Herrnhut

“ He smiled at the thought, but when he considered the opportunities of work Spener would put in his way, he began to look grave. Of course he must give up his music: it was no profession for him, and he saw that it was folly and weakness to attempt the service of two masters; and yet he will go back and talk with Mrs. Anna about Herrnhut and old Leonhard Marten. Just here comes the sound of a trombone cleaving the air. [Pg 333]
It startles him, and it startles others also. "Who is gone?" he hears one man ask another from his place in the garden ”

“ But it is good to think that one custom is still kept up, at all events in the house that once was Heriot’s. When a boy has got his colours for cricket or football, or gained marks for his house in athletics, that night at tea the captain of the house says “Well played,” or “Well run, So-and-So!” And over sixty sounding palms clap that hero loud and long.
On the night of the Mile it was old Mother Sprawson, who looked round to the long table in the middle of the uproar in his honour, and himself shouted something that very few could hear. ”

“ Hernhut is, as I have said, in the strictest sense of the term, a missionary settlement. The people inhabit a town, cleaner, neater, and in every respect more attractive, than any of a similar size, which I have visited in Germany. They own a considerable tract of country round it, which they cultivate with excellent skill; and they carry on among themselves all manner of trades and professions. ”

“ The house relieved itself in laughter led by Heriot.
"Have either of you been in yet?"
"I had one ball, sir. It was the last of the innings," said the brazen Sprawson. "The Sixth are just going in, and we expect to have Cave there all the afternoon."
"I'm afraid he can't go in first," said Heriot; "and you'll have to find a substitute to field for you, Sprawson. Or rather I'll see the two captains myself, and explain about you both. That'll save time and you can start at once. ”

“ Heriot, moreover, was delighted to see a colleague obtain precisely that hold over Jan which a rare delicacy had rendered difficult in his own case. There was no flaw of jealousy or narrowness in Robert Heriot. He was a staunch champion of the much younger man, whose methods and temperament scarcely commended themselves to such hardened schoolmasters as Mr. Haigh and the notorious but insensible Spook. But then Heriot himself was having a very good term. His house was indeed in order under the incomparable Crabtree, nor was Rutter the only fellow in it playing for the Eleven. ”

“ But the long lean figure of Robert Heriot, smoking his pipe in the inner sanctuary, cocking a quick ear at the furtive footstep on his side of the house, and finally confronting the audacious offender, with bristling beard and flashing spectacles, made all at once the most portentous picture in Jan’s mind. Heriot of all men! The one master with whom the boldest boy never dared to take a liberty ”

“ Then back to lips and cheeks the banished colour came racing. Bawne flushed crimson, as von Herrnung held up a bright bit of gold, and sharply shook his head.
"Was? Will you not take the sovereign?" von Herrnung demanded. "Are you a faint-heart after all?"
The boy bit his lip and said, clenching his small fists desperately:
"It's against the rule for Scouts to take tips. So I don't want the money. But I'm ready to come with you!"
"Look here, old fellow!" Sherbrand was beginning anxiously. ”

“ Von Herrnung's friends were nothing to Patrine, and von Herrnung's person was by now intolerable, yet her eyes unwillingly followed the tall, soldierly figure as he drew himself up, clicked his heels and uncovered. A brown hand went up to the peak of the white yachting-cap, the wearers of the straw Homburg and the felt Newmarket slightly raised their hats. Von Herrnung did not speak first, he waited bareheaded to be spoken to. ”

“ It was refreshingly polite; but, again, the begging-pardon opening was not the politeness of a schoolboy.
“On this chair,” said Heriot, suiting the action to the word. The boy would have leapt out of bed to do it himself. His shyness not only prevented him, but rendered him incapable of protest or acknowledgement; and the next moment he had something to be shy about. Mr. Heriot was holding up a broad and dirty belt, and without thinking he had cried, “What’s this?”
Rutter could not answer for shame. And Heriot had time to think.
“I can sympathise,” he said with a chuckle ”

“ The only books we have rubbed into you are the very ones you'll never open again. And what have you got out of them?"
"I can think of one thing," said Jan—"and I got it from Mr. Haigh, too! Possunt quia posse videntur—you can because you think you can. I've often said that to myself when there was a good man in—and sometimes I've got him!"
"That's good!" exclaimed Heriot. "That's fine, Jan; you must let me tell Haigh that. Can you think of anything else?" ”

“ For some days Henriot saw little of the man who came from Birmingham and pushed curiosity to a climax by asking for a compass in the middle of the night. For one thing, he was a good deal with his friends upon the other side of Helouan, and for another, he slept several nights in the Desert.
He loved the gigantic peace the Desert gave him. The world was forgotten there; and not the world merely, but all memory of it. Everything faded out. The soul turned inwards upon itself.
An Arab boy and donkey took out sleeping-bag, food and water to the Wadi Hof, a desolate gorge about an hour eastwards. ”

“ And impostors can’t afford to be exposed.” Rischenheim’s cheek turned rather pale. Rudolf faced him, and Bernenstein guarded the door. He was absolutely at their mercy; and he knew their secret. Did they know his—the news that Rupert of Hentzau had brought?
“Listen,” said Rudolf. “For a few hours to-day I am king in Strelsau. In those few hours I have an account to settle with your cousin: something that he has, I must have. I’m going now to seek him, and while I seek him you will stay here with Bernenstein. Perhaps I shall fail, perhaps I shall succeed. ”

“ He embraced Siska and Vincent, hesitated a moment, then consulting brave Jean Vingerhout with a look, pressed a long fraternal kiss upon Henriette's forehead, crushed the former baes of the America Nation against his breast, and, taking Henriette's hands, put them in those of her husband and clasped them both in his, as if to unite them in an almost sacramental clasp. ”

“ Sapt reminded me. "He'll be there if Rischenheim arrives in time to tell him the truth. But we have also to be ready for him here, and at the hunting-lodge. Well, we're ready for him wherever he is: Rudolf will be in Strelsau, you and I will ride to the lodge, and Bernenstein will be here with the Queen."
"Only one here?" I asked.
"Aye, but a good one," said the Constable, clapping Bernenstein on the shoulder. "We shan't be gone above four hours, and those while the King is safe in his bed. Bernenstein has only to refuse access to him, and stand to that with his life till we come back. ”

“ Bernenstein and I were not behind him in confidence. We would guard the secret with brain and hand and life, even as we had guarded and kept the secret of the Queen's letter, which would now go with Rupert of Hentzau to his grave. Bauer we could catch and silence: nay, who would listen to such a tale from such a man? Rischenheim was ours; the old woman would keep her doubts between her teeth for her own sake. To his own land and his own people Rudolf must be dead, while the King of Ruritania would stand before all Europe, recognised, unquestioned, unassailed. ”

“ The hard-working and salubrious life that he led with honest and upright fellows like Jean Vingerhout, the friendship of Vincent and Siska, but even more greatly, the gentle influence of Henriette, should have deferred the hatching of these morbid germs. Laurent had become an habitual guest at the Tilbaks for meals. A fraternal confidence grew up immediately between himself and Henriette. Never before had he felt so greatly, the gentle influence of Henriette, should have charmed opposite a person of the other sex. ”

“ There are ladies still in Strelsau who wear his trinkets in an ashamed devotion that cannot forget. Well, even I, who had every good cause to hate and scorn him, set the hair smooth on his brow; while Rischenheim was sobbing like a child, and young Bernenstein rested his head on his arm as he leant on the mantelpiece and would not look at the dead. Rudolf alone seemed not to heed or think of him. His eyes had lost their unnatural look of joy, and were now calm and tranquil. He took his own revolver from the mantelpiece and put it in his pocket, laying Rupert's neatly where his had been. ”

“ I have evidently missed a great deal; but I congratulate you all on the conspicuous gallantry said to have been displayed by every one of you, at a moment’s notice, in the middle of the night. I’ve heard of two-o’clock-in-the-morning courage, but I never heard of such a wholesale example of it. I’m sure I should be very proud of a whole house whom I can trust to play the man like this behind my back!”
There was even some little feeling in the tone employed by Heriot. Jan could not understand it; he had never looked upon the man as a fool ”

“ Heriot’s open windows were flush with the street, and passing footfalls sounded loud in his room; but at the moment there were none; and a clock ticked officiously on the chimneypiece while the man with his back to it met his sister’s eyes.
“Of course you don’t mean it literally?”
“Literally.”
“I thought his grandfather was a country parson?”
“A rural dean, my dear; but the boy’s father was a coachman, and the boy himself was brought up in the stables until six months ago.”
“The father’s dead, then?”
“He died in the spring. His wife has been dead fourteen years. It’s a very old story. ”

“ The one master with whom the boldest boy never dared to take a liberty; the one whose good opinion was best worth having, and perhaps hardest to win; why had he not thought of Heriot before? To think of him now so vividly was to abandon the whole adventure in a panic. Better the scorn of fifty Bingleys, for the rest of the term, than the wrath of one Heriot for a single minute such as he had just gone through in a paroxysm of the imagination.
Jan found himself creeping upstairs more gingerly than ever in his boots, climbing nearer and nearer to the dropping voices in the lower dormitory. ”

“ He looked in the direction of Flamank, but could not distinguish him. He was among the tufts of brown heather, and the speckled cloak was over him, completely merging him in the bushes.
'Keep a sharp look-out,' whispered Herring, 'and when I touch you, spring up, and run with me down on Sampson Trampleasure. We must not let him slip away.'
They saw the young man come stealthily up the valley, looking right and left, evidently somewhat uneasy. The 'leat' or channel of water came to a grip in the moor-side, and was carried over it in a long wooden launder on daddy long-legs' supports. ”

“ She put her arm through his, and thus they stood for an instant, fronting all Strelsau. Again the cheers rang out, and young Bernenstein sprang forward, waving his helmet and crying like a man possessed, "God save the King!" I was carried away by his enthusiasm and followed his lead. All the people took up the cry with boundless fervour, and thus we all, high and low in Strelsau, that afternoon hailed Mr. Rassendyll for our King. There has been no such zeal since Henry the Lion came back from his wars, a hundred and fifty years ago. ”

“ His hand touched hers and she drew it away, not before a keen, sharp thrill had traversed her. "Vile, hateful creature!" she said to the Patrine von Herrnung knew—the other woman within her, whom she loathed. "Is not it enough that you have done what you have done?" Then as she passed out into the night, feeling beneath her feet the roughness of the gravel walk that led between grass-plats studded with green painted chairs and little iron tables, a strange roaring filled her ears and hellish tongues of fire licked a sky of vivid blackness. ”

“ We had the saddle and the sword in our armoury three hundred years ago. We held the county of Cantalejo, we coined our own money, and hung on our own gallows. But the Herrings! they swim in the vast sea along with the sprats and the congers, the common plaice and the little dabs. They have no history. They spawn ten thousand at a time; they are the bread of the nobler fish. No—a Herring has no cause to be offended if his name be forgotten. There,' Mirelle laughed, 'I have said my say.'
'He is a gentleman,' said Cicely, with some warmth ”

“ Seeing the rough bedsteads by the wall of the attic, I touched Rischenheim on the shoulder and pointed to one of them. Together we lifted Rupert of Hentzau. The revolver was still in his hand, but Bernenstein disengaged it from his grasp. Then Rischenheim and I laid him down, disposing his body decently and spreading over it his riding cloak, still spotted with the mud gathered on his midnight expedition to the hunting-lodge. His face looked much as before the shot was fired; in death, as in life, he was the handsomest fellow in all Ruritania. ”

“ It was wife and child to Robert Heriot—the school of his manhood—the vineyard in which he had laboured lovingly for thirty years. But still he could smile as he smoked his pipe.
“Our standard is within the reach of most,” he said; “there are those who would tell you it’s the scorn of the scholastic world. We don’t go in for making scholars. We go in for making men. Give us the raw material of a man, and we won’t reject it because it doesn’t know the Greek alphabet—no, not even if it was fifteen on its last birthday! ”

“ Never, never, will I take him.'
'Well, Orange,' said Herring, 'you do as you think best. The same sum that was lodged by your father in my hands in trust for you, to be paid over on your marriage, shall be placed in the bank in your name. If you can forgive the Captain, well, so be it. None will be better pleased to hear it than Mirelle and I; but if not, you will find a welcome at Welltown. I must not delay longer. We have a lengthy drive before us, and cannot reach our destination while there is light in the sky.'
He handed Mirelle into the carriage, and stepped in himself. ”