Coote

“ I tell you, Coote never took the thing.”
“You were here in the shop, of course, and saw him?” said the tradesman.
“No, I wasn’t,” said Dick; “you know that as well as I do.”
“Coote,” said Heathcote, feeling it his turn to back up—“Coote’s a gentleman; not a thief.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Mr Webster. “He’s sure he’s not both?”
“I’m positive,” said Coote.
“And is that all you’ve come to say?” said the bookseller.
“No,” said Dick. “It’s an awful shame if you can’t believe us. But if you won’t—well, we’d sooner pay you for the pencil and have done with it.” ”

“ Coote might introduce him. "Lord!" he said aloud to the darkness between grinning and dismay. He figured himself going into the Emporium to buy a tie, for example, and there in the face of Buggins, Carshot, Pierce and the rest of them, meeting "my friend, Lady Punnet!" It might not end with Lady Punnet! His imagination plunged and bolted with him, galloped, took wings and soared to romantic, to poetical altitudes. . . .
Suppose some day one met Royalty. By accident, say! He soared to that! After all,—twelve hundred a year is a lift, a tremendous lift. ”

“ And then Dick, when he came back, would gnash his teeth with envy and wish woe to the hour when he was fool enough to desert his noblest friend!
“Tell you what’ll be a lark, Coote,” said Heathcote, as the two strode on, arm in arm, followed by a small crowd of juniors, who, seeing they were “on the swagger,” hoped to be in the sport as spectators. “Tell you what; we’ll have a walk round the roofs. I know where we can get up. We can get nearly all round the Quad. Won’t it be a spree?”
Coote looked as delighted as he could, and said he hoped they wouldn’t be caught, or there might be a row. ”

“ Miss Coote, laughing and getting excited.- "That's right, call your mother, she'll soon help you. Ha! Ha! She didn't think how I should cure you, when your papa gave his consent for me to punish you as I like. Five, six, seven," she goes on counting and thrashing the poor girl over the back, ribs, loins, and thighs, wealing her everywhere, as well as on the posteriors. All the spectators are greatly moved, and seem to enjoy the sight of Selina's blood dripping down, down till her stockings are saturated and it forms little pools beneath her on the floor. ”

“ I am dressed,” said Coote, in alarm.
“You muff, you’re not in your flannels. Think of a new fellow turning up to Hall first day not in his flannels, eh, Georgie?”
“My eye!” said Georgie; “what a row there’d be!”
“Cut as hard as ever you can, and put them on. Better not show up till just as the clock strikes, in case fellows humbug you. We’ll be near the door and show you where to sit.” ”

“ Coote put in his head, saying:
“Mr. Eldon is here, asking to see the children. Let them come right in. No help for it, Sarah,” he added in a lower tone and with a look of suppressed anger and apprehension. “I can’t say yet whether it’s any tale-telling that’s brought him; but if that’s the case somebody’ll have to suffer for it.” And he too looked menacingly at poor trembling little Ethel.
“There then, go along all o’you,” said Mrs. Coote, who had just finished wiping their hands and faces, “and mind what you say and do, or you may get yourselves into trouble.” ”

“ Miss Coote.- "Cheer up, Sister Lucretia, you have only to do what we call stepping the ladder, someday you will have a chance of revenge, but you will find Louise Van Tromp quite as cruel as I am, when she uses the birch in her skilful style on your half-cooked bum. Come Jane, I think she is ready for the second edition of her punishment."
Louise Van Tromp.- "Ah! trust me, Sister Rosa, to do my duty, she has not half confessed to us yet," taking up and switching a fine birch rod, making it fairly hiss through the air, to the evident terror of the victim. ”

“ Coote bid us take up and make all the haste we could to get before them into Leicester fields, so taking up the chair again, Mr. Coote bid us make haste, and if we could go no faster, he swore, damn him, he would run his sword in one of our bodies: There were two chairs before me, and my lord Mohun and my lord Warwick followed in two chairs after me; and when we came to the corner of Leicester fields, at Green street end, all the three chairs were set down a-breast again, and Mr. Coote put his hand in his pocket, and took out half a guinea to pay, and said he had no silver ”

“ It is second only to Plassey in its importance, and even the Comte de Bussy, who was taken prisoner, and had been second in command to Lally, expressed his admiration for Coote's courage and admirable generalship. The French never again made head in India; Lally's prestige was gone, and Coote, after taking Arcot, prepared to besiege Pondicherry, the last refuge of the defeated general. At this moment Major the Hon. William Monson arrived at Madras with a commission to take command of the forces in the Madras presidency, and with directions for Coote to proceed with his regiment to Bengal. ”

“ Such was the state of things in Southern India when Sir Eyre Coote arrived from Calcutta with all the troops that the governor-general could collect. He happily reached Madras before the expected French fleet appeared in the Indian seas. Without an hour's delay Coote sought the enemy, and brought him to battle at Porto Novo, a haven some forty miles south of Pondicherry. Though he could only muster nine thousand men to oppose a force ten times as numerous, yet after six hours of conflict the enemy fled in dismay. ”

“ White and his wife both implore for mercy, and beg me to punish them any way I may think best. "Only, only, pray Miss Coote, spare the dear little things, they only did what we told them."
Miss Coote. - "You are wise to leave it to me. I may have some mercy; the law has none for poor wretched thieves. I don't know how to punish you, White, as you are a man, so I will forgive you, and hope you will be honest in the future; but Mrs. White and the children must be properly whipped and corrected. ”

“ Coote read it in great bewilderment. Of course he knew all about Tom White’s row and the missing Martha. Every Templeton fellow, from Mansfield down to Gosse, knew it. But why should Dick and Heathcote look so precious solemn about it?
“By Jove!” said he, “I wish they’d catch the fellow. What’s the use of the police being reticent?”
“Coote, old man,” said Dick, in a tone which made the youth addressed open his eyes, “do you know how the Martha got lost?” ”

“ This course of double dissimulation at the end of a week began to lose its charms, and Coote, with all his good nature and desire to make things pleasant for everybody, began to get tired of his two friends and long for a breath of freedom.
So he took an early morning stroll along the cliffs one morning, finishing up with Mr Webster’s shop in the High Street.
The gossiping Templeton stationer had suffered somewhat in temper since the reader saw him last, three months ago. The young gentry for whom he catered were not the “apples of his eyes” they had been. ”

“ Here Coote halted, being secure of his communications with Chingleput and Madras, and resolved not to risk an action until the French were ready to assault the fort. The French works meanwhile progressed but slowly; and it was not until the 20th that the batteries opened fire, Bussy's column having meanwhile joined Lally from Trivatore. On the next day Coote advanced to within seven miles of Wandewash, and on the 22nd, having directed that the rest of the army should immediately follow him, he went forward at sunrise with his cavalry to reconnoitre. ”

“ Coote was at once told that the enemy was fortifying himself only seven miles off, and he called a council of war, which, even when he pointed out that defeat meant the loss of the Madras presidency, unanimously decided to fight. Coote accordingly marched out at 7 a.m. on the morning of 1 July 1781 with 2,070 Europeans and six thousand sepoys, and found Hyder Ali with forty thousand soldiers and many camp-followers in a strong position resting on the sea, defended by heavy artillery. ”

“ In a minute more all anxiety Coote may have felt as to crowding any one was at an end. He was a yard or two in the rear of the last man, with a stitch in his side, beginning in his inmost soul to wonder whether the new “Sociables” Club was such a very good thing after all.
Dick and Georgie, as they gradually sacrificed their prospect of being in at the death, and fell back to the support of their ally, waxed very contemptuous of stitch in a fellow’s side. ”

“ You'll never be so bad as that to a novice! Oh! have mercy, dear Miss Coote."
President.- "Don't show the white feather, young lady; we're going to initiate you into a most delightful society. You will soon be one of the most active of the sisterhood," taking from Jane a very elegantly tied-up rod, ornamented with blue and gold ribbons, then just lightly switching the victim's bare bottom, "Now ask me to birch you properly, and beg pardon for your frivolous objections."
Lucretia, in a tremor of fear, and with faltering voice.- "Oh! is there no getting off; why must I be cruelly whipped?" ”

“ Miss Coote. - "Then why didn't your husband ask me what to do with it? Did you not use the money to buy ribbons and dresses?"
The poor woman groans for very shame, and has nothing to say for herself. Jane and Mademoiselle pull off her bright blue dress, and expose a fine pair of white shoulders, showing that her blushes have extended all down her neck, which slightly flushed as they uncover it. ”

“ Not snobbishly, you understand, nor deliberately, but quite in passing. He had, it appeared, talked to Lady Punnet about private theatricals! In connection with the Hospitals. She had been unreasonable and he had put her right, gently of course, but firmly. "If you stand up to these people," said Coote, "they like you all the better." It was also very evident he was at his ease with the clergy; "My friend Mr. Densemore—a curate, you know, and rather curious, the Reverend and Honourable." Coote grew visibly in Kipps' eyes as he said these things ”

“ I have never regretted my surrender, Mr. Coote. (With a sigh) Ah, me! We women are strange creatures.
BOBBY. I don't believe Sandy would mind if I did shoot myself.
MRS. KNOWLE. Oh, don't say that, Mr. Coote. She is very warm-hearted. I'm sure it would upset her a good deal. Oh no, you are taking too gloomy a view of the situation, I am sure of it.
BOBBY. Well, I shan't shoot myself, but I shan't propose to her again. I know when I'm not wanted.
MRS. KNOWLE. But we do want you, Mr. Coote. Both my husband and I—
BOBBY. I say, I'd much rather not talk about it, if you don't mind. ”

“ I hope so, too,” returned Ethel gratefully, then hurried away with her little brother and sisters.
Mrs. Coote met them at the parsonage door. “Go right up to your room and to bed everyone of you,” she said, and they silently obeyed.
“Strange that their uncles didn’t send some Christmas remembrance to the children,” remarked Mr. Coote to his wife as they sat together at the tea table. ”

“ I consulted Lieutenant Coote on the occasion, who, with Lieutenant Bligh, volunteered the attack; and, about eight o’clock, they very gallantly boarded two of the vessels, under a most tremendous fire from the shore, bringing them out, notwithstanding the enemy had taken the precaution to unbend their sails. Our loss has, I am concerned to say, been considerable. Lieutenant Coote has received a most desperate wound in the head, winch has deprived him of his eye-sight; one midshipman (George Sayer) was wounded by a musket-ball in the log; two men were killed, and eight more wounded. ”

“ COOTE, SIR EYRE (1726–1783) , British soldier, the son of a clergyman, was born near Limerick, and entered the 27th regiment. He saw active service in the Jacobite rising of 1745, and some years later obtained a captaincy in the 39th regiment, which was the first British regiment sent to India. In 1756 a part of the regiment, then quartered at Madras, was sent forward to join Clive in his operations against Calcutta, which was re-occupied without difficulty, and Coote was soon given the local rank of major for his good conduct in the surprise of the Nawab’s camp. ”

“ Good-bye.”
“Rather cool cheek of you, Coote,” said Dick, as the “Firm” returned to the school, “cadging my father that way for breakfast.”
“Very sorry,” said Coote, humbly. “I thought we were all in it, that’s all.”
The evening passed anxiously for the boys, and no less so for poor Mr Richardson, who was buffeted about from pillar to post, from lawyer to lawyer, from boatman to pawnbroker, in his honest efforts to extricate his son from his scrape. ”

“ The victim now screams indeed for "Mercy, Mercy! Oh! Oh! Have pity, Miss Coote. Oh! Oh! I shall faint, I shall die."
Rosa, in a state of furious excitement. - "No, no, no fear of your dying, your fat bottom will stand a good deal more yet; you are too obstinate to be let off, the birch will keep you from fainting. Why - why - why - don't you apologize?" giving a terrific undercut between the tender surface of her thighs at every question, making the poor schoolmistress gasp and moan in agony ”

“ Chester Coote. You must figure him as about to enter our story, walking with a curious rectitude of bearing through the evening dusk towards the Public Library, erect, large-headed—he had a great, big head full of the suggestion of a powerful mind, well under control—with a large, official-looking envelope in his white and knuckly hand. In the other he carries a gold-handled cane. He wears a silken grey jacket suit, buttoned up, and anon he coughs behind the official envelope. He has a prominent nose, slatey grey eyes and a certain heaviness about the mouth. ”