the crowding ship's company, and heard men as from far away, and answered them at random.
And then a hand fell softly on Carthew's shoulder.
“Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from? All the world's been looking for you. Don't you know you've come into your kingdom?” ”

“ Take a present-day survival, the large country cart, the body shaped like the waist of a sailing ship, and every rail and upright unalterably logical, and then decorated by quaint chamferings, the facets of which are made out in brightest paint. ”

“ As they have no tires, and the section of the wheel part or crowd together, according to the moisture, a train of these carts bringing in the products of the hunt is a strange sight. Each cart has its own peculiar creak, hoarse and grating, and waggles its own individual waggle, graceless and shaky, on the uneven ground. ”

“ But what is even more astonishing is that, although sometimes a thousand or more of men and women are attached to one cart—so vast is the mass, so heavy the machine, so weighty the load—yet so deep a silence reigns that not a voice, not a whisper even can be heard. ”

“ CARVER
We have no right to land here. Our charter grants us land in Virginia, not here!
JONES
I can't help that. The ship is in bad shape—I won't risk sailing her any farther without repairs.
CARVER
Very well, you may stop here for repairs, but we must go on as soon as they are made. [Pg 19]
JONES
It will take some time.
CARVER
My people will help you. We must speed the work.
JONES
Of course, I'll speed it all I can, but a man can't do any more than he can do.
CARVER
Well, get to it at once—this very day! We must get away from here within a fortnight or winter will be upon us. ”

“ They reproduce their kind by sleeping where the south wind blows upon them.
The Land of the Flying Cart Situated to the north of the Plain of Great Joy, the Land of the Flying Cart joins the Country of the One-armed People on the south-west and that of the Three-bodied People on the south-east. The inhabitants have but one arm, and an additional eye of large size in the centre of the forehead, making three eyes in all. Their carts, though wheeled, do not run along the ground, but chase each other in mid-air as gracefully as a flock of swallows. ”

“ After waiting a moment, Carter went on deck. The sky, the sea, the brig itself had disappeared in a darkness that had become impenetrable, palpable, and stifling. An immense cloud had come up running over the heavens, as if looking for the little craft, and now hung over it, arrested. To the south there was a livid trembling gleam, faint and sad, like a vanishing memory of destroyed starlight. To the north, as if to prove the impossible, an incredibly blacker patch outlined on the tremendous blackness of the sky the heart of the coming squall. ”

“ Cart always had a reason. It took men to understand men. That thought had a good sound to the boy on his back in the moonlight. Although he felt somewhat a fool lying there waiting in the road when all the time there was that Detour. It would have been more a man's job if there hadn't had to be that Detour, but he couldn't run risks with strange guys, and men who carried guns, not even for—well, thirty pieces of silver—! ”

“ A wagon loaded with stones was crossing a solitary spot in the country when one of the wheels sank into the ground and it was impossible to extricate it for some time. Finally they got it out, but there remained a large hole that opened into a dark room under ground. "Who wishes to descend into this hole?" "I," said the carter. They soon procured a rope and lowered the carter into the dark room. We will suppose that this carter's name was Master Francis. ”

“ It is difficult to leave or enter a town without meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixteen tubs, and by boats. I was told of a city of half a million inhabitants which had thirty per cent. ”

“ Generally about two guineas was the price, and students would club together their five shillings each for a "subject." In the face of such facts it would be idle to suggest that the tradition of that mysterious cart, moving silently through the darkness of night on muffled wheels towards our village churchyards, was merely a creature of the imagination. The tradition of that phantom cart which lingered for years had a substantial origin as certain as the memory of many persons still living can make it! ”

“ The unhappy Carthew pondered the matter. “There is a fellow,” he said reluctantly at last, “that has a garden somewhere this way. If he should so happen to be there to-day, it would be better than goin’ to his house in the Bazar. Have you the—the goods with you, ma’am?”
“That I have!” She handed him the little parcel from her saddle-pocket. “And it must be three hundred rupees, you’ll remember—no less, and I want to send it to Poonah.” ”