Isle of Thanet

“ In the very earliest period of our history, before ever the existing names had been given at all to the towns or villages—nay, when the towns and villages themselves were not—Ruim was already a noteworthy island. For there is now very little doubt indeed that Thanet is the Ictis or 'Channel Island' to which Cornish tin was conveyed across Britain for shipment to the continent. The great harbour of Britain was then the Wantsum Sea, known afterwards as the Rutupine Port, and later still as Sandwich Haven. ”

“ Long before the unification of England under a single West Saxon overlordship the Danes used to land in the island every year, to plunder the crops, and in 851, when Æthelwulf was lord of Wessex at Winchester, 'heathen men,' says the Winchester Chronicle, with its usual charming conciseness, 'first sat over winter in Tenet.' From that time forward the 'heathen men' continually returned to the island, which they used apparently as a base of operations, with their ships lying in Sandwich Haven; in fact, Thanet must long have been a sort of irregular Danish colony. ”

“ The silting up of the Wantsum and the decay of Sandwich Haven left Thanet quite out of the world, remote from all the main highroads of the new England. Ships now went past the North Foreland to London, and knew it only as a dangerous point, not without a sinister reputation for wrecking. On the other hand, on the land side, the island lay off the great highways, surrounded by marsh or half-reclaimed levels; and it seems rapidly to have sunk into a state resembling that of the more distant parts of Cornwall. The inhabitants degenerated into good wreckers and bad tillers. ”

“ The sea-face of Thanet consists mainly of bold slopes or sheer cliffs, and the eastern extremity is the fine headland of the North Foreland. Containing the popular seaside resorts of Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate and Westgate, Thanet is served by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway, and Minster is a junction station of the lines to Ramsgate and Sandwich respectively. ”

“ His friend was eying him critically, with queer little grunts, according to his fashion. "You're not fit to walk," he grumbled. "Why will young folks wear shoes that don't fit! Say, you take Lady Jean home while I go over to the club-house with the major. And keep the car if you don't find me. I'll go back with Standish. And—I don't know but you better take her 'round the head of the island and show her that motor mowing-machine—lawn-mower, you know; I want her to see it."
He grinned as the young people obeyed him with grateful docility, speeding away in his electric runabout ”

“ The white gown, which was her constant wear in the sick-room, defined her figure clearly against a clump of Japan plum-trees. Their purplish red foliage rustled; and an unseen fountain beyond made a delicate tinkle of water splashing a marble basin. Her face was hidden; only the moonlight gently drew the oval of her cheek. She was standing still, except that one foot was groping back and forth as if trying to find something. ”

“ Rather grimly the soldier’s eyes were noting marble wainscoting and tiled floors, and contrasting this academic environment with his own at West Point. A caustic comment rose to his lips, but it was not uttered, for he heard the sharp bark of a pistol, followed by a thud, and a crackle as of breaking glass.
“Do you fellows amuse yourselves shooting up [2] the dormitory?” said he. The boy halted; he had gone white.
“It came from Mercer’s room!” he cried, and ran across the corridor to a door with the usual labeling of two visiting cards. ”

“ Not seeming to recognize any chill in his reception, the young stranger approached the stove. No one moved to admit him to the inner circle; this, also, he did not seem to observe. "This whole country looks as if you had been having hard times," he continued. His voice had full, rich, magnetic notes, but its unfamiliar intonations jarred on his hearers; they knew them to belong to the East, and they hated the East. ”

“ It could not be analyzed properly because the telegraph girl was gone to Southern California. But before she went she told the theater girl that the lady who received Mr. Makers’ wires was one of Mrs. Winter’s party! This bit of information was like a live coal underfoot in the colonel’s mind; whenever he trod on it in his mental excursions he jumped.
“Who else but Janet?” he demanded. But by degrees he became first doubtful, then daring. He had Birdsall fetch the telegraph girl back to San Francisco. ”

“ Some light would appear to be thrown upon their intimacy in a letter from William Windham, dated ‘Paris, 15 Sept. 1791:’ Thanet has arrived here ‘with a Hungarian lady whom as a brilliant achievement he carried off from her husband at Vienna’ (Diary, ed. Baring, 1866, p. 237) .
Thanet took no prominent part in politics, but generally supported the Duke of Bedford and the opposition to Pitt. In May 1798 he was present with Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, and other whig sympathisers at the trial of Arthur O'Connor [q. v.] ”

“ Waite.
"Well, we have so many old and good but impoverished families there, you see. I think the chances are she married such a boy; and they have made money, and Oscar has a nice plantation near them, and is married to a sweet little Southern girl, and his mother adores the baby; and Ned goes to college, and Mr. Marsh is a prosperous builder, high in the Scottish Rite, and growing used to his dress coat—"
"But," said the hostess, "you are having them all south; they went to Dakota."
"Why, so they did! I forgot," cried the Southerner. ”

“ But one night, instead of the usual cheerful stir about the house, she found the Swede girl alone in the kitchen, weeping over the potatoes. To Pauline’s inquiries she returned a burst of woe. “They all tooken to chail—all!” she wailed. “I don’t know what to do if I get supper. The mans come, the police mans, and tooken them all away. I hela verlden! who ever know such a country? Such nice peoples sent to chail for play on the organ—their own organ! They say they not play right, but I think to send to chail for not play right on the organ that sha’n’t be right!” ”

“ It was not fitting that birds of prey should be allowed to peck at the dead, nor that some unusually high tide should once more carry him out to sea, ere his murderer had been brought to justice.
Therefore, the foreigner with the high-sounding name was conveyed by the watches at the squire's bidding to the cottage of the Lamberts over at Acol, the only place in Thanet which he had ever called his home. ”

“ Harned turned on Amos. “Flying’s no good on land, but maybe the boat—you’ll help?”
“Of course,” said Amos. “Here, young feller, can you scuttle up to the roof-tree and reconnoitre with this field-glass?—you’re considerably lighter on your feet than me. Twist the wheel round here till you can see plain. There’s [120] a hole, I see, up to the loft. Is there one out on the roof? Then scuttle!”
Mrs. Brown pushed the coffee back on the stove. “No use it burning,” said she; and Amos admired her firm tones, though she was deadly pale. “If we ain’t killed we’ll need it. Dave, don’t forget the camera. ”

“ I don't concern myself with any other laboring men.”
Just then a murmur of exclamations came from Mrs. Ellis and Esther, whom the superintendent was piloting through the shops. “Oh, no, it is too heavy; oh, don't do it, Mr. Cardigan!” “Oh, we can see it perfectly well from here! PLEASE don't, you will break yourself somewhere!” Mrs. Ellis shrieked this; but the shrieks turned to a murmur of admiration as a huge carved sideboard came bobbing and wobbling, like an intoxicated piece of furniture in a haunted house, toward the two gentlewomen. ”

“ Which isn’t such a plain proposition in ’Frisco as in Massachusetts! But I [351] reckon we can tackle it! And then—then, my darling, I shall dare be happy!”
He found himself leaning on his window-sill and staring like a boy on the landscape, lost in the lovely hallucinations of moonlight. It was no scene that he knew, it was a vision of old Spain; and by and by from yonder turret the princess, with violets in her loosened hair and her soft cheek like satin and snow, would lean and look. ”

“ The mug with the broken handle had sped against the weather-boarding.
“Now what was that?” cried Ike, jumping up. Before he was on his feet a broken soap-dish had followed the mug. Up flew the sash, and Ike was out of the window. “What are you doing that for? What do you mean by that?” he yelled, to which the dark and silent house opposite naturally made no reply. ”

“ Miss Smith was with her, and they had their hands full of candy boxes. They were laughing. I made sure the boy had been found.”
“Not to my knowledge,” said the colonel. But in some excitement he walked into the parlor. The ladies had arrived; they stood in the center of the room while Randall took away the boxes.
“Candy for Archie,” explained Aunt Rebecca, and these were the first words to reach Rupert Winter’s ears. “I expect him to dinner.”
“Aunt Rebecca,” proclaimed Millicent, “I never have been one to complain, but there are limits to human endurance. ”

“ In Dublin, dragoonings, hangings, pitch-capping and flogging set up a reign of terror. Out of the first sudden silence terrible tidings came to the Island.
At that time there was no communication with the mainland except by the fishermen's boats or at low water. The Island was very much out of the world; and the echoes of what went on in the world came vaguely as from a distance to the ears of the Island people. They were like enough to be safe, though there was blood and fire and torture on the mainland. They were all old and helpless people, and they might well be safe from the soldiery. ”

“ I’m an awfully kinless old party,” said she serenely. “I was a Winter, born as well as married, and so you and Mel and Archie are double kin to me. I was an only child, so I haven’t anything closer than third or fourth cousins, down in Virginia and Boston.”
“Have you, by chance, any cousin, near or far, named Mercer?”
Resting her finger-tips on the cards, Aunt Rebecca seemed to let her mind search amid Virginian and Massachusetts genealogical tables. “Why, certainly,” she answered after a pause, “there was General Philemon Mercer—Confederate army, you know—and his son, Sam Nelson ”

“ He came accidentally into the room between Mrs. Winter’s and Mr. Keatcham’s suites. Standing in that room, trying to stanch the bleeding of a sudden hemorrhage of the nose, he overheard me and my friend—”
“You?” asked the colonel laconically of the young Harvard man.
“I,” smilingly confessed the latter. “I am ready to own up. You are a decent fellow, and you are shrewd. You ought to be on our side, not fighting us. I tell you, you don’t want to have the boy turn up safe and sound any more than I [167] do. Mr. Mercer was talking to me, and the kid overheard. ”

“ Get H. Birdsall, Merchants’ Exchange Building, to send a man to help you. Wait, I’ve a card ready for you to give him from me; he has sent me men before. Report by telephone as soon as you know anything. If I’m not here, speak Spanish and have them write it down. Be back here to-night by ten, if you can, yourself.”
Haley dismissed, and his own appetite for dinner effectually dispelled by his report, Winter joined his aunt. Should he tell her his suspicions and their ground? ”

“ One can’t weed until there is a crop of information, you know.”
“True,” murmured Aunt Rebecca, nodding her head thoughtfully. “Well, did anything else happen?”
“The secretary posted a lot of letters in the shute. They are all smoking now. Yes—” he was on his feet and at the door in almost a single motion. There had been just the slightest tattoo on the panel. When the door was opened the colonel could hear the rattle of the elevator. He was too late to catch it, but he could see the inmates. Three gentlemen stood in the car. One was Keatcham, the other two had their backs to Winter. ”

“ Melville Winter; so do I. I guess we both cross out the old lady. Well, there’s you and the señora left. I don’t suspect you, General.”
“Really? I don’t see why. I stand to make more than anybody else, if you are digging up motives. And how about the chambermaid?”
Birdsall flashed a glance of reproach on his companion. “Now, Colonel, do you think I ain’t looked her up? First thing. Nothing in it. Decent Vermont girl, three years in the hotel. Came for her lungs. She ain’t in it. But let’s get back to Miss Smith. Did you know she is Cary Mercer’s sister-in-law?” ”

“ Pauline gave the message, but she felt so guilty because of this last courtesy that she gave it without reproach, even though her only good brush disclosed a pitiful crack.
“Well, you know why I did it,” said Henriette, coolly; “and does the man suppose his playing isn’t obnoxious any hour of the day as well as night? But let us hope they will be quiet awhile. Paula, have you any money? We ought to go over those numbers for the concert beforehand, and we must get Verdi’s Requiem. Mysie has some, but she wants it to buy curtains.”
“I’m sorry, sister Etty, but I haven’t a cent.” ”

“ I guess it's all right. Only, you know captain and Danvers; I wish you'd write back to the old town and tell the committee I done my duty. I can't be a credit to the company, but I done my duty, though I expect there's folks in town may think I was malingering."
"Stop talking!" commanded the doctor. "Did you know the women are coming to-morrow; you are to have a nurse of your own here?"
"Time," said Spruce; "if my town had its way they'd been here long ago. Ever been in my town, Major?"
"No. Good-by, Spruce; keep quiet."
"It's the bulliest town in the country, and the prettiest. ”