Katherine Howard

“ I wish you would go outdoors more. Walk on the parade-ground and across to your mother's,—those two places are certainly safe,—and when you get tired of that, go over to Mrs. Franklin's. She's a nice little woman and she needs cheering up, too. I have a suspicion, Mrs. Howard, that the temperament which urges a man to be a soldier is very seldom elastic enough to include the domestic hearth."
Katherine's face brightened, for she had not thought of that, and the suggestion that others had the same trouble was not without its dubious consolation. ”

“ He married Katherine, second daughter and coheiress of John Brockholes of Claughton, Lancashire, by whom he had a son and successor, Charles (1746–1815) [q. v.] The duchess died on 21 Nov. 1784. Howard lived chiefly in the country, and is said to have indulged in many eccentricities. ”

“ Lincoln, and an occasional note of congratulation or thanks or encouragement came to him in reply. Meantime the Army of the Potomac did little but wait, and the armies of the South and West were active. Letters from the boys came to Katherine with irregular regularity. Those from Howard were always brief and full of an irresponsible gurgle of fun and heroics. He had been in two or three small fights, and wrote of them as if he had enjoyed an outing on a pleasure excursion. He said in one that when he was on picket duty he had "swapped lies and grub" with the picket on the other side. ”

“ I ordered, slightly dizzy, "lemme get this straight--"
"Aw, it's too mixed up," growled Bill. "Let's take the gal back where we got her, and bust Ace on the snoot."
"Shut up, Bill," I commanded. "Leave this to me--this here's a matter which requires brains. I gotta get this straight. This girl ain't Bain's brother--I mean, he ain't her sister. Well, they ain't no kin. She's got a formula--whatever that is--and he wants it. Say, was you hidin' at Yut Lao's, instead of him havin' you kidnapped?" ”

“ When his face nuzzled the leaves, bean rows sprang higher than a man, leghorns were scratching everywhere and the spacemen came with bright sheaves of credits in their fists. The bean rows spread beyond the horizon and the dust of plowing tractors rose like smoke against the sky, while Paul and Harry, hardly distinguishable, for Paul was only three minutes older, proudly led a ragged old man and a slack-jawed captain through the flowering avenue of peach trees. ”

“ I ought to of spurred Cap'n Kidd into a high run when she stuck her head out'n the winder and yelled: "Breckinridge! Oh, Breckinridddgggge!"
But I reckon pap's right when he says Nater gimme so much muscle she didn't have no room left for brains. Anyway, I reined Cap'n Kidd around, ignoring his playful efforts to bite the muscle out of my left thigh, and I rode up to the stoop and taken off my coonskin-cap. I said: "Well, Aunt Tascosa, how air you all?"
"You may well ast how air we," she said bitterly. "How should a pore weak woman be farin' with a critter like Shadrach for a husband? ”

“ Howard appeared ill and out of spirits. I wonder what can be the matter with him—do you think he can be in love?"
"I am not in his confidence," said Emma, coloring deeply.
"You will see him, of course," said Elizabeth, "if you go to Osborne Castle—be sure and let me know what you think of him, then; do ascertain if he is in love."
"You had better make observations for yourself, Elizabeth," replied her sister, "how can I judge of a sentiment with which I am unacquainted; wait till you visit Margaret, and you will be able to form your own opinions." ”

“ Faith’s is interesting, for it is bound up with the story of Katharine Howard, who was daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and fifth wife of that professional widower, Henry VIII., who wrought so greatly in all manner of affairs of Church and State during his thirty-eight years’ reign that we meet him at almost every turn. ”

“ I've never seen him," said Allie. "Papa saw him when he was east last summer, and we have a picture of him taken ever so long ago."
"Who's that—Charlie MacGregor?" asked Howard, skating up to them at that moment. "He's not much to look at, Marjorie, if his picture's any good. He has a pug nose and wears giglamps, and I've a suspicion that he's a fearful dude. He'll be a tenderfoot, of course, but he'll get over that; but if he's a dude, we boys will make it lively for him."
"Howard, you sha'n't!" remonstrated his sister, loyally coming to the defence of their unknown cousin. ”

“ She leaned back against the wall, with one hand to her heart. I looked at her with pity. Beauty in distress always touches a warm spot in my great, big, manly bosom.
"They're hiding out there, somewhere," she whimpered.
"What they chasin' you for?" I asked, forgetting all about my hurry to smear the docks with Red Hoolihan.
"I have something they want," she said. "My name is Laura Hopkins. I do a dance act at the European Grand Theater—did you ever hear of Li Yang?" ”

“ Cicely Elliott looked at her and stirred.
'Why,' she said, 'I have lost father and mother and men-folk and sister. But my itch to know I will not lose, if I pay my head for the price. I would give a silken gown to know this tale.'
Katharine Howard uncovered her face; it shewed white [216] even in the rays of the fire. One finger raised itself to a level with her temple.
'Listen!' she uttered. They heard through the closed door a dull thud, metallic and hard—and another after four great beats of their hearts.
'Pikestaves!' the old knight groaned. His mouth fell open. Katharine Howard shrieked ”

“ She bore a tray of food which she set beside me, and then she seated herself on the couch, her large eyes fixed upon my face. A flower in a serpent den she was, and the beauty of her took hold of my heart.
"Steephen!" she whispered, and I thrilled as she spoke my name for the first time.
Her luminous eyes suddenly shone with tears and she laid her little hand on my arm. I seized it in both my rough hands.
"They have set you a task which you fear and hate!" she faltered.
"Aye," I almost laughed, "but I'll fool them yet! Zuleika, tell me--what is the meaning of all this?" ”

“ I roared. "We don't want your dirty dough! You're all a gang of thieves! This girl may be a crook, too, but we're goin' to take her back to Yut Lao's! An' right off."
Catherine caught her breath and whirled on us.
"Do you mean that?" she cried.
"You bet," I said angrily. "We may look like gorillas but we're gents. They gypped us, but they ain't goin' to harm you none, kid."
"But it's my formula," snarled John Bain. "She stole it from me." ”

“ I thought she was going to cry for a minute, then she kind of sighed and smiled: "It's all in a lifetime, isn't it?"
"You're a brave kid," I said, touched to my shoe soles, "and I wanta see more of you. I'm fightin' some guy at the American Arena in a little while. How about holdin' down a nice ringside seat there, and then havin' supper and a little dancin' afterwards? I can't dance much, but I'm a bear at the supper table."
"Oh," said she, "you're the man that's going to fight Red Roach?"
"Is that his name?" I asked. "Yeah, if he's the man from the Ruffian." ”

“ Again his voice came faintly and far away, and again the Devi bent to him, trembling with a fear that was darker than the terror of death.
"Yasmina!" Again that far, weirdly dreeing cry, from realms immeasurable. "Aid me! I am far from my mortal house! Wizards have drawn my soul through the wind-blown darkness. They seek to sap the silver cord that binds me to my dying body. They cluster around me; their hands are taloned, their eyes are red like flame burning in darkness. Aie, save me, my sister! Their fingers sear me like fire! They would slay my body and damn my soul! ”

“ Whar?" says old Bill, looking around. "Oh, that gal jest goin' by the Golden Queen restaurant? Aw, that's Dolly Rixby, the belle of the town."
"She's awful purty," I says.
"_You_ never seen a purtier," says he.
"I have, too," I says absent-mindedly. "Glory McGraw--" Then I kind of woke up to what I was saying and flang my breakfast into the fire in disgust. "Sure, she's the purtiest gal I ever seen!" I snorted. "Ain't a gal in the Humbolts can hold a candle to her. ”

“ The heir swept back the curtain, throwing a beam of sunlight across the operating room. It gilded the side of the old man's face and as he turned his head blindly toward it, it lighted his strange eyes huge and bright.
Wide and deep, with buried spiders of red, fringed by lashes that beat as frantically as the wings of a wounded kauri, the eyes glowed. Their small black centers mirrored in duplicate Kit's face. They reflected in miniature her slow collapse into Jeff's arms in the instant of silence that followed her one word: "Konrad." ”

“ Maybe he'll get over his scare after a while. Better keep a guard in the cabin all the time. The swamp niggers may try to get him as they got Ridge Jackson. Better scour the roads around the town, Esau; there may be some of them hiding in the woods."
"I will. I reckon you'll want to be gettin' up to the house, now, and seein' your folks."
"Yes. And I want to swap these toys for a couple of .44s. Then I'm going to ride out and tell the country people to come into Grimesville. If it's to be an uprising, we don't know when it will commence." ”

“ Grandma, whose longevity had not impaired her guessing faculties, first suggested that "most likely it was Caroline Howard's beau." This was altogether too probable to be doubted, and as grandmother had long contemplated a visit to Aunt Eunice, she now determined to go that very afternoon, as she "could judge for herself what kind of a match Car'line had made." Mother tried to dissuade her from going that day, but the old lady was incorrigible, and directly after dinner, dressed in her bombazine, black silk apron, work bag, knitting and all she departed for Captain Howard's. ”

“ Still Carrie Howard was generally a favorite. The old people liked her because her sparkling eye and merry laugh brought back to them a gleam of youth; the young people liked her, because to dislike her would seem like envy; and I, who was nothing, liked her because she was pretty, and I greatly admired beauty, though I am not certain that I should not have liked a handsome rosebud quite as well as I did Carrie Howard's beautiful face, for beautiful she was.
Her mother, good, plain Mrs. Howard, was entirely unlike her daughter. ”

“ Whenever we’ve quarreled before, it has always been over you or Elinor—or places to go, or people to entertain—but this time it is a—woman!” Shame brought the last word out barely above a whisper.
“A woman!—Not Dad?” Howard laughed. “Who would have believed it? How did you catch him?”
“Howard,” Marjorie struggled with her choking sobs, “please try to understand—can’t you see—my heart is breaking. I haven’t anyone in the world to turn to but you. You’re a man, dear, I—I thought perhaps you can help me or advise me?”
Howard’s face became grave. “I’m sorry, mother,” he begged, “forgive me. ”

“ Kathulos watched me imperturbably.
"The bars hold," he announced with something almost like relief in his tone. "Frankly, I prefer to be on the opposite side of them. You are a human ape if there was ever one."
He laughed suddenly and wildly.
"But why do you seek to oppose me?" he shrieked unexpectedly. "Why defy me, who am Kathulos, the Sorcerer, great even in the days of the old empire? Today, invincible! A magician, a scientist, among ignorant savages! Ha ha!"
I shuddered, and sudden blinding light broke in on me. Kathulos himself was an addict, and was fired by the stuff of his choice! ”

“ But Vertorix halted also. "Little use to be hunted like rats to our doom. There is no escape. Let us meet our fate like men."
Tamera cried out, wringing her hands, but she clung to her lover.
"Stand behind me with the girl," I grunted. "When I fall, dash out her brains with your ax lest they take her alive again. Then sell your own life as high as you may, for there is none to avenge us." ”

“ I never heard of a cougar jumpin' through a winder before."
"That there cougar didn't jump," I said, shouldering through the mob. "He was hev. I done the heavin'."
His mouth fell open and he looked at me like he'd saw the ghost of Sitting Bull. "Breckinridge Elkins!" says he. "I'm cooked now, for sure!"
"I'll say you air!" gritted the feller who'd spoke of shooting Jackson earlier in the night. "What we waitin' for? Le's string him up."
The rest started howlin'.
"Hold on," I said. "You all can't hang him. I'm goin' to take him back to Bear Creek."
"You ain't neither," said Old Man Hopkins. ”

“ She's due into Chawed Ear on the evenin' stage, and the whole town turns out to welcome her. The mayor aims to make a speech if he's sober enough, and they've got up a band to play."
"Damn foolishness!" snorted Joshua. "I don't take no stock in eddication."
"I dunno," says I. That was before I got educated. "They's times when I wisht I could read and write. We ain't never had no school on Bear Creek."
"What would you read outside of the labels onto whiskey bottles?" snorted old Joshua.
"Funny how a purty face changes a man's viewp'int," remarked Bill. ”

“ Her husband was past the age of forty-five when he volunteered. He was taken prisoner by Mosby and died in Andersonville prison. Left a widow at the age of twenty-three years, with three helpless children, and wholly unprepared for the battle of life, her position was painful. Finally she decided to study- medicine, tier parents demurred, but Mrs. Howard was firm. Her little girl was a cripple, and the study of medicine was suggested by that fact. At the age of twenty-seven she went to New York. She entered the New York Medical College for Women and was graduated. ”