Gilly

“ Gilly pursued. "If there is another fellow to do the work, I let him do it. Perhaps some day, if we go on booming, we can take in another fellow. If so, I shall certainly incite him to do the work. Meanwhile I'm not such a lazy beast as to let you miss this chance on my account. My word, I should get it hot from Billy—and Doris!" He stretched himself luxuriously. "There's a perfectly plain way out of this; I must work." He looked up at his partner humorously. "Though you mayn't believe it, I can work, when I want a thing very much."
"But what is there for you to want here?" asked Andy. ”

“ In good society those who cared to talk twice of the matter blamed Harold; he was absent; besides, he had gone to the wall, therefore he must be in the wrong. On the other hand, the Jillinghams deserved the triumph that is never denied success. To Gilly prosperous were forgiven the sins of Gilly in social and moral rags. If scandal like an evil gas had been let loose to crystallise upon Phillipa's good name, the black stains could not adhere long to so charming a person, who made the Purling mansion in Berkeley Square one of the best-frequented and most fashionable in town. ”

“ Gilbert made a great clatter with his knife and fork, to conceal the laugh that he could not repress. He now saw what Miss Watling was driving at, and he felt certain that he was "the man."
"Does she think me a goose? She and her affairs may go to Jericho, for what I care," whispered the unambitious young fellow to his mother.
"To be sure—to be sure, Nancy," said the farmer. "You are a woman of sense, and see things in the right light. It would be an excellent chance for Gilly. It is high time for him to be doing something for himself. ”

“ You think you have the best mamma and best papa and best everything!” exclaimed Gilly.
“So I have!” said Jimmy confidently.
This was more than even the mild-tempered Gilly could bear.
“What you mean? My papa is a major, and yours isn’t!”
“H’m! My papa doesn’t want to be a major, [27] and that’s why! Some people perfers to be ministers!” Jimmy’s eyes were growing fiery. “Don’t you know,” he went on, “ministers are the nicest men there is in this world?”
But Gilly refused to be crushed.
“Has your papa got a coat with gold cushions on the shoulders, Jimmy Dunlee? ”

“ "We'll never speak of 'last times,' Gilly, or where would any of us be? We'll always think of 'next' times. I shall trust Nancy next time, and next time and next time, and keep on trusting till I can trust her forever!" ”

“ Don't be so unrestful, Dolly. I feel in my heart that he be close at hand. Lawrence Rushmere is not the man to be afeard of a few snow-flakes. Spread the [Pg 181] table, and get every thing in readiness for his supper, when he does come. I can't feel uneasy, for I am certain he will bring us news of Gilly. I was dreaming of him last night. I have borne him on my mind all day. I do feel so happy and lightsome, that it would be a sin to fret about troubles which may never come to our door. ”

“ I suppose that even in the country you change your dresses before dinner?"
Happily for Gilbert his father had not heard the latter part of his wife's speech, and the insult it implied. The old man's good sense and judgment had been laid to sleep by that Judas-like kiss.
"Your wife, Gilly," he said, as she disappeared up the old staircase, "is a fine woman, an' a lady, if ever I saw one. Not very young, though—eh, Gilly? Atween twenty-five and thirty," poking his son in the ribs. "Just the proper [Pg 268] age to make a man a good, prudent wife. ”

“ I cannot think of father being out at night, and on such a night as this, on that lonely heath, without a shudder. If thinking of Gilly would bring us news of him, we ought to hear from him very often; for I am thinking about him all day long," returned Dorothy, commencing with alacrity to cover the table.
"A mother's love is a great mystery, Dolly. It never changes like the love of man to woman. It begins before the birth of her little one, and lasts till the hour of death. It is more like the love of God to his creatures. ”

“ As soon as he turned, Gilly slipped down from the tree, took the sheep through a gap, and got back to the robbers before they were through with the game. All the robbers said it was a wonderful thing he had done. The Captain of the Robbers was left standing by himself scratching his head.
The farmer found no men hanging on trees and he thought he was out of his mind. He came back and he found his sheep gone. “What will I do now?” said he. “I daren’t let Ann know I lost a goat and a sheep until I put her into good humor by showing the shawl I bought her at the fair. ”

“ On Jimmy's release he cleared away into bush, and Jimmy wanted Gilly to live at camp with him. She refused, and a good deal of bickering went on. Then Gilly went to a man named Morgan, remained with him, and was sent by Mrs. Ellice to Mr. Pigott, where Morgan worked. Jimmy becoming tired of Gilly's constant refusal to live with himi, got another woman, as he, being an elderly man, was not strong enough to fight Morgan. He obtained quite a child-wife, but gave Gilly to Daylight. She, however, would not go to him, so one night during last week Daylight, Duncan, and Jimmy forcibly stole Gilly. ”

“ The “new ladies,”—really quite old ones,—had lately bought it to live in; and of course it was not a shop, and they kept nothing to sell. Only, as it happened, they had given Gilly a cake of maple-sugar the Thursday before, when he called there with his mamma.
“It doesn’t look a bit like a shop,” said Jimmy, as they walked up to the front door [29] of this quiet house, and Gilly pounded on the screen-door. There was an electric bell at the side. Jimmy did not think candy-shops generally had electric bells. ”

“ I have an idea for myself already. I was going to wait till my seventeenth birthday, but that's four months away and it's too long. I'm old enough to begin any time. I feel old enough to write my Reminiscences this minute."
"You might publish your letters to the American Consul in Breslau; they'd make a book!" teased Gilbert.
"Very likely I shall, silly Gilly," retorted Nancy, swinging her mane haughtily. "It isn't every girl who has a monthly letter from an Admiral in China and a Consul in Germany." ”

“ I prevailed by undertaking to do any mortal thing he liked, as long as he lay where he was with that quinsy.
"Then save the fellow somehow, Gilly," he cried, "only don't you go near Nettleton to-night! He obviously isn't safe; take the other risk instead. Since the old soul's out of the house, let him set fire to it if he likes; that's better than his murdering you on the spot. Then we must get him quietly examined, without letting him know that we know anything at all; and if a private attendant's all he wants, I swear I'm his man. ”

“ But so much the worse for you both, if he's the kind you say he is. An idle man, too, and apparently alone in the world! I don't envy you if Nettleton really does come under the influence of your old man of the soil, and plays down to him!"
"My dear Gilly, this is a great concession," whispered Uvo, on his elbow with surprise. ”

“ It is dreadful to anticipate happiness from such a sad event. Father is as likely to live as either of us—is hale and strong—with a back unbent, and a step as firm as your own. Oh, Gilbert, I did not think that you were so selfish. I love the dear old man. God grant that he may live for twenty years!" [Pg 30]
"And you expect me to remain single all that time, Dolly,—do you call that reasonable? I will not do it, even to please you."
"Do not wait for me, Gilly, if you can get a better chance," said Dorothy, striving to call up a smile upon his gloomy face. Her lover was in no laughing humour. ”

“ But Uvo Delavoye might have been brooding over every syllable.
"You said you wouldn't envy me," he cried, huskily, "if poor old Nettleton fell under the influence in his turn. You spoke as if it was my influence; it isn't, but it may be that I'm a sort of medium for its transmission! Sole agent, eh, Gilly? My God, that's an awful thought, but you gave it me just now and I sha'n't get shot of it in a hurry! None of these beastly things happened before I came here—I, the legitimate son of this infernal soil! I'm the lightning-conductor, I'm the middleman in every deal!" ”

“ Royle, and all through me! The woman's an invalid; this may finish her off. If it were the man himself I wouldn't mind. Where the devil do you suppose he is?"
"I'll tell you later," said Uvo Delavoye, without moving a muscle of his mobile face.
"You'll tell me——see here, Delavoye!" I spluttered. "This is a serious matter to me; if you're going to rot about it I'd rather you cleared out!"
"But I'm not rotting, Gilly," said he in a different tone, yet with a superior twinkle that I never liked. "I never felt less like it in my life. ”

“ You may find Gilbert's wife a woman more to your taste, but she will never be a better daughter to you than I have been."
"Nobody found fault with you, girl, that you should go off in a tantrum about [Pg 241] naught. It's only just your envy of Gilly's rich wife, that makes you saucy to me. In course, as my son's wife, she must be a person of more consequence in the house than ever you can be. It's neither kind nor grateful o' you to be talking of leaving your mother when she be unable to help herself."
Mrs. Rushmere cast a pleading look at Dorothy, to take no notice of this ungracious speech. ”

“ A middle-aged man was hobbling towards us in the thinning stream of homing citizens. He did not look one of them; he wore light clothes and a straw hat which he did not remove in accosting my companions; and I thought that he looked both hot and cross as he leant hard upon a serviceable stick.
"Gossiping at the gate, as usual!" he cried, with a kind of rasping raillery. "Even Mr. Delavoye won't thank you for keeping him standing on this villainous asphalt till his feet sink in."
"That would have been one for you, Gilly, in the old days," said Uvo. "Captain Ricardo—Mr. Gillon." ”

“ But I did not feel myself an object for magnanimity.
"I thought it was only your ignoble kinsman, as you call him," I said, "who was to haunt and influence us all. If it's to be his man-servant, his maid-servant——"
"Stop," cried Delavoye; "stop in time, my dear man, before you come to one or other of us! Can you seriously think it a mere coincidence that a thing like this should happen on the very spot where the very same thing has happened before?"
"I don't see why not."
"I had only the opposite idea to go upon, Gilly, and yet I found exactly what I expected to find. ”

“ I never thought to hear a grown man go on like that."
"And such a man!" cried Uvo. "It's not the talk so much as the talker that surprises me; and by the way, how well he talked, for him! He was less of a bore than I've ever known him; there was passion in the fellow, confound him! Red blood in that lump of road metal! He's not only sorry for himself. He's simply heartbroken about the girl. But this maggot of morbid introspection has got into his brain and——how did it get there, Gilly? It's no place for the little brute. What brain is there to feed it? ”

“ Henrietta Hobart, Countess Dowager of Suffolk, died in July, 1767. Her portrait by Charles Jervas, with Marble Hill in the background, hung in the Green Bed-chamber in the Round Tower at Strawberry. It once belonged to Pope, who left it to Martha Blount; and it is engraved as the frontispiece of vol. ii. of Cunningham's edition of the Letters.
[128] 'The Duke of Gloucester'—wrote Gilly Williams to Selwyn, as far back as December, 1764—'has professed a passion for the Dowager Waldegrave. He is never from her elbow. This flatters Horry Walpole not a little, though he pretends to dislike it.' ”

“ Composed in Edinburgh, during my Scotch tour with Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister, Miss Hutchinson, in the year 1814. Poor Gillies never rose above that course of extravagance in which he was at that time living, and which soon reduced him to poverty and all its degrading shifts, mendicity being far from the worst. I grieve whenever I think of him, for he was far from being without genius, and had a generous heart, not always to be found in men given up to profusion. ”

“ Gillingham, as I learnt when I took the liberty of listening to a conversation on the bowling-green between you and your friend Beverley. Where was I? Ah, you must have a look for that secret passage, Mr. Gillingham.
“But what am I saying? Did I deceive you at all? You have found out the secret—that Robert was Mark—and that is all that matters. How have you found out? I shall never know now. Where did I go wrong? Perhaps you have been deceiving me all the time. Perhaps you knew about the keys, about the window, even about the secret passage. You are a clever man, Mr. Gillingham. ”

“ I suppose we'll have to send for another gillie—if you care to go on with that boat——'
'I should think I did!' she said. 'But why should you send for another gillie so long as Ronald says he is not busy? I dare say he can tell us when he is; I don't believe he's half so shy as he looks. And he's much better fun than one of these Highlanders; he wants his own way; and, with all his shyness, he has a pretty good notion of himself and his own opinions. ”

“ Whereupon Gilleen would say hot words and say them fervently, while he shook his fist at the master mechanic.
"I'll show you some day, Regan," was his final word. "I'll show you what kind of a race it is, an' don't you forget it!"
All of which is neither very interesting nor in any degree witty—it simply shows where Gilleen's nickname came from. Everybody on the division called him "King"—not to his face, they do now, but they didn't then. Queer the way a little thing like that acts on a man sometimes. ”