Cosden

“ Glancing around, he discovered Cosden and Miss Stevens standing at the further corner, watching the hustle of the departing guests.
"You're just in time to witness the great event of the day," she greeted him as he joined them, pleased that she had Cosden and Huntington even temporarily to herself. "One of the best things they do down here is to arrange the sailings to New York at a time when one may see the boat off without getting up at all hours of the night." ”

“ Cosden demanded pointedly.
"No, Connie," Huntington replied quickly; "don't be ridiculous! I am just as unsuited to her as you are. Why, I'm old enough to be her father! But somewhere there is a man who is meant for her and who is worthy of her, and I only hope that he will appear before any one persuades her into making a mistake. ”

“ One of the compensations of maturity is that the adjustment of proper proportions comes more quickly than to youth. It may be that Cosden saw the modicum of truth which lay beneath his friend's bantering; it may be that he was ashamed to have shown any uncertainty in his mind as to the final outcome of his embassy. At all events, he seemed to be in the best of humor when he dined with Huntington and the boy, and even accepted with good grace the unexpected announcement that Billy and Merry were to "take in" the dance at the "Hamilton." ”

“ Cosden smiled indulgently. "Some time, if you like, I will give you a learned discourse on values and what affects them, but anything so erudite [Pg 56] now would take your mind off the gaieties of your sailing trip."
"Will you?" Merry exclaimed delighted. "Father always makes fun of me when I ask serious questions. I am sure I should hate business, because it seems always to be a question of taking advantage of some one else ”

“ The girl smiled at the description of his friend. "Not many men are so dependable," she commented.
"There is only one William Montgomery Huntington," Cosden admitted cheerfully. "It would be exactly the same if the closing of the breakfast room was four-thirty instead of nine-thirty."
The smile on her face changed to a deeper expression as she looked out across the harbor. She turned to Cosden suddenly.
"Wasn't he splendid last evening when he talked about the responsibilities of college life! For the first time I wished I were a boy!"
"He is a very intense person on some subjects ”

“ Would you change individualities with Ricky?"
"Perhaps not," Cosden said guardedly; "still in this matter your brother could probably give me a pointer or two.—Hang it all! when I talk to a man I don't have any difficulty in making myself understood, but here I am, floundering round with you like a school-boy!"
"Just imagine for the moment that I am a man and that you are talking to me about some one else—"
"That's it exactly; I knew you would understand. I thought Monty would help me out, but he absolutely refuses to take me seriously. ”

“ Cosden said significantly to Merry. "You'd never dream that he'd come within an ace of missing his breakfast, would you?"
"Missing what?" Huntington demanded. "In [Pg 58] what little pleasantry has my friendly critic been indulging himself?"
"Let the critic answer for himself," Cosden retorted. "I predicted to Miss Thatcher the exact moment when you would appear, thus proving myself a prophet."
"You take yourself too seriously, Connie. You're no prophet, nor even the son of a prophet; you're simply a good observer. Some men run a block and then wait five minutes for a car ”

“ Nearly a month passed after their return to Boston before Huntington and Cosden really saw anything of each other. They met casually, they telephoned, they lunched in company with other friends at down-town clubs, but neither one suggested an old-time getting together, and each felt relieved by the omission of the other. Yet the reason each man held for this feeling, had he openly acknowledged it, was as opposed to the other's as were the characteristics of the men themselves. ”

“ Huntington failed to enter into Cosden's lightheartedness. "This is a serious matter, Connie," he insisted. "That little girl is too fine to have her name bandied like this. I give you warning right here that I step down and out on this proposition. I can't imagine a worse crime than to harness a high-strung, thoughtful, sentimental child like that to a human adding-machine like you, and I won't be a party to it." ”

“ Thatcher, by Cosden, or by Billy: he must now protect the girl against himself, and that would be the hardest task of all.
Edith Stevens, as well as Huntington, found herself without her usual occupation this morning. Cosden told her, the evening before, of his plan to take Merry sailing, so she reverted to her natural habit of late rising, from which she had temporarily reformed herself, knowing that Cosden always breakfasted early and was usually looking for companionship. Seeing Huntington absorbed in self-contemplation she gravitated in his direction. ”

“ Edith assured him helpfully.
Even with the inspiration which expectancy on the part of an audience is always supposed to give a speaker, Cosden's fluency became somewhat modified when he actually touched upon his main topic.
"I'm a peculiar sort of man, I've no doubt—"
"I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for a man who didn't possess individuality," she interrupted emphatically.
"Well, perhaps it is more than individuality. Men seem to understand me all right, but I've never had a sister, and I've been too tied down by my business to cultivate women. ”

“ Cosden persisted. "What do you think of the perspective?"
"She is very young," Huntington replied, regaining his composure and realizing that to fall in with Cosden's mood was easier than to explain his own.
"She's twenty—just the right age for a man thirty-eight," [Pg 45] was the complacent reply. "I've figured it all out. A woman grows old faster than a man, and eighteen years is just the proper handicap."
"Which is her husband?" Huntington asked.
"Her husband?" Cosden repeated after him.
"I mean her mother's husband," Huntington corrected hastily; "which one is Mr. Thatcher?" ”

“ Merry would have made short work of you; she's crazy about dancing. Oh, don't look so serious; the case may not be so hopeless as it seems."
"I don't see how it could be much worse." Cosden was genuinely chagrined.
"It isn't every one who finds a fairy godmother waiting for him when he comes out of his chrysalis, Mr. Cosden," Edith explained. "She will help young Lochinvar to throw aside his antiquity and come down to date. In two weeks' time you'll feel so spritely that Mr. Huntington and his friends of equal age will bore you,—all provided that you follow your instructor's precepts." ”

“ When he had ridden to Elba Beach with Merry and Billy they were companions and all met on the same footing; now, with Merry alone, he realized that the girl looked upon him as a man with ideas rather than ideals, and with a creed of life which she neither understood nor [Pg 197] cared to understand. Yet he was not the first man to apply business principles to this all-important partnership, and others had not made themselves ridiculous. "Your business has been your religion and you are branded with its ear-marks," Monty told him. It was the branding which caused the trouble, Cosden concluded. ”

“ Believe me, Mr. Cossey, I would never ask it for myself, but it is for my father—he loves this place better than his life; it would be much better he should die than that he should be obliged to leave it; and if this money is called in, that is what must happen, because the place will be sold over us. I believe he would go mad, I do indeed,” and she stopped speaking and stood before him, the fragment of the flower in her hand, her breast heaving with emotion.
“What do you suggest should be done, Miss de la Molle?” said Edward Cossey gently. ”

“ The Silent answered:
“She will come whither none looks to see her: whom God leads he leads well.”
“Sir,” said the lady Gonde to Roel, “you hear what he says; she has gone to Halewyn, and ’tis this wicked son that gave her leave.”
Sir Roel going to Toon:
“Son,” said he, “we had here but one joy, that was our Magtelt. Thou hast abused thy privilege in giving her leave to go thither. If she comes not back to us by nightfall I will curse thee and banish thee from my house. May God hear me, and take from thee, in this world bread and salt, and in the other thy portion in Paradise.” ”

“ But her mother said to her: “Where is Anne-Mie?” [75]
“I cannot tell,” said Magtelt, “she is having some fun with us, I suppose, hidden in some corner.”
“That,” said Sir Roel, “is not her way, for if any one here makes fun of others ’tis not she, but thou, little one.”
“My lord father,” said Magtelt, “you make me anxious by talking so.”
“Well,” said Sir Roel, “go and seek Anne-Mie; as for us, mother, let us eat; our old stomachs cannot wait for food as well as these young ones.”
“Ah,” said the lady Gonde, “I have no mind to eat; go, Magtelt, and find me Anne-Mie.” ”

“ On the morrow Magtelt, being, as was customary, the first awake, said her prayers to My Lord Jesus and to Madam Saint Magtelt, her blessed patron.
Having besought them earnestly for Sir Roel, the lady Gonde, the Silent, and all the household, most particularly for Anne-Mie, she looked at the maid’s bed, and seeing its curtains half drawn she supposed that her companion was still asleep; and so, putting on her fine clothes, she kept saying as she moved up and down the room, or looked at herself in the mirror-glass:
“Ho, Anne-Mie, wake up, wake up, Anne-Mie! Who sleeps late comes last to grass. ”

“ While she hurried to prepare the ointment and to warm the water in a washing-basin, Toon did not cease his groaning and weeping. And he tore out the hair from his beard in a rage.
And Sir Roel, watching him, said: “When a man weeps ’tis blood and shame, shame without redress. Halewyn has a spell. Ah, presumptuous one, must thou then go to his castle to brave the Invincible?”
“Woe, my lord,” said the lady Gonde, “be not so bitter [79] angry with the Silent, for he showed fine courage in wishing to avenge Anne-Mie on the Miserable.” ”

“ But Anne-Mie stayed quietly in a corner, as became a private servant.
And it was a good sight to see these two maids wholly covered with snow.
“Jesus-Maria,” said the lady Gonde, “see these two sillies, what have they been doing to get themselves clothed in snow in this fashion? To the fire quickly, children; draw to the fire and dry yourselves.”
“Silence, wife,” said Sir Roel, “you make youth faint-heart. In my young days I went through cold, snow, hail, thunder, and tempest without a thought. And so do I still, when there is need to, and I will have Magtelt do the same. Thanks be to God! ”

“ The florins will be handed to you at sea, and if you prove brave in battle you will have your share of the spoil. If you attempt to desert you will be hanged.”
“We will serve him who pays us,” they said.
“’T is van te beven de klinkaert! ’T is van te beven de klinkaert,” murmured the seven.
“You will also take with you,” said Ulenspiegel, “La Gilline, La Stevenyne and the girls. If any one of them tries to escape you will sew her in a sack and throw her into the river.”
“He has not killed me yet!” cried La Gilline, jumping up from her corner and brandishing her viola in the air. ”

“ Here be hams, marrow bones, pies of herons, ortolans, fat hens, as for great lords! Here is beer in hogsheads and wine by the cask! Mad and mad will be the baker that will deny us bread, we shall buy no more in his shop.”
“But, my man...!” said Soetkin all a-daze.
“Now, then, hearken,” said Claes, “and be light of heart. Katheline, instead of wearing out her term of banishment in the marquisate of Antwerp, went on foot, under Nele’s guidance, as far as Meyborg. There Nele told my brother Josse that often we live in black want, in spite of my sore toil. ”

“ It was getting late now—so late that Costigan accepted an invitation to share the evening meal and a blanket for the night by the camp fire. And, as he talked on, Crosfield, opposite him, grew more and more quiet and thoughtful, as if he were debating some heavy problem in his mind. He sat there gazing into the fire, until presently Norton, who knew his every mood and fancy, saw a sudden gleam in his eyes and the faint whimsical smile that trembled on his lips.
"Costigan," he said suddenly, "you were always a good sportsman. Did you ever shoot an elephant?" ”

“ Through turmoil, tribulation, and deepening of frontal furrows he reached this step, and the deed done, his night thickened around him instead of lifting as he had hoped and trusted. Perhaps the blackest hour of all was that wherein he rode through familiar hamlets under the Moor upon his way to Honor. Then came the real sting of the certainty that he had lapsed from his own lofty rule; and love itself forsook him for a space beneath Cosdon's huge shadow at sunset time. He hastened, even galloped forward to the sight of the woman ”

“ And he pulled out his hair in handfuls, and tore his dress with his nails until he was all in rags, and kept saying, with great bursts of laughter: “Strength and beauty, beauty and strength; seek, seek, Miserable!” And he hung from his ears with his two hands, and kicked his stone feet in his face, notwithstanding that the Sire cried out with pain.
And the little mannikin said: “To get strength and beauty, seek, Halewyn, a song and a sickle, seek, Sir Miserable!” And the Miserable went on scratching out the earth with his piece of sword. ”

“ But as she went into the town she cried out everywhere:
“The coalman beat me: he has the devil in his cellar.” [6]
However, she never struck Lamme again; but being tall, she made him work instead of her. And the kindly simpleton did it with a good will.
On his way back Claes had sold his catch to a farmer who usually bought it from him. And reaching home he said to Soetkin:
“Here is what I found in the belly of four pike, nine carp, and a basketful of eels.” And he threw two florins and a patard on the table.
“Why do you not go a-fishing every day, husband?” asked Soetkin. ”