Dempster

“ You couldn't make me believe that, Dempster!"
"But it is, upon my honor, Phœmie; and those gentlemen standing around him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost every civilized nation is represented here to-night."
I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out—some were young, some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a downright serious face in the whole crowd. ”

“ You would as soon think of marrying me as of marrying a young hoyden, who, from what I can make out, had just rejected you with insult; and the tone of voice—the tone of voice! But rise, Mr. Dempster.'
'I won't,' he said, looking her right in the face, and wondering that he had never noticed before how silky her brown hair was, and how kindly her brown eyes. 'I won't. Forget and then I'll rise.'
'How can I forget?' softly.
'Just as easily as I can rise. The mind is like legs; it can be bent and unbent.'
Now Miss Jane was not very much of a prude; but Dempster was becoming too confident. ”

“ I cast one yearning look towards the basket, rushed up the plank, and stood panting, by the side of Dempster.
"Oh dear, it is too bad!" says I.
"What is it, Phœmie?" says Dempster.
"Peaches!" says I. "Those delicious peaches—see how they glow in the sunshine!"
"Oh, nonsense! There is plenty on board," says he; "I'll go and get some."
"Not yet," says E. E.; "the deck is so crowded."
Dempster got seats for us and a stool for himself. The crowd was packed so close that one could hardly breathe. I was thirsty, I was tired out, and just ready to cry. E. E. was tired also, and a little cross. ”

“ Everybody knows people like Mr. Dempster. We are accustomed to their shifting similitudes, their inability to express themselves, their pretensions, and their good nature. In fact, we do not regard them—we do not recognise that they are peculiar; and when we see one of them singled out and reproduced—on the stage, for example—however faithfully, we call it caricature. Miss Jane had a very narrow circle of acquaintances. ”

“ And Davy Fayle, walking at her side, was full of his own big notions, too. Mastha Dan would be Dempster, true; but he'd have a boat for his pleasure, sarten sure. Davy Fayle would sail man in her, perhaps mate, and maybe skipper some day—who knows? And then—lying aft and drifting at the herrings, and smokin', and the stars out, and the moon makin' a peep—aw, well, well, well!
They reached the end of their journey at last. It was in a small gorse-covered house far over the wild moor, on the edge of the Chasms, looking straight out on the hungry sea. ”

“ But peace and quietness will never come to a house that has a fast child like Miss Dempster, as the creature calls herself, in it. We had hardly sat down and got our trains spread, when in she came, all in a fluff of white muslin, and a flutteration of red ribbons, with her hair a flowing down her back, crinkle, crinkle, and her—well—limbs just strained into silk stockings and kid boots laced down ever so far below her frock, and looking so impudent. Down she sat on the round sofa, and begun to swing her heels against the silk cushions. ”

“ And who is this bright-looking woman walking with hasty step along Orchard Street so early, with a large nosegay in her hand? Can it be Janet Dempster, on whom we looked with such deep pity, one sad midnight, hardly a fortnight ago? Yes; no other woman in Milby has those searching black eyes, that tall graceful unconstrained figure, set off by her simple muslin dress and black lace shawl, that massy black hair now so neatly braided in glossy contrast with the white satin ribbons of her modest cap and bonnet. ”

“ Ah! there Mammy Dempster had touched a true spring, not perhaps of her son’s cruelty, but of half Janet’s misery. If she had had babes to rock to sleep—little ones to kneel in their night-dress and say their prayers at her knees—sweet boys and girls to put their young arms round her neck and kiss away her tears, her poor hungry heart would have been fed with strong love, and might never have needed that fiery poison to still its cravings. Mighty is the force of motherhood! ”

“ He lifted his hat to me, and also to E. E.—with a lofty reservation in her case.
"Mr. Burke," says Dempster, with a degree of carelessness that, I am sorry to say, is characteristic—"he will teach you how to catch the creatures; for there is an art in it."
"Then I shall never succeed," says I, in a low, gentle tone of voice. "Where anything but pure nature is expected, I must always keep in the shade. You know, Cousin E. E., what an artless young thing I always was." ”

“ Dempster already had an interest in a motor company, and it was Baird who had suggested to him the easy possibility of enlarging the Dempster factory so that it would be one of the biggest concerns in the States. It was he who had pointed out that Edwin Carter's steel interests made him the most eligible man to approach. Dempster had little of Baird's persuasive ability, and knew it, and he also had a high opinion of Baird's gift; the young fellow carried a middle-aged man's head on his shoulders—in matters of business. Baird had been sent east to interest Carter and had captured him. ”

“ The red half-sunken sun shed a solemn splendour on the everyday houses, and crimsoned the windows of Dempster's projecting upper storey.
Suddenly a loud murmur arose and spread along the stream of church-goers, and one group after another paused and looked backward. At the far end of the street, men, accompanied by a miscellaneous group of onlookers, were slowly carrying something—a body stretched on a door. Slowly they passed along the middle of the street, lined all the way with awe-struck faces, till they turned aside and paused in the red sunlight before Dempster's door. ”

“ The sentence of the court is that you be committed to the Castle Rushen for the term of one year.”
Black Tom, who had stood during the Deemster's sentence with his bald head bent, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and leaving marks on his face, recovered his self-conceit as he was being hustled out of court.
“You're right, Dempster,” he cried. “Witchcraft isn't worth nothing now. Religion's the only roguery that's going these days. Your friend Cæsar was wise, sir. Bes' re-spec's to him, Dempster, and may you live up to your own tex' yourself, too.” ”

“ This satire, though it presents the keenest edge of Milby wit, does not strike you as lacerating, I imagine. But hatred is like fire—it makes even light rubbish deadly. And Mr. Dempster’s sarcasms were not merely visible on the walls; they were reflected in the derisive glances, and audible in the jeering voices of the crowd. Through this pelting shower of nicknames and bad puns, with an ad libitum accompaniment of groans, howls, hisses, and hee-haws, but of no heavier missiles, Mr. Tryan walked pale and composed, giving his arm to old Mr. Landor, whose step was feeble. ”

“ Philip,” said the postman.
“You wouldn't get lave in this house, anyway,” said Cæsar.
“Aw, a right gentleman and no pride at all,” said the postman. “As free and free with a poor man, and no making aisy either. I've nothing agen him myself. No, but a bit young for a Dempster, isn't he? Just a taste young, as the man said, eh?”
“Older than the young Ballawhaine, anyway,” said John, the clerk.
“Aw, make him Dempster, then. I'm raising no objection,” said Mr. Kelly.
“Go on, girl. Does that twister want oiling? Feed it, woman, feed it,” said Cæsar. ”

“ The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol, and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown poppy; her—well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the long run? ”

“ Janet had that enduring beauty which belongs to pure majestic outline and depth of tint. Sorrow and neglect leave their traces on such beauty, but it thrills us to the last, like a glorious Greek temple, which, for all the loss it has suffered from time and barbarous hands, has gained a solemn history, and fills our imagination the more because it is incomplete to the sense.
It was six o'clock before Dempster returned from Rotherby. ”

“ Now, Dempster, this is too bad."
"Well," says Dempster, desperately, "get the thing, and tell Stewart to charge it?" [Pg 402]
Cousin E. E. turned her face away. It was awful cloudy, and I could see that she was biting her lips. She had an awful long bill at Stewart's already. Then her face lighted up.
"Can't I have them sent C. O. D., by express? You will have time to get plenty of money before then," says she, as soft as silk weed.
"I hate the system," says Dempster; "money in hand is the only way a lady should make purchases. Then she knows what she is about. ”

“ Mr. Tryan was right in saying that the 'row' in Milby had been preconcerted by Dempster. The placards and the caricature were prepared before the departure of the delegates; and it had been settled that Mat Paine, Dempster's clerk, should ride out on Thursday morning to meet them at Whitlow, the last place where they would change horses, that he might gallop back and prepare an ovation for the triumvirate in case of their success. ”

“ Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three trunks.
Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore coat and—well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of trunks—big enough for country school-houses—were piled into the hall, and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats, peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes ”

“ Breaking up with some damp efforts at the earlier enthusiasm, the people complained that they were like men who had come for a jig and were sent home in a wet blanket. There should have been a joke or two, a hearty word of congratulation, a little natural glorification of Ramsey, and a quiet slap at Douglas and Peel and Castletown, a few fireworks, a rip-rap or two, and some general illumination. “But sakes alive! the solemn the young Dempster was! And the melancholy! And the mystarious!”
“Chut!” said Pete. “There's such a dale of comic in you, boys. ”

“ Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.
"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble yourself, Phœmie, it's all right."
I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one thing, and ostentation is another. ”

“ In this artificial life of ours, it is not often we see a human face with all a heart’s agony in it, uncontrolled by self-consciousness; when we do see it, it startles us as if we had suddenly waked into the real world of which this everyday one is but a puppet-show copy. For some moments Mr. Tryan was too deeply moved to speak.
‘Yes, dear Mrs. Dempster,’ he said at last, ‘there is comfort, there is hope for you. ”

“ The window shutters were up to keep out the daylight; candles were burning in the necks of bottles on the mantelpiece; a fire smouldered in a grate littered with paper and ashes; a coarse-featured man was eating ravenously at the table, a chop-bone in his fingers, and veins like cords moving on his low forehead—and the Deemster himself, judge of his island since the death of Iron Christian, was propped up in a chair, with a smoking glass on a stool beside him, and a monkey perched on his shoulder. “Turn them out, neck and crop, Dempster; the women are all for robbing a man,” said the fellow ”

“ Baird had the faculty of interesting men much older than himself: business men by his pronounced level-headedness, convivials like the colonel by his apparently inexhaustible supply of anecdotes, related simply and with a humorous zest that was captivating because in no way assumed.
And Baird had not neglected his opportunities. The establishment of an automobile factory important enough to compete with the largest in the United States was now an assured thing. Joseph Dempster, an Indiana near-millionaire, was the nucleus about which Baird had woven his web. ”

“ Most idle men would.'
Dempster rubbed his knees with vehemence, anxious, doubtless, to get himself into an electric condition which would enable him to overcome the insane disposition he felt to fall forward at Lee's feet. He succeeded in producing so much of the positive fluid as to fall back instead of forward; but all he could manage to say was, 'I suppose I would.'
'I have often wondered,' said Lee, whose smile was beginning to be warped by malice, 'why rich men don't commit burglaries and homicides in order to obtain terms of hard labour. It would be such an absolute change for them ”

“ They all saluted him, and some of them, after their Manx fashion, drew up at the carriage-door, lifted their caps with their tarry hands, and said—
“Taking joy to see you out again, Dempster. When a man's getting over an attack like that, it's middling clear the Lord's got work for him.”
Philip answered with smiles and bows and cheerful words, but the kindness oppressed him. He was thinking of Kate. She was the victim of his success. ”