Denis

“ Denis's blood froze as he remembered some vague saying that the feet die first; even in the hot sun these looked dead enough; they also must be brought to life, and the arch enemy repulsed at every point, at any sacrifice. In Denis, or rather in the Denis who was least a Dent, the act would almost outstrip the thought; this was the Denis who was saving his darling's life without time to realize what she was to him. Quicker than thought he had tipped up the bottle itself, so that the brandy came out in gulps, first over one pale foot and then the other. ”

“ With a quick movement, accompanied by a smile, Leoni’s long, thin, brown fingers were laid upon Denis’s lips.
“Hist, boy! We are in King Henry’s palace, where walls may have ears. Speak it not. We understand one another, and know what in our master’s service we have come to seek. Denis, you are a boy in years, but I find you in many things a man at heart, and there should be no half confidences between us two. I like you, my boy, and always have, stern and cold and severe as I may have seemed. My face may have been hard, but there are moments when my heart is soft. ”

“ Denis, if the truth were told, was glad of a chance to fight somebody besides Indians. He was right weary of the skulking ways of the red warrior with his tomahawk, his paint and feathers, and his savage desire to carry scalps at his belt. He longed for a good honest brush with white men, who fought openly with gun and sword—men, for example, like his good friend Captain Ramon and his troop of jolly soldiers! ”

“ Denis did not wince.
"I am wrong," he said, quietly. "In the first place, I asked you to marry me; it was only in the second place, and before you had time to give me an answer, that I was so unfortunate as to save your life."
"Unfortunate!"
"Most unfortunate to be the one to save you, Nan, because if it had been any one else it would have made no difference between us; as it is it makes all the difference in the world." ”

“ Denis raised his hand again, as if in deprecation, feeling in spite of his perilous position something like amusement at the success attending the playing of his rôle.
“Oh yes,” continued the King; “you have proved yourself a man brilliant, courtly, and in every way fitted for the high position you held before you stooped to the wretched chicanery and folly which brought you to this pass. Now, sir, I tell you I am ready to be merciful and spare your life, but upon conditions; and these stipulations which I shall make, I tell you, you as my prisoner are bound to accept. ”

“ And Denis stretched out his own.
How rapidly thoughts fly through the mind—more rapidly than fingers can trace them! "Is not this an answer to my prayer?" thought Walter. "A few minutes ago I felt, as regards earth, friendless, penniless, desolate! At once, how unexpectedly a friend and the means of future independence are given me! If I risk something, is it not for a hero, a benefactor, one who has shown me kindness unsought! Then the journey itself may be an opening for good. ”

“ And there was something else about the creature which I could not fail to notice—something which de Russy had not been able to put into words, but which perhaps had something to do with Denis' wish to kill all those of his blood who had dwelt under the same roof with her. Whether Marsh knew, or whether the genius in him painted it without his knowing, none could say. But Denis and his father could not have known till they saw the picture.
Surpassing all in horror was the streaming black hair, which covered the rotting body, but which was itself not even slightly decayed. ”

“ In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy? Denis came to a halt in front of the bench, and as he asked this last question he stretched out his arms and stood for an instant in an attitude of crucifixion, then let them fall again to his sides.
“My poor Denis!” Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic as he stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. “But does one suffer about these things? It seems very extraordinary.”
“You’re like Scogan,” cried Denis bitterly. ”

“ Denis, routed, but by no means vanquished, disappears hastily round one corner of the pretty cottage, someone else comes round the other. A young girl, singing sweetly, merrily, though in a subdued voice. Just as she reaches her corner she looks behind her; her singing ceases, and an amused look brightens her face—a face that has known much sadness. Again she looks behind her, as if expecting something, this time turning her back on Wyndham ”

“ Denis tried to laugh off his annoyance, but there was more of irony than of mirth in his laugh. "Hear how the young cock crows!" he cried, "when hardly out of the shell. He'll sing a different note when his feathers are grown. Good-night, my puritanical friend, I'm going to bed; as we start to-morrow, I hope that you'll awake in the morning a wiser and a merrier man." And taking up the solitary lamp, Denis retreated into the inner room, leaving Walter Gurney to darkness and his own reflections. ”

“ Doherty had been bitterly jealous of him, yet had striven finely to suppress his chagrin, and never stooped to backbiting or tale-bearing under its stress. And his devotion to Denis had never wavered; that was at once a touching consideration and a clear claim. No; there should be no more partners if Denis could help it, but if he could not, then the newcomer should be a man after Jimmy's heart rather than his own. ”

“ Evey Byrne with a conscience, forsooth! Denis had tasted the first-fruits of pleasure in crushing down her scruples and making her own she loved him. He had wrung out the confession without mercy. She tried to hold him off with her weak little hands against his breast.
"Ah, but ye don't truly love me, Denis!"
"Don't I?" said Denis, kissing her fawn-soft eyes and sweet, half-reluctant lips.
"Ah, but 'tis so wicked! God'll never forgive us!"
"There is no God that counts," Denis answered. He kissed her again. He had no idea that in his heart he was kissing Dorothea. ”

“ It did not require this generous (and evidently genuine) discharge to retain their services to the death. In Denis the Celt had long been uppermost, and, like Doherty, he was in a glow for the glowing work. Apart from that, Denis was rather fascinated by the rueful humour and the chuckle-headed courage of a temperament at once opposite and congenial to his own.
"Either we stand by you, Moseley," he muttered, "or we all three run for it; and I'll be shot if we do that just yet! Luckily, one of us can supply the firearm, and the other can use it if the worst comes to the worst." ”

“ Denis quoted maliciously. The poet covered her ears with her hands.
"Oh, do-o-on't!"
"Well, let me see the rest of it!"
"Well, it isn't finished; it's no good looking at a thing till it's finished, is it?" retorted Lettice in a soft flurry of exasperation. Her poetry was dug out of her own soul, and she suffered the pains of vivisection in hearing it discussed. Denis knew this well, and Lettice knew he knew it. Looking like an affronted kitten, she retired into a silence that the brutal critic might have called sulky, and seemed disposed to stay there. But Denis knew how to make his peace. ”

“ Young Denis's display of controversial talents was so remarkably precocious, that he controverted his father's statements upon all possible subjects, with a freedom from embarrassment which promised well for that most distinguished trait in a controversialist—hardihood of countenance. This delighted old Denis to the finger ends.
“Dinny, if he's spared,” he would say, “will be a credit to us all yet. The sorra one of him but's as manly as anything, and as longheaded as a four-footed baste, so he is! ”

“ His voice, it is true, was thin and a trifle high-pitched,—always a bad sign in a man,—but she would have overlooked all his shortcomings if only her craving to revere where she loved had been sufficiently gratified. He was beyond all question the best type of man who had hitherto paid her attention. Others, perhaps, might have been more manly; but then they had been clumsy, heavy, and puerile, and had, above all, lacked that air of complete efficiency which was perhaps Denis's greatest asset. ”

“ Thereat the creases cut deep across Denis's forehead—so deep you might have looked for them to fill with blood—and he asked the man next to him if the Guards were in it.
"In it?" cried the man next Denis. "In the thick and the front of it, you may depend!"
The Lord Mayor had not finished. He was thanking one and all for their attendance. He was expressing a pious belief that this victory of the Alma would promote the civilization and happiness of the world more than anything that had happened for the last fifty years. ”

“ Devenish wheeled round, and his handsome face was transfigured as he waved his sword.
"They want us with the colours!" he shouted. "They can't do without us after all!"
And with a laugh and a yell the men sprang forward, the sergeant's face as red as his hair, even the grumbler pressing on Denis's heels, and perhaps only Denis himself with a single thought beyond coming at once to the rescue of the regiment and to grips with the shrouded foe. ”

“ The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation. ”

“ The white left arm, brown as a glove from the wrist down, flew over as white a shoulder in flashing curves; the brown head dipped in the blue, to rise spluttering and dripping a good yard further; but the yards were close on two hundred from shore to spar, and when Denis came up with the latter, it was his love, indeed, but she was already senseless.
They had tied her in a life-belt, and lashed the life-belt to a spar; in time she would have been cast up on the warm sand, dead! She was not dead yet; she should not die. ”

“ It was a sign of more than Denis had time to realize until Corio Bay lay blue and bare at his feet, and the tiny sail on the horizon had vanished forever from his view.
He sat in the sun with his face hidden in his hands. His heart had filled with prayer, his eyes with tears; he dug his knuckles into them, and [Pg 72] missed the bloodstone signet-ring that he had worn since his father's death. There had been no time for an engagement ring, but Nan was to wear this one until they met again. ”

“ This is you, Denis, not he I call my guardian. I do not think he altogether trusts me any longer, although he gave me the jar to keep ... and I have left it behind in the Inn. It was worth a king's ransom, he said, and ordered me to keep it by me until he should have finished a certain work he had below, that would not take him long. I have left it, and he will be angry ... I fear him, Denis. He is calm as death when he is angry....
"And yet he can laugh too. He laughed when he told me of the Chinese he killed, and how he dared his fellow to betray him. ”

“ Denis strode up and down the narrow apartment, exclaiming against the heat and the mosquitoes, and often pausing before the hole of a window to measure with his eye the depth of the precipice below, and calculate the possibility of a descent. He always turned away disappointed, yet in a few minutes was at the aperture again. As long as enough of daylight remained, Walter occupied himself with his father's translation, amidst frequent interruptions from Denis.
"It is growing quite dark!" cried the Irishman. "This interminable day is coming at last to an end. ”

“ For after walking his beautiful steed to and fro again, Denis waited till they reached the open gangway, and then turned the noble animal’s head and let it stop to stretch out its muzzle towards the shore to gaze with starting eyes at the solid land and moving people there. ”

“ Denis did not give them much information, but left [Pg 46] them to infer that the Bishop's talk had just been that of a kind wise Father in God with a young man setting out upon his life's work. They construed this into a wish on his part to find out for himself whether this particular young man was a suitable object for his patronage, and hoped afresh. If he had not been going to offer Denis the living, he would certainly have said so, and advised him what to do when his curacy at Surley came to an end. For a new incumbent would not want a curate. ”

“ This pocketbook, with its blue-lined sheaf of glorious possibilities, represented Denis's one disbursement in Melbourne beyond bed, board, and the glasses of beer overnight. A rigid economy was his watchword; they must walk to Ballarat; so let their packs be light, and if kits were dearer on the diggings, they would still have saved.
Doherty agreed with every word; but as they resumed their journey, and Moseley fell a few paces behind, he reminded Denis of the nuggets which Bullocky had forced upon them at the inn. ”

“ Denis seemed to do so, too, for although I could not catch his low-spoken reply, I could tell by the effect it produced that it must have been affirmative.
"There was a sound of someone slapping another on the back, and then a grateful speech from Marsh that I was long to remember.
"'That's great, Denny; and just as I told you, you'll never regret it. In a sense, I'm half doing it for you. You'll be a different man when you see it. It'll put you back where you used to be—give you a waking-up and a sort of salvation—but you can't see what I mean as yet. ”