Corrie

“ With a snarl he sprang, thrust her aside, and reached the side of Corrie’s armchair; Corrie leapt, sank back and became rigid, the muzzle of a revolver against his temple.
“Get me the Zeniths!”
Rachel’s countenance was grey. At last she wet her lips, and said almost inaudibly—
“I’ll fetch them.” She turned to go.
“No,” whispered the voice of John Corrie. “Let him shoot. Ye’ll keep your honour, and he’ll be a murderer. I’m no caring.”
In the silence steps were heard approaching. The voice of a girl called: “Is Mr. Symington there? A wire has come for him.” ”

“ He has got work for each of us to do."
"Work for me, Robin! Oh, what is it? What can I do for the dear Lord Jesus?"
"You can try to bear your bad pain patiently, dear little sister, for His sake, and not be cross and fretful, to worry poor mother when she is busy. The best work of all is, I think, to see how happy you can be, because then you make everybody else happy. Oh, this will be the brightest Christmas we have ever had! We have got so many things to make us glad, Corrie." ”

“ Corrie's sister folded her hands in her lap.
"Is there no chance if one falls once?" she rebelled in futile reproach. "He was so young, he has suffered so much—can he never pay?"
"I'm not much of a reader, as a rule, but I did a good deal of it at Val de Rosas, this summer," Mr. Rose slowly returned. "And a line from an Englishman's work stuck in my memory. He said that tears can wash out guilt, but not shame. I can give Corrie all I've got, I have always been fond of him and I am yet, but I can't give him my respect. ”

“ Take this from me, my friend; my niece knows something of Old Corrie which neither you nor I know, and when she placed her hand on your arm, and looked into those eyes of yours which shifted and wavered beneath her gaze, you felt as I felt, that she accused you of lying. Even her maid, Emily, who never set eyes on Basil Whittingham, believes not in you. And the fault is all your own. It is you, and you alone, who have supplied the evidence against yourself. ”

“ Gerard actually colored before that ardent admiration, taken unaware.
"Corrie Rose, you are given to the folly of hero-worship; and heroes are few," he accused sternly.
"I don't know about that, Mr. Gerard."
"I do. But, Corrie——"
"Present."
Gerard stood up, reaching for his raincoat.
"Beware of heroine-worship, it is the folly. When you find the real woman, get on your knees, where you belong, before a grace of God, but don't build shrines to an imitation."
Astonished, Corrie paused, upright beside the ciderpress, then smiled with a blending of pride and serious exaltation. ”

“ What will Corrie say when she sees the primroses?"
"Why, there are the boys, Milly; come along, little woman, we shall be in plenty of time." And papa's long legs went quickly over fields and ditches by a cross-cut to the meeting-point.
"Hurrah!" shouted Alfred and Arthur. "Look at Milly and papa! Make haste, Robin!"
But Robin at this moment had eyes only for the occupant of the neat and pretty basket perambulator he was steering carefully as Clarice walked by the side talking to Corrie. ”

“ Corrie. And Mrs. Corrie would not really understand about the home troubles. Mrs. Corrie had always been lonely and sad, inside. She had been an orphan, but brought up by a wealthy uncle and always living in wealth and now she seemed to think about nothing but the children and the house and the garden—hating theatres and dances and never going to them or paying visits or seeing the wonder of anything. She would only say, “Don’t you marry yourself off, young lady, marriage is a fraud. ”

“ We part friends, I hope."
"Not a bit of it," said Old Corrie. "If ladies were not present I'd open my mind to you."
"Thank heaven," said Gilbert Bidaud, raising his eyes with mock devotion, "for the restraining influence of the gentler sex. You do not diminish my esteem for you. I know rough honesty when I meet with it."
"You shift about," interrupted Old Corrie, "like a treacherous wind. I'm rough honesty now, am I? You're the kind of man that can turn white into black. Let us make things equal by another sort of bargain. I've given little lady the bird. You'll not take it from her?" ”

“ The driver who hoped for no such commutation of sentence watched him with quietly sad eyes; eyes in which no one ever was allowed to surprise their present expression, least of all Corrie Rose.
Near noon a tire blew out. Gerard sat on the side of the Mercury and gave bits of ironical advice to the worker while Corrie changed a tire alone for the first time in his life. Corrie bore the teasing sweetly, even when a tool slipped and tore his cold-sensitized fingers.
"I know," he deprecated. "Dean always did it and I just helped. I never did anything thoroughly; an amateur isn't a professional. ”

“ They passed close to where Old Corrie was working, and he, hearing footsteps--be sure, however, that Chaytor's were noiseless--laid down his axe, and went towards them.
"He has come--he has come!" cried Annette.
"What did I tell you?" said Old Corrie. "All you've got to do in this world, little lady, is to have patience."
She was so overjoyed, having tight hold of Basil's hand, that she would have accepted the wildest theories without question.
"Mr. Corrie," she said, "may I have the magpie to-day?" ”

“ And you would fix your own price for the slabs? Clever, Mr. Corrie. Clever, Mr. Corrie!' I had told him my name. 'But I am a cleverer and a sharper.' A sharper he is in the right meaning of it, but he is not English, and didn't exactly know what he was calling himself. 'No, no,' he said, 'the moment a man's dead the vultures come. You are one. But I am equal to you. Burn your slabs.' 'You're a pretty specimen,' I said. 'Your brother was a gentleman; it doesn't run in the family.' He's a strange man, Master Basil, and if he ever loses his temper he takes care not to show it. ”

“ No! not a bit old spoil sport. Chum yong, jump in,” laughed Mrs. Corrie.
“Oh, if you really want to,” began Miriam, but Mrs. Corrie, singing out the address to the driver was putting her into the cab and showing her how to make an easy passage for the one who gets last into a hansom by slipping into the near corner. Her appreciation of this little manœuvre helped her over her contrition and she responded with gay insincerity to Mrs. Corrie’s assurance of the fun they would have over the hats at Mrs. Kronen’s.... Tea at Mrs. Kronen’s then. How strange and alarming ... ”

“ Corrie. “She doesn’t care, she doesn’t want any. They’re all like that, that sort.”
Miriam mused intensely. She felt Mrs. Kronen ought to be there to answer. She had some secret Mrs. Corrie did not possess. Mrs. Corrie looked suddenly small and mild and funny. Why did she think it dreadful that Mrs. Kronen should have no children? There was nothing wonderful in having children. It was better to sing. She was perfectly sure that she herself did not want children.... “Superior women don’t marry,” she said, “sir she said, sir she said, su, per, i, or women”—but that meant blue stockings. ”

“ Corrie,” replied Colin, fairly cheerfully. He raised the lid and brought forth a sealed envelope without superscription. He handed it over the counter, saying, “You might look and see if the paper enclosed belongs to you.”
p. 158Corrie took it with shaking fingers and moved back from the counter. He cleared his throat. “Ye mean me to open it, Mr. Hayward?”
“Certainly,” Colin could have pitied the man as he turned a second film silently into position.
The envelope was very firmly gummed, and Corrie’s fingers fumbled in a fashion painful to witness. ”

“ He has a gentleman with him little lady will be glad to see. If you get this letter to-night, don't be frightened if Old Corrie speaks to you as you go back to the Villa Bidaud. Not an hour should be lost to unmask the villain and secure little lady's happiness. You are a brave, good girl. If you don't get this letter till the morning, come at once to the back of the school-house, where you will see little lady's true friend,
"Old Corrie."
The letter had been composed partly by Basil and partly by Old Corrie, who had written it himself. Emily's eyes sparkled as she read. ”

“ Now, it was living that made me envy Corrie and feel melancholy."
Flavia drew the silk thread with slow accuracy. Her pulses were commencing to beat heavy strokes, she dared not raise her troubled eyes to the dominant, self-possessed man opposite. There was a pause.
"In novels," Gerard mused, "when a man sees the woman who locks the wheels of his fancy, he drops everything else and follows her until he gets—his answer. But in real life we're pretty stupid; we let circumstances interfere, or we don't quite realize what has happened to us, we don't do the right thing, anyway. ”

“ No one liked to admit the fact; but at last it became evident to all that the aged gardener was quite past work, and could only walk about the garden paths leaning heavily on his knotted stick, while younger hands succeeded to his labour.
Yet both Jonathan and Corrie had work to do for the heavenly King, and their lives were a study to the thoughtful heart. They both laboured, but it was passive labour, for they had learned that:
"They also serve who only stand and wait." ”

“ Yet they were far happier than the petted spoilt autocrats of some nurseries, whose wants are so abundantly supplied. There is nothing left to wish for; no channels open to them for the flowing out of a free God-like charity, the possession of which has power to make the desert places of any heart "rejoice and blossom as the rose."
When Robin heard of the prospect of a carriage for his little sister, his heart seemed almost too full for words. Was it a dream? Would Corrie actually see the flowers growing he had so often brought home to her in handfuls? ”

“ He has enough to stand."
Gerard drew the two papers towards him and put them into a drawer. It is hard to be consistent; the temptation of seeing Corrie read Flavia's weekly letters had long since vanquished the resolution of the man whose love for her seemed to himself to illustrate that the economies of Nature do not include human passion. Corrie found a willing, if mute, listener to all confidences in regard to his sister. ”

“ It was impossible to be more safe from drowning than Corrie was at that time. He was in fact on land as dry as the weather permitted, engaged in operating a small ciderpress for the benefit of himself and Gerard, at a certain old-fashioned farm where he was—as he himself explained—persona very grata indeed.
"They are used to me," he supplemented. "Wonderful what people can get used to, isn't it?" ”

“ Gerard questioned, equally matter-of-fact.
"You know, and Corrie knows. I appreciate the way you have stood by him and the way he [Pg 260] has kept to his work—I'm proud of it—but this isn't a question of how any of us three feel. I am sorry to hurt him, but we have got to face facts. A man who loses his temper is not fit for certain places; a race track is one."
"The Corrie Rose whom I know and who trained under me is fit for any place," Gerard gravely maintained. The work of months was on the verge of loss; he gauged very exactly what this sentence would result in for Flavia's brother. ”

“ Corrie softly.
“Oh, do you?” said Miriam. “I think a handsome man’s generally so weak.”
Mrs. Craven stared into the fire.
“You take the one who’s got the ooftish, my friend,” said Mrs. Corrie.
“But you say I’m not to marry.”
“You shall marry when my poor little old kiddies are grown up. We’ll find you a very nice one with plenty of money.”
“Then you don’t think marriage is a failure,” said Miriam, with immense relief.
Mrs. Corrie leaned towards her with laughter in her clear light eyes. It seemed to fill the room. “Have some more coffy-drink?” ”

“ Spottiswoode, "would it not be rather barefaced to have Bourhope and Corrie here together?"
"Oh, I'll take care of that," answered the lady, with a laugh and a toss of her ribbons; "I shall have some other girl of my acquaintance to bear Corrie company;—some worthy, out-of-the-way girl, to whom the visit will [Page 276] be like entering another world," continued Mrs. Spottiswoode, with a twinkle of her black eyes. "What do you think of Corrie and my cousin Chrissy Hunter, of Blackfaulds? ”

“ Man to man they had dealt together, no woman, however dear, entered between them. So when Flavia had seemed to fail her lover, again the separateness had held and Gerard never even imagined visiting her desertion on her brother. He had not resented Corrie's natural speech of her, now, but he could not listen to it; not yet.
"You will find your regular mechanician waiting for you when you go out again," he observed. "You can learn much with him, if you choose, [Pg 200] Corrie, although he is no Rupert. Take your machine where and how you please; it is all practice. ”

“ Corrie gasped as from a dash of cold water in the face, the rough tonic effectually bringing him out of his daze of habitual submission.
"Mr. Rose, this is not sentiment, but business," Gerard continued in his usual tone. "Corrie is not racing to-morrow for the first time, or for the fifth or sixth, this season. He is the cordially liked and respected comrade of his fellow-drivers—there is not one who would not laugh in your face at the idea of fearing to have him among them. I tell you, for the rest, that any other man on the course might let his nerves trick his self-control ”