John Crawford

“ I have no patience with you, John! That a young fellow of your capabilities should give way to such a boyish fancy! It is absolutely amazing! I thought you were growing to like her society very much, but I did not believe it would, come to this!"
"It is nothing to be ashamed of," said John stoutly.
"It is something to be afraid of," answered the vicar.
"Oh, do not be alarmed," retorted John. "I will do nothing rash. You have set my mind at rest in assuring me that she will not marry Mr. Juxon. I shall not think of offering myself to Mrs. Goddard until after the Tripos." ”

“ The vicar had ordered his dog-cart for her and Nellie, but as the night had turned out better than had been expected Mr. Juxon's groom had not come down from the Hall. Both he and John would be glad of the walk; it had not rained for two days and the roads were dry.
"Look here," said the squire, as they rose to take their leave, "Mr. Short had better go as far as the cottage in the dog-cart, to see Mrs. Goddard home. I will go ahead on foot—I shall probably be there as soon as you. There is not room for us all, and somebody must go with her, you know. ”

“ Witnesses may be men or women, you know, my dear brother--" he pronounced the word with a sneer--"and among the many ladies of your acquaintance--"
"There are very few."
"It will be the easier to find the two or three, or perhaps the only one, whom it will be necessary to interrogate--in your presence, most probably, and by torture."
"I was right to call you a coward," said Don John, slowly turning pale till his face was almost as white as the white silks and satins of his doublet. ”

“ I should think that in your career it would be very important for you to know who are your friends. Is it not?”
“Certainly,” said John, looking at her curiously. “It is very important; but I think political life is generally much simpler than people suppose. It is rather like fighting. The man who hits you is your enemy. The man who does not is practically your friend. Do you mean in regard to Vancouver?”
“Yes.”
“Vancouver never hit me, that I can swear,” said John, “and I am very sure I never hit him.”
“I dare say I am mistaken,” said Joe. “You ought to know best. Let us leave him alone.” ”

“ Alexander Lauderdale Junior had got his deserts and more also, and he knew it. But he stood still where he was.
“It’s useless to argue with a man in your state—” he began.
“Are you going, you damned coward?” roared old Robert. “Ring the bell, Jack—send for the men—turn that brute out—”
He was beside himself with rage, but John glanced at Alexander, and then walked slowly towards the nearest bell. He was not inclined to spare the man who had injured Katharine. Perhaps most men in his position would have carried out the orders of the master of the house. ”

“ You will jump at conclusions, Chrysophrasia."
"If I went at them at all, Mary, I would glide,—I certainly would not jump," replied the æsthetic lady, with a languid smile. Mrs. Carvel looked wearily out of the window. "Besides," continued Chrysophrasia, "the thing is quite impossible. Paul is not at all a match. Hermy will be very rich, some day. John will not leave everything to Macaulay: I have heard him say so."
"Why do you discuss the matter, Chrysophrasia?" objected Mrs. Carvel, with a little shade of very mild impatience. "There is no question of Hermy marrying Paul." ”

“ But what could one man do against so many? They prepared to spring. Meanwhile the half-fainting girls had been dragged into the place of safety, and young Crawford stood on guard alone.
"Come, brother, come," shouted Mr. St. John. It was too late. Infuriated at the escape of their prey, the foremost men sprang across the open space to where young Crawford stood. He was just in front of the open door, yet he could not enter—if he turned they would be upon him and force an entrance also, if he fell back it would be the same thing. "Close the door," he shouted out to Mr. Li. ”

“ Juxon teach you?" asked John, still gazing into the distance. From not looking at the path he slipped on a frozen puddle and nearly fell. Whereat, as usual, when he did anything awkward, he blushed to the brim of his hat.
"Take care," said Mrs. Goddard, calmly. "You will fall if you don't look where you are going. No; Mr. Juxon was not here last year. He only came here in the summer."
"It seems to me that he has always been here," said John, trying to recover his equanimity. "Then I suppose Mr. Ambrose taught you to skate?"
"Exactly—Mr. Ambrose taught me. He skates very well." ”

“ He is a man who once—was in love with Mrs. Goddard, which accounts for his having found his way to Billingsfield. Yes—I know what you are going to say—Mrs. Goddard is aware of his presence, and that accounts for her excitement and her fainting. Do you understand?"
"But—good heavens!" exclaimed John in amazement. "Why did she not give information, if she knew he was in the neighbourhood?"
"That would be more than could be expected of any woman, Mr. Short. You forget that the man once loved her."
"And how did you—well, no. I won't ask any questions."
"No," said the squire, "please don't. ”

“ Why, this hairbrained young Kildare has been proposing to my niece——" his horse stumbled, but recovered himself in a moment.
"You don't mean it," said I, rather startled.
"Oh no, no, no. I don't mean that at all. Ha! ha! ha! very good, very good. No, no. Lord Steepleton wants us all to go on a tiger-hunt to amuse John, and he proposes—ha! ha!—really too funny of me—that Miss Westonhaugh should go with us."
"I suppose you have no objection, Mr. Ghyrkins? Ladies constantly go on such expeditions, and they do not appear to be the least in the way"
"Objections? ”

“ Before they turned the corner towards the village John instinctively looked back. Mr. Juxon was still making Stamboul jump the stick before the cottage, but as far as he could see in the dusk, Mrs. Goddard and Nellie had disappeared within. John felt that he was very unhappy.
"Mr. Ambrose," he began. Then he stopped and hesitated. "Mr. Ambrose," he continued at last, "you never told me half the news of Billingsfield in your letters."
"You mean about Mrs. Goddard? Well—no—I did not think it would interest you very much."
"She is a very interesting person," said John. ”

“ Goddard, looking rather timidly at the vicar as they stood upon the broad steps in the sparkling evening air. She felt that she was disappointing both the squire and John, but she had quite made up her mind. She had her own reasons. The vicar, good man, was unconsciously a little flattered by her choice, as with her hand resting on the sleeve of his greatcoat he led the way down the park. The squire and John were fain to follow together, but Nellie took her mother's hand, and Stamboul walked behind affecting an unusual gravity.
"You must come again when there is more daylight," said Mr. ”

“ Ah, John Harrington, what have you done? You have taken the most precious and pure thing in this world, the thing men as brave as you have given their heart’s best blood to win and have perished for failing, the thing which angels guard and Heaven has in its keeping–the love of a good and noble woman. ”

“ As John spoke she tried to lift her head and struggled to put out her hand, but could not.
As the shadows steal at evening over the earth, softly closing the flowers and touching them to sleep, silently and lovingly, in the promise of a bright waking–so, as she sat there, her eyelids drooped and the light faded gently from her face, her lips parted a very little, and with a soft-breathed sigh she sank into unconsciousness. ”

“ The paper said you were related to the English nobility, and hinted that Miss Claybourne was the true explanation of your coming to Deep Harbor. When the evening paper came out, the headline man boosted you up a notch higher—something about 'English peer's son nursed by local society girl'—say, you furnished 'em great stuff for three days."
"That must be the real reason 'mother' went to Asheville," I reflected.
"Ted, what I don't understand is how Prospero could slip anything like that over on you. As a chemist you ought to know enough to look out for fumes. How'd he do it? Hypnotize you?" ”

“ Quartel's gun crashed from ahead of them, but Crawford was too taken up with reining the black to use his Henry. He had that blurred impression of violent undulation around him. There was another snapping thud against Africano's buckskin shield, and a big diamondback fell to the ground beneath them as they went by.
Then it was the shrill scream from Huerta's copperbottom ahead. Crawford saw the huge rattler dropping off the animal's rump, and the copperbottom started to buck.
"There it is," screamed Huerta, "there it is!"
"Don't lose your head," shouted Crawford. "Get him to running again. ”

“ Then it was the shadowy figure moving out of the darkness down the trail, and Crawford yanked on the maguey and it slipped off the branch and the branch snapped up with a soft crackle and caused the figure to whirl that way, his gun crashing, his back toward the thicket in which Crawford lay.
"Maybe you're a dangerous man," screamed Crawford in a terrible release, leaping to his feet and throwing himself bodily at the man, who was still firing wildly into the opposite thicket, "but this is one bronc you'll wish to hell you never climbed on." ”

“ Not the type of thing Quartel would use. Not making you ride a horse or letting you watch Africano. Not anything as simple to get away from. Merely suggestion, Crawford. Your mind will do the rest. Little things. Insidious things.
"Like the story of a miner who got crushed in a cave-in down at Monterrey. Did that stay with you a long time, Crawford? At night, perhaps, you'd wake up. Remembering. Wondering. Innuendoes, Crawford. Insinuations. Things for the mind to retain and savor. Because it is your mind. I showed you that with the examination. It isn't your legs. ”

“ The figure of the gray old man grew mystically to gigantic and unearthly size, his vast old hands stretched forth their skinny palms to receive the great curtain as it descended between the moonlight and the sleeping earth. His eyes were as stars, his hoary head rose majestically to an incalculable height; still the thick, all-wrapping mist came down, falling on horse and rider and wrestler and robber and Amir; hiding all, covering all, folding all, in its soft samite arms, till not a man's own hand was visible to him a span's length from his face. ”

“ The horse began rolling again, trying desperately to get the man under its black body, and Crawford went with it, crying openly now, pawing blindly for holds, head rocking as a hoof caught him, lying over the animal's back with his nose streaming blood on its dirty hide.
Finally he felt the animal come to a stop beneath him, legs trembling, barrel heaving, lather dripping off it white as snow. Crawford slumped over, hearing his own sobbing, not knowing whether the wet on his face was sweat or blood or both. He waited for the animal to gather itself again. ”

“ The characters are all good types, the plot is strong, and the Italian atmosphere tempers the sensational occurrences to the colder northern imagination.”
Reviewed by W. M. Payne.
“In this last novel Crawford is at his best. He writes with the charm and the originality of a man at the full tide of his powers.”
“The story is ingenious, the sketches of scenery and peasantry admirable, the comments by the way philosophic and thoughtful; the English, of course, of the best-regulated. The reader for the most part, however, remains outside.” ”

“ Since the Revolution, there has scarcely been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford was an eminent type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple in his habits, disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display—strictly moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other without abundant cause. He was never known to desert a friend or shrink from a foe. ”

“ A man stepping off then would have ultimately lost his touch with the horse too. But Crawford rode its neck when it twisted onto its hips and rode its head when it put its rump into the ground and rode its belly while it was upside down.
The horse rose into a veritable orgasm of mad bucking, pin-wheeling, sunfishing, humping up and coming down with all four feet planted, and knocking most of the consciousness from Crawford every time it landed. Crawford was bleeding at the nose and ears, face covered with blood and sweat, clothes black with dirt. ”

“ I said, "is an act of God. Steamer tickets and insurance policies specially provide for no liability for such. Even a Jevons is powerless in the face of the handiwork of Providence."
"Sit down, Ted, and let me finish. It makes me ill to see you messing up those ducklings," my mother said. Willingly I changed places. To my secret joy she splashed some gravy on the table cloth. I tried to kick Helen under the table, but all I did was to make an awful crash against one of the complicated gate legs. ”

“ In a moment he returned on the copperbottom. It was a risky thing to do with such a green horse, but there was no other way, and Crawford swung onto the black behind the cantle. The animal kicked in a startled, angry way and started to buck. Crawford swung his arms around in front of Merida to grab the mecate and yank back hard on it, spurring Africano at the same time. The puro negro quit bucking and broke forward, slopping into a muddy stretch. Crawford turned the horse to get Quartel in front of him. ”