Coulson

“ Coulson; “you are a fool. I pay you to take care of this house. I am freezing to death in my own room, and you come in and drivel to me about ivy and hand-organs. Get me an overcoat at once. See that all doors and windows are closed below. An old, fat, irresponsible, one-sided object like you prating about springtime and flowers in the middle of winter! When Higgins comes back, tell him to bring me a hot rum punch. ”

“ Mr. Coulson answered confidentially. “There was no other reason at all. Take this last voyage on the Lusitania, now. He spoke to me the first day out because he couldn’t help it, but for pretty well the rest of the journey he either kept down in his stateroom or, when he came up on deck, he avoided me and everybody else. When he did talk, his talk was foolish. He was a good chap at his work, I believe, but he was a crank. ”

“ Somerfield asked doubtfully.
“A crank,” Mr. Coulson repeated vigorously. “It wasn’t much I knew of Hamilton Fynes, but I knew that much. He was one of those nervous, stand-off sort of persons who hated to have people talk to him and yet was always doing things to make them talk about him. I was over in Europe with him not so long ago, and he went on in the same way. Took a special train to Dover when there wasn’t any earthly reason for it; travelled with a valet and a courier, when he had no clothes for the valet to look after, and spoke every European language better than his courier. ”

“ Oh, John Coulson, just look!"
John Coulson laughed indulgently.
"Oh, Betsey!" he said in despair, while his eyes were very kind, "you're no use in the world. We'll just have to get you married."
Nevertheless, he thought much about the girl after his return home and talked over her case with his wife. "Send her a note and tell her to come here for a week," was his final decision. "We must do something for the poor kid."
So Annie very willingly wrote her sister, and on the day her letter arrived at The Dale Elizabeth received another. This one was from Estella. ”

“ Bart Dawson and Coulson know a lot that we don't know, but then we know a lot that Bart Dawson and Coulson don't know."
"I think we hold the advantage. To-morrow we'll try to find Coulson."
The boys were going down the defile now and they passed between the overhanging rocks where they had captured the outlaw. The marks of the struggle were still plainly evident in the snow.
"Poor Slim!" remarked Frank, with a laugh. "He'll be kicking himself all around the cell for talking so much."
"He was nicely fooled. He was sure the rest of the gang were all in jail." ”

“ COULSON, WALTER (1794?–1860) , lawyer and man of letters, the second son of Thomas Coulson, master painter for many years in the royal dockyard at Devonport (who died in 1845) , by Catherine, second daughter of Walter Borlase, surgeon of Penzance, was born at Torpoint in Cornwall, as it is believed, in 1794. His rise is succinctly set forth in the following extract from Jeremy Bentham's life (Works, x. 573) : ‘My brother made acquaintance with the father of the ——s [Coulsons] , a man of cleverness and experience, and a head on his shoulders. ”

“ Coulson said, “and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about Hamilton Fynes.”
“First time you’d met her, I suppose?” the Inspector remarked.
“Sure!” Mr. Coulson answered. “As a matter of fact, I know very few of my compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven’t too much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn’t find America good enough for them to live in.”
The Inspector nodded.
“Quite so,” he agreed. “So you hadn’t anything to tell this young lady?”
“Not a thing that she hadn’t read in the Comet,” Mr. Coulson replied. ”

“ And certainly John Coulson was a model husband, and a rising lawyer besides. On the whole, Miss Gordon was perfectly satisfied with the match she now firmly believed she had made for her niece. Each year she grew more absorbed in her ambition for William's family. They were all responding so splendidly to her efforts. She would raise them to social eminence, she declared to herself, in spite of William's neglect and Mrs. ”

“ So well did the birds in his garden at Wokingham understand him, that they would let him talk to them and stroke them as they sat on their nests. Could there be a more convincing proof of a man’s goodness?
Another active champion of the reform of blood-sports was Colonel W. L. B. Coulson, a well-known Northumberland country gentleman and J.P., who was one of the first men of influence to join the Humanitarian League. ”

“ The obstacle which had so long blocked the shaft had at last been removed, but a deadly gas—carbon dioxide—had at once ascended from the long-sealed workings, and we knew that the men we had been trying to save must be beyond the reach of help.
One of the sinkers who lay insensible on the platform was the son of the master-sinker, Coulson by name. I saw Coulson, when he realised what had happened, stoop down and kiss the unconscious lips of his son, and then, without a word or a sign of hesitation, he calmly took his place in the loop, and ordered the attendants to lower him into the pit. ”

“ Within a mile of the heronry they crossed the flood and sported in the great eddy there; at times they landed on the cone-shaped rock that rose amidst the swirl and cast its inky shadow on the silvery surface. ”

“ The day proved intensely hot and still, with not a breath to ripple the surface or freshen the stifling air of the brake where the otters lay panting until dusk fell and allowed them to quench their tormenting thirst without fear of detection. ”

“ Hidden amidst the flotsam caught by the boughs, with the deep pool just below them, they felt safe, and at length slept as soundly as they had done in the morass.
They repaired to the same hover the next day and the day following. In their waking hours they would watch the eddying water and rising trout, and at times cast a glance at the belt of timber beyond, as if attracted by the crimson blossom of the elms. ”

“ In the marsh the reeds are sapless, the flags stained by decay, the tall-stemmed flowering plants shrivelled to skeletons, disarray and discoloration appear everywhere, save perhaps in the velvet spikes of the mace-reed, whose hue yet rivals in its rich umber the pelt of the otter curled up below them on the spot where he lay in the days of rebellious cubhood. But what a huge fellow he has grown! ”

“ The twice-hunted otter dreads that sound above all sounds save the cry of the hounds, and before it has died away she and the cubs are in full retreat to the holt in the salmon pool. Only at long intervals do they rise to vent before reaching the rapids, where they leave the water and gallop up the bank, as if fear itself were at their heels. ”

“ The tedious bend, of which the otters had crossed the neck, now lay behind, and in front stretched the long reach marked by broad sand-banks that the tide was beginning to crawl over. So otter and cubs, after passing two branch creeks, musical with the whistlings of night-feeding birds, came to the deeper water, where hulks rode at their last anchorage, and, farther on, to the landlocked haven in which tall-masted vessels swung to their moorings, and the lights of a little seaport and fishing village winked at one another across the salt waters. ”

“ Yet he is all expectation, and great will be his joy if only he can get a glimpse of the long, dark creature hieing to some holt. Away up to the boggy gathering ground he traces the narrowing water, surveys in vain the pools amidst that curlew-haunted waste, then with quick movement, redirects the glass to the clitter, already much less dim and mysterious. ”

“ Then the morass and all the hills about it were bathed in the glow, and the swollen stream, visible over the edge of the nest, glistened like silver. Quick to accept Nature's bounty for the winterlings, the otter, when satisfied that no eye observed her, took them between her lips, carried them from the gloomy hover, and laid them on a tussock which screened her where she crouched, ready to protect them. There the cubs stretched themselves and basked with quiet content in the health-giving rays. ”

“ At once they took up the chase of the pursuer where it followed its prey from tangle to rock and from rock to tangle and presently, when a sudden turn brought them within striking distance of the unsuspecting fish, they rose from beneath, careening over so as to fasten on the fleshy throat. ”

“ But though the hounds soon wind her, the denseness of the thicket hinders them from getting at her until the terriers force her to the river. In the shallow water every eye can mark her where she swims and note her shortening dives. ”

“ Then the hunters in single file made along the slender stream for the basin below the fall, sporting together till the sun rose over the distant sea and flooded the upland with its beams. The otter, usually observant of the first signs of dawn, seemed not to heed the golden light, even when the cubs began to grow uneasy and to shoot reproachful glances at her for keeping them abroad at so late an hour. ”

“ But, clear of the trees, they all at once cease their quest and listen. Some suspicious sound downstream has alarmed them. They are all ears when, above the voice of the river and the wild rustling of the tree-tops, the penetrating note again makes itself heard. ”

“ Then mother and cubs joined in play, disporting themselves at times on the surface, but more often in the depths. Presently they would rise, locked together as if in deadly struggle, and roll over and over like a water-logged ball in a current. All at once, and frequently whilst immersed, they would break up, land, and make the circuit of the banks, passing one another as though they were utter strangers, and then suddenly, as if by signal, take to the water again and resume their mimic warfare. Once whilst they were thus engaged the whistle of an otter reached them from the river. ”

“ Mile after mile of the desolate upland they traversed: at one spot skirting a cairn whence came that weirdest of all wild cries, the shrill chattering of badgers; at another, passing the only road over the moor, where they left their footprints between the fresh wheel-marks of the doctor's trap. A sleeping hamlet rose almost in their path, and so close did they approach that they heard the creaking of the signboard of the Druid's Arms, about which the cottages cluster. ”

“ There, however, the otter stood irresolute. Each water led towards a delectable destination—the one to the salmon pools, the other to her native marsh, with its abundant food-supply and secure hovers among the reed-beds—and which to make for she could not decide, until it struck her that the cubs might never find the outlying water without her. ”

“ They lingered there week after week till the weather changed, but on the night of a lurid sunset, rounded the grim promontory which marks the end of all the land, and set their faces towards the marsh. On the way thither the female otter kept biting off the rushes and carrying them in her mouth, and when she reached the mere she at once chose a place in the heart of the reed-bed to make a nest. ”

“ They swam as fast as their legs could propel them to the spot whence the call proceeded, and as soon as the otter had landed and licked the face of the skittish little creature awaiting the rivals, he turned to face his enemy. Like two furies they fought in the shallows churned with their incessant movements. ”

“ Twice the formidable marauder landed with victims which he left uneaten on the bank where he laid them, for lust of slaughter, not hunger or love of pursuit, possessed him, and he was moved by a restlessness greater than he had ever shown. ”

“ The persecuted beasts soon forgot the magpie, but the terrier had left a deeper memory, and all three were long in falling asleep. The otter, indeed, was still awake at noon, when a weasel threaded the way to the heart of the cairn, and, poking his snake-like head round the angle of rock, saw the curled-up forms of the animals whose scent had drawn him thither. But a single peep satisfied his curiosity, and he went out into the blazing sunlight, fragrant with the perfume of the furze. Then the mother otter slept like the cubs. ”

“ The sight of their wounds angered the squire, who at once called out: 'Now, men, build a dam, and look lively; that otter shan't live another hour.' All set to work. Except the whipper-in, who had as much as he could do to look after the hounds, every man lent a hand. ”

“ They crossed the water below the pool, the squire examined the tracks, the hounds were laid on, and the rocky gorge with all the wood about it immediately resounded with their wild music, while the squire and every man behind him thrilled at the prospect of at last coming up with the creature whose movements had so long baffled them. The ground was very rough, and in parts swampy, yet not a man turned back. ”

“ Despite the depth of the water, the current, and the restless movements of the wild-fowl, the frost had had its way; the vast sheet was one continuous field of steel-blue ice. The otters had witnessed the sealing of the mere, had watched the ducks, geese and swans take wing and melt into the night, before they realized their desperate situation; then, had the cubs been able to travel, they would at once have turned their back on the marshland, as the wild-fowl had done, and made across country for the salmon river, where fish crowded the spawning-beds. ”