George Wishart

“ Now, for all his money, Martin Wingate stood like a fretful, miserable child, pawing in his little medicine cabinet for the phial that alone spelled surcease from misery intolerable—the phial that alone could give him strength to live even a single other day. ”

“ With an odd little cry, Wingate crushed the tablet between his fingers. He ground it to powder and flung the powder away. He staggered up, laughing horribly, and like a madman stumbled off among the palmettos, striking against them, scrambling up again.
The sea, the sea! There at last he could find cooling and peace, rest, oblivion, surcease from pain. The sea would give him all these. ”

“ A desperate priest, Sir John Wighton, was, according to Knox, sent by the cardinal to murder him. Wishart, suspecting his design, drew the whinger out of his hand, but saved Wighton from the vengeance of his followers. He remained in Dundee till the plague ceased, and then passed to Montrose, where the cardinal, by a forged letter pretending to be an invitation from Wishart's friend John Kinnear of that ilk in Fife, tried to draw him into an ambuscade laid for him within a mile and a half from Montrose. ”

“ I must act for myself. For a while I sat still and made no sign. My suspicions were presently confirmed. The elder man more than once scolded his opponent for playing slowly. In one of these intervals he took from an inside pocket of his dress waistcoat a small package.
"You had better take your letter, George," he said. "If there are, as you mentioned, originals in it, they will be more safe with you than with me. You can tell me all about it, viva voce, now you are here. Gerald will leave us alone presently." ”

“ When Winsor finished speaking, Pudge forced his legs into his favorite position for them and then twinkled at Winsor through his glasses.
"Right you are, George," he said in his quick way. "I wear a Phi Bete key, too. We both belong to the world's greatest intellectual fraternity, but what in hell do we know? We've all majored in English except Jack, and I'll bet any one of us can give the others an exam offhand that they can't pass. I'm going to law school. ”

“ On his return from America to England for the last time the change in his appearance forcibly impressed Wesley, who wrote in his Journal: "He seemed to be an old man, being fairly worn out in his Master's service, though he had hardly seen fifty years." When health was failing him he placed himself on what he called "short allowance," preaching only once every week-day and thrice on Sunday. In 1769 he returned to America for the seventh and last time, and arranged for the conversion of his orphanage into Bethesda College, which was burned down in 1773. ”

“ It was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial. Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on. Three steps carried him down the passage. Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his brow. The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent--and Julia. ”

“ Once under the bungalow, he lay still for a few minutes, listening. Save for the steady drumming of rain on the house and on the palmetto fronds, and the roar of the surf as the west wind drove it up the beach, he heard nothing. An occasional dart of lightning revealed no sign of a guard.
“The captain and Zanelli would be bigger fools than I think them,” Wingate pondered, “if they stirred out of their own bungalow on a night like this!” ”

“ Stand to your arms, men! Mr. Bevans, be ready with that signal-gun to blow ’em out of the water if they start trouble. Mr. Gascar, fetch my speakin’-trumpet from the cabin. Bring up a sheet, too, from Scurlock’s berth. That’s the handiest flag o’ truce we’ve got. Look alive now!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Gascar, and departed on his errand.
Silence fell, save for the toiling Malays, whose labors still were fruitless to do aught save slowly drag the kedge through the gleaming sand of the sea-bottom. Mr. Wansley muttered something to himself; the doctor fell nervously to pacing up and down ”

“ This collapsible bucket was now all that his jailers would allow him. The metal pitcher had been taken away, like all metal. There was not even a tin cup to drink from.
Wingate had to tilt the canvas bucket and drink from its edge, slopping water down his chest. He laughed savagely, drank deep, and laughed again. More scores to settle!
Like a trapped animal, he fell to pacing the floor, back and forth across the fiber tug. Hobbling, racked with pain, he took his exercise—a tortured soul in a hell of his own making. ”

“ Something has happened which compelled him to leave England at once. He could do nothing, make no arrangements. Mother, he said, had a little money; we must sell everything and manage to live somewhere for a little; he would try to send us what he could. Then I went home. There was a police-officer in the house, and mother had gone away, I can't tell where. Father has done something, and—Oh, what shall I do? You can help me, can't you?"
Waymark, whom this news overwhelmed with blank despair, could at first say nothing ”

“ That morning Wingate had used the last of his drug, and once more he was on the edge of the painful gulf.
“Well, so you're here, eh?” he growled, as Jaccard entered his little cabin. “It's about time, I should think!”
“Yes, I'm here,” the captain smilingly replied, handing over a bulky package. “Here's what you sent me for—cash, bonds. quite a bundle of stuff. It's all there. I haven't touched a penny of it. Honesty, strict honesty—that's my motto!”
Wingate snarled at him:
“Like hell! If you're an honest man, I'm a wise one! ”

“ In you, in me, in Nellie, in men like Ford and George and Harry, in places you never dream of, in ways nobody knows but himself. He is moulding the world as a potter moulds clay. It frightens me, sometimes. I open a new book and there are Geisner's very ideas. I see a picture, an illustrated paper, and there is Geisner's hand passed to another. I was at a new opera the other night and I could hardly believe my ears; it seemed as though Geisner was playing. From some out of the way corner of the earth comes news of a great strike ”

“ Impotently the millionaire's weak fists battered that solid bulk. They did no more than dash the phial from Jaccard's hand. It fell to the cabin floor, rolled against one of the lockers, and stopped there. With an insensate, wild rage, Wingate tried to land some telling blow. Tortured nerves and outraged mind drove him on to make of himself a degrading, pitiful spectacle—how different from what he had been in those other, far-away days of splendid athletic achievement! ”

“ Fleming-like, he is less melodist than harmonist—and such acrid harmonies, polyphonic variations, and fuguelike flights to the other side of good and evil.
George Moore was the first English critic to recognise Huysmans. He wrote that "a page of Huysmans is as a dose of opium, a glass of exquisite and powerful liquor." Frankly, it was his conversion that focussed upon Huysmans so much attention. No one may remain isolated in his century. He has never been a favourite with the larger Parisian public; rather, a curiosity, a spiritual ogre turned saint. ”

“ In this last place he made a public exposition of the epistle to the Romans, which he went through with such grace and freedom, as greatly alarmed the papists.
In consequence of this, (at the instigation of cardinal Beaton, the archbishop of St. Andrews) one Robert Miln, a principal man at Dundee, went to the church where Wishart preached, and in the middle of his discourse publicly told him not to trouble the town any more, for he was determined not to suffer it. ”

“ Tylney's Narrative in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Knox's account of Wishart in his History of the Reformation, and Pitscottie's Chronicles are the primary and contemporary authorities; Laing's notes are, as always, instructive. There is, unfortunately, no account of Wishart on the catholic side, except that of Lesley in his History, which is very brief. Petrie, in his Compendious History of the Church (The Hague, 1662) , adds a few particulars. By modern writers more than one controversy has been raised over Wishart's life, which of course could not be passed over by any church historian. ”

“ Wingate suddenly became sane, sober, and coherent. The mist of half delirium rolled away, leaving his intelligence absolute master of him. His nerves tensed for the final act of his life tragedy. He laughed again, but differently now, as once more he approached the gaping white mouth and gleaming fangs.
“Come on, old friend!” he cried. “Just once—that's all I need! You're stronger than the human snakes that are keeping me here. You and I together—we'll beat them!”
Lightning swift, the moccasin struck. ”

“ Forbes wrote very well; but I believe he wrote before episcopacy was quite extinguished.' And then pausing a little, he said, 'Yes, you have Wishart against Repentance.' [Footnote: This was a dexterous mode of description, for the purpose of his argument; for what he alluded to was, a sermon published by the learned Dr William Wishart, formerly principal of the college at Edinburgh, to warn men AGAINST confiding in a death-bed REPENTANCE, of the inefficacy of which he entertained notions very different from those of Dr Johnson.] ”

“ Wingate made no answer, but lay panting, with the smolder of an immense hatred in his feverish eyes. Like tiny sentinels of fate the tablets lay there on the table.
“As if you could cure yourself of the habit, you poor, broken wreck of a man!” Jaccard mocked. “Why, the best sanitariums have failed, and the most skillful doctors. You're all gone. Your will power's gone—there's nothing left. Will power—pooh! You're a joke, Wingate—nothing but a joke, to reat men! ”

“ Whiston grew still more puzzled. He closed his book to meditate this new problem.
'One has to lay down rules,' fell from him at length, sententiously. 'Our position, Rose, as I have often explained, is a delicate one. A lady in circumstances such as yours cannot exercise too much caution. Your natural associates are in the world of wealth; unhappily, I cannot make you wealthy. We have to guard our self-respect, my dear child. Really, it is not safe to talk with strangers—least of all at an inn. And you have only to remember that disgusting conversation about beer!'
Rose said no more. ”

“ When Wingate would have resisted, Jaccard held him as if he had been a child, and took the tablets by force. Not much force was needed, at that. Wingate felt himself helpless in those iron hands.
“Here, now—here's the money that doesn't belong to me—not yet,” said Jaccard. “Everything is honest and above-board. ”

“ A pair of binoculars at the end of a leather strap makes a very pretty slung shot. Wingate put every ounce of his hate and of his rage into that whirling blow. The binoculars crashed down on Jaccard's skull, just above the right eye; and the captain, for all his bulk and strength, lunged forward, yammering, on both knees. ”

“ I suppose he was a small clerk, or something of the sort, and he had no business whatever to address us.'
'Oh, but he only said good morning, and apologised for sitting at our table. He needn't have apologised at all.'
'Precisely. That is just what I mean,' said Mr. Whiston with self-satisfaction. 'My dear Rose, if I had been alone, I might perhaps have talked a little, but with you it was impossible. One cannot be too careful. A man like that will take all sorts of liberties. One has to keep such people at a distance. ”

“ You can't? But you must!”
“How can I, sir, when the tender isn't here?”
“Not—here?” Wingate sank back in his chair, with eyes fishlike in blank dismay: “What d'you mean, not here?”
“It's gone, sir,” Jaccard explained. “I sent it back to Queensport for materials to mend the break—steel straps, bolts, and—”
Wingate's groan interrupted the skipper's explanation. An expression of intolerable anguish contorted the millionaire's face. Though he sought to control himself, an anguished twitch shuddered through his emaciated body. ”

“ In Queensport? And if in Queensport, why?
Hard on the heels of all this, a taxi swooped up to the club and a woman got out and ran down the driveway toward the wharf. She wore a little red toque and a raincoat; and if ever a woman looked agitated, it was this one.
“Good God!” cried Wingate, his heart giving a great leap. “Constance! You—here?”
$he laughed unsteadily as she reached the wharf. Forgetting all about the companionway, Wingate climbed over the rail, jumped to the stringpiece, and ran to meet her.
“Constance! What's the meaning of all this?”
“Are you all right, Marty? ”

“ I tell you I had nothing at all to do with any trouble between you and the captain, sir!”
“No argument, now!” snapped Wingate. “Get that other hawser over, and look sharp! Then go below!” He gestured eloquently with the revolver in his hand. “It's no use for either of you to try to help Jaccard, or to untie him. I'll shoot the first man that sticks a nose out of that companionway! Get a move on, there! Jump!”
When the engineer, grumbling vain pleas of innocence, had vanished below, Wingate turned to the seaman. ”

“ Beyond the gates and the immediate bustle of the yard lay night, the road, and dimly-guessed violences; the meeting of man with man, the rush to grips under some dark wood, or where the moonlight fell cold on the heath. The prospect terrified; at the mere thought the lawyer dropped the reins and nervously gathered them. And he had another fear, and one more immediate. He was no horseman, and he trembled lest Sir George, the moment the gates were passed, should go off in a reckless gallop. ”