Jacob Leisler

“ Aronson will be here soon. Perhaps he would know."
"I will wait a few minutes," said the lady, sitting down with hauteur in the cushioned chair which Jacob pushed toward her. After a spell of silence she addressed him again in a gentler tone:
"What is your name, little boy?" she asked.
"Jacob," he answered. Servants and office boys grow to think of themselves as having only one name.
"Jacob. That is a very old and dignified name. Are you Mr. Shagarach's clerk?" ”

“ Jacob gloated on his recovered treasures. Then his hands likewise sought his trousers pocket, and he jingled a handful of silver into Mrs. Arnold's hand.
"Take the money, Joseph," she said to the coachman. "These small storekeepers are so ill-mannered."
The policeman gave Jacob a hard look as he passed him, but the office boy was obliviously counting his pictures.
When he returned to the office the gamins were gone and Aronson was there alone. ”

“ Jacob entered the room, followed by Bart Loring, alias Jasper Leith, alias Shaky, the latter carrying a bundle.
"Your brother will trouble you no more," said he of the various cognomens. "We searched the cabin of the sloop in vain; but beneath the cabin floor, in a close compartment, we found him, his hands clutching a great quantity of gold, but he was—dead!"
As he spoke, he dropped the bundle upon the carpet. It fell heavily, with a metallic chink, which denoted the character of its contents.
Allan Dilke buried his face in his hands.
"Let the dead past bury its dead," he said, solemnly. ”

“ Then take us both; in mercy leave not the other! In death let us not be divided!"
The pang was over; Leslie passed into insensibility. When she recovered herself, the spectres of that horrible dream still flitted around her, for did she not distinguish through the surge and the blast Hector Garret's foot speeding to receive his doom?
But "Leslie," not "Alice," was his cry. Beneath the very arches of Earlscraig, where fair Alice Boswell, her rich hair decked for one, her bright eyes sparkling for another, her sandal buckled for a third, had stood, and waved to him her hand—"Leslie! Leslie!" ”

“ For a time it was absolutely necessary that we two hold Jacob by force to prevent him from leaving us, and then gradually the boy came to understand that for his father's life he could only hope in the mercy of God, since even had General Herkimer been willing to risk a battle, in which he would have been greatly outnumbered by the savages, there was no hope he might effect the release of Peter Sitz. ”

“ The glow faded from Leslie's face. It was always like this, the eager throb of welcome ending in the formal handshake of farewell.
"Are you going away for Christmas?" she asked.
"I shall probably pad the hoof. Moors."
"Moors! Fine. I'd love to do that. Just sun and wind and no one to see you but God."
"If you wish to test that theory, just try stealing a sheep. My word, you've a ripe, old-fashioned cold! Don't forget to take a flask of brandy." ”

“ Leslie is the rector and a friend of the Oafhams—are as fond of her as of their own children, and she often stays with them, and nearly always spends her mornings at the rectory, and the Leslies think there is no doubt she is a lady by birth, though they have never been able to trace her parentage. They know no more about her origin than I do, namely that she was found by the shepherd on his doorstep one summer evening. ”

“ Is not Van Cortlandt Protestant? Bah! ’tis a poor excuse to gain the encouragement of the people. He is a vile upstart and usurper, that Leisler. To hale us out of town, who are the proper upholders of the government. Yet, I suppose you, mademoiselle, also believe in Leisler.”
Alaine nodded. She was nothing if not truthful.
“Then no friend of mine,” he returned, but he smiled as he spoke. “Poor little dove with the hawks after her,” he said, half to himself; “we must send her under safe escort to her home. Where is Lendert, my wife?” ”

“ No! it can't!" exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. She was never in time for any thing.
"Last bell ringing," said Mr. Leslie, who, though a slow man, was methodical and punctual. Mrs. Leslie made a frantic rush at the door, the Montfydget blood being now in a blaze—whirled up the stairs—gained her room, tore her best bonnet from the peg, snatched her newest shawl from the drawers, crushed the bonnet on her head, flung the shawl on her shoulders, thrust a desperate pin into its folds, in order to conceal a buttonless yawn in the body of her gown, and then flew back like a whirlwind. ”

“ I made Leslie stop while we listened. The market-place was quite full of people. George saw us, and became fiery. Leslie then grew excited, and although I clung to the skirts of his coat with all my strength, he jumped up and began to question. I must say it with shame and humility—he made an ass of himself. The men all round were jeering and muttering under their breath. I think Leslie is not very popular among them, he is such an advocate of machinery which will do the work of men. So they cheered our friend George when he thundered forth his replies and his demonstrations. ”

“ Leslie’s young protégé. Mr. Leslie had only been waiting till the shearing season was over to offer this post to Jack, knowing that he could not very well be spared till it was finished. Jack was delighted at the idea; a salary of fifty pounds a year seemed to him untold wealth, and to have all the rest of the day from five in the afternoon till ten the next morning to himself, a perpetual holiday; and then to go to America, to him who had never been much farther than Brighton, would, under any other circumstances, have been all that he could have wished for, except Fairy to accompany him. ”

“ To Leslie it was a constant marvel, considering the secret tension under which she lived, that outwardly her life went on in the same peaceful groove. She rose and dressed as usual, prepared the meals, ate and chatted with Aunt Marcia, walked on the beach or down to the village, fished occasionally with Phyllis and the Kelvins, took a dip in the ocean when it was not too chilly, read and slept and idled, as if there were nothing in the world but what was quiet and normal and in the ordinary course of things. ”

“ Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty—the world of the elderly—thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable—"I am what I am, and intend to be it," for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself. The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it. ”

“ Before we went to bed, Jake and Otto were called up to the living-room for prayers. Grandfather put on silver-rimmed spectacles and read several Psalms. His voice was so sympathetic and he read so interestingly that I wished he had chosen one of my favourite chapters in the Book of Kings. I was awed by his intonation of the word ‘Selah.’ ‘He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.’ I had no idea what the word meant; perhaps he had not. But, as he uttered it, it became oracular, the most sacred of words. ”

“ If ye be Sir David Lesly, as I trow ye be, get yer troops in readiness, and, before the mist vanish on the river, I will deliver the host o’ the Philistines into your hand.”
“See that ye play not the traitor,” said Lesly, “or the nearest tree shall be unto thee as the gallows was to Haman which he prepared for Mordecai.”
“Do even so to me, and more also,” replied John, “if ye find me false. But think ye that I look as though I bore the mark of the beast upon my forehead?” he continued, taking off his Lowland bonnet, and gazing General Lesly full in the face. ”

“ Amongst carpets of rush and deep moss, dappled with wet patches, the ruddy stems of the bog-asphodel raised slim, golden heads that drooped a little, as though for faintness, in the scented warmth. An occasional bumble-bee passed down wind, purposeful and ostentatious, like a respectable citizen zealous on the business of life. ”

“ The train ran out into a steep green meadow, and Jacob saw striped tulips growing and heard a bird singing, in Italy.
A motor car full of Italian officers ran along the flat road and kept up with the train, raising dust behind it. There were trees laced together with vines—as Virgil said. Here was a station; and a tremendous leave-taking going on, with women in high yellow boots and odd pale boys in ringed socks. Virgil's bees had gone about the plains of Lombardy. ”

“ I softly pronounced the beloved name of Liesli to the silent breezes of the night; and spreading out my arms towards her vanishing figure, embraced—the hermit! I was seized with terror and astonishment, and retreated back some paces; for the contrast between the coarse and heavy garb of the anchorite, and that of the light-flowing drapery of the lovely Liesli, was too great, too overpowering. ”

“ A “QUEER CATCH” “And from today on we shall be driven slaves, bound by the order of good-intentioned Travelers to the ill-fare and welfare of Hamilton,” Leila Harper proclaimed dramatically to Leslie Cairns as she entered Room 15 at Wayland Hall in answer to Leslie’s call of “Come.”
“I can stand it if you can,” Leslie returned imperturbably as she gave a final pat to her smartly-coiffed head and viewed the effect with commendable satisfaction. “Thanks to a permanent wave. I’m not quite so ugly as I used to be,” she told Leila with a half sardonic smile. ”

“ Leslie does not know. They are great fun. Of course, I am in sympathy with the socialists, but I cannot narrow my eyes till I see one thing only. Life is like a large, rather beautiful man who is young and full of vigour, but hairy, barbaric, with hands hard and dirty, the dirt ingrained. I know his hands are very ugly, I know his mouth is not firmly shapen, I know his limbs are hairy and brutal: but his eyes are deep and very beautiful. That is what I tell George. ”

“ The glow of the tulips and the strange house by the winding water, the slim vision of Diane de Montdelys, the gallant background of the Scots Brigade, the grave at Bergen-op-Zoom—these things were like a mirage behind the figure of James. The power of seeing things picturesquely is a gift that can turn into a curse, and that power worked on his emotional and imaginative side now. ”

“ And thus moved and thus looked Randal Leslie, a thing of dark and secret mischief, within the pale of the law, but equally removed from man by the vague consciousness that at his heart lay that which the eyes of man would abhor and loathe. Solitary amidst the vast city, and on through the machinery of Civilization, went the still spirit of Intellectual Evil. ”

“ For a couple of days Leslie avoided making real conversation with me, and then one morning while I was practising I looked up to see Leslie in the doorway.
She had on a French blue negligee that had pale two-toned pink ribbons on it, and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright, and she carried a tray on which was a pot of tea, some little cakes that she knows I like, and some biscuits. She always got her own breakfast because the pension allowance was small, and she knew that I was always hungry until after lunch. ”

“ When she is nineteen, Leslie Brennan learns that she must earn her own living. It had been her father’s wish, her guardian informs her, that she adopt some gainful occupation and support herself for two years. The transition from a well-established social position in a small city to a business college and boarding house existence in New York is a sudden one but Leslie adapts herself to it. She finds a position with a red-haired, irascible chemist, and it is when her employer sends her to Washington with an important formula intended for the War office that exciting events begin for Leslie. ”

“ When he have headache he don’t care for devil. You can wait, you can go, it is the same.” And then she disdainfully fluttered the big leaves she had been turning slowly.
“Will you be good enough to tell him,” said Leslie in a tight controlled way, “that Miss Parrish, that Miss Leslie Parrish is here?”
The girl looked up.
“No,” she answered, “I do not wish to have the book push through the air at me—so—” (she made a hitchy, overhead girl-gesture of throwing) “and he do not care who you are. Why should he care who you are?” she ended, her eyes now on Leslie and boring into Leslie. ”

“ We saw rude piles of stones standing near the roadside, at intervals, and recognized the custom of marking boundaries which obtained in Jacob’s time. There were no walls, no fences, no hedges—nothing to secure a man’s possessions but these random heaps of stones. The Israelites held them sacred in the old patriarchal times, and these other Arabs, their lineal descendants, do so likewise. An American, of ordinary intelligence, would soon widely extend his property, at an outlay of mere manual labor, performed at night, under so loose a system of fencing as this. ”

“ David Leizer was a multimillionaire, he had twenty million roubles, but he is unspoiled and humble, and your love will afford him joy. Does the soul need a drum to be able to express its love? I see here people who have neither drums nor trumpets, and who weep for happiness—their tears are noiseless like the dew.—Rise higher, Leibke, rise a little higher to the sky, and you will not hear any drums there, but therefore you will hear the tears falling. ”