Kyle

“ He kicked at them.
"It suits me to be just Clare Kavanagh, Mr. Duke—and I'm not afraid of you!"
"Kyle—ho there, Kyle!" The big boss came out of the "ram pasture," wiping food fragments from his beard. "Get a rifle and shoot these dogs. Clean 'em out! Take two men and ride this Irish imp across the river where she belongs."
Kyle balked. His face showed it.
Presson had never seen his old friend in such a fury. He menaced the girl with his fists as though about to forget that she was a woman. But she did not retreat. ”

“ Arrived in Leith, and hearing no word of those that had appointed to meet him, to wit, the Earl of Cassillis and the gentlemen of Kyle and Cunningham, Master George kept himself secret for a day or two. But beginning to wax sorrowful in spirit, and being asked the cause, he said, "What differ I from a dead man, except that I eat and drink? Unto this time, God has used my labours for the instruction of others, and for the disclosing of darkness; and now I lurk as a man that is ashamed, and dare not show himself before men." ”

“ While to the north, south, and east there is nothing but moor, with an occasional hill to relieve the monotony; to the west there is a landscape of unrivalled beauty. In the foreground there is the fertile valley of the Irvine, dividing Galston on the south from Loudon on the north, and Kyle from Cunningham, a vista of little less than 20 miles in length. ”

“ Who this Gilbert of “Hameldone” may have been is uncertain, “but the fact must be faced,” Mr John Anderson points out (Scots Peerage, iv. 340) “that in a charter of the 12th of December 1272 by Thomas of Cragyn or Craigie to the monks of Paisley of his church of Craigie in Kyle, there appears as witness a certain ‘Gilbert de Hameldun clericus,’ whose name occurs along with the local clergy of Inverkip, Blackhall, Paisley and Dunoon. ”

“ Kyla brought her left hand up to her right on the third loop. She made a long reach, missed her grab, swung again, and clung, breathing hard, to the safe fifth loop. I watched, sick with dread. The damned girl should have told me what she intended.
Kyla glanced down and we got a glimpse of her face, glistening with the mixture of sunburn cream and sweat, drawn with effort. Her tiny swaying figure hung twelve feet above the white tumbling water, and if she lost her grip, only a miracle could bring her out alive. ”

“ Kyla."
"What about Kyla?"
The girl explained it herself, in her expressionless monotone. "I am an unattached female. Such women are not permitted in the Nests."
"That's easy, then," Lerrys said. "She must belong to one of us." He didn't add a syllable. No one could have expected it; Darkovan aristocrats don't bring their women on trips like this, and their women are not like Kyla.
The three brothers broke into a spate of volunteering, and Rafe made an obscene suggestion. Kyla scowled obstinately, her mouth tight with what could have been embarrassment or rage. ”

“ Kirk pulled a sprig and sat drinking in the deliciousness of it, till the old gentleman said:
"We must have enough for a wreath, you know--a wreath for the queen."
"Who is our Queen of the May?" Kirk asked.
"The most beautiful person you know."
"Felicia," said Kirk, promptly.
"Felicia," mused the Maestro. "That is a beautiful name. Do you know what it means?"
Kirk did not.
"It means happiness. Is it so?"
"Yes," said Kirk; "Ken and I couldn't be happy without her. She is happiness." ”

“ But when into Kyrle’s existence blank, arid as African sands,
Into the barrenness marred and vexed by alien tongues and hands,
An angel’s voice rang heavenly high, and a star in his pathway fell,
Welcomer ’twas to the lonely man than water in nethermost hell. ”

“ Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort and console him, Brass. Eh, Kit, eh? Drive on coachey, drive on. Bye bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your spirits; my love to the Garlands—the dear old lady and gentleman. Say I inquired after ‘em, will you? Blessings on ‘em, on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings on all the world!’
With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment. ”

“ Kirk, nevertheless, stood beside the old gentleman's chair, ready with a quick, light hand to visualize his friend's features.
"My hair, if that will help you," the voice told him, "is quite white, and my eyes are usually rather blue."
"Blue," murmured Kirk, his fingers flitting down the fine lines of the old gentleman's profile; "that's cool and nice, like the sea and the wind. Your face is like the ivory thing—smooth and—and carved. I think you really must be something different and rather enchanted." ”

“ Ken and Felicia had for a moment the curious sensation of being intruders in a forgotten corner of enchanted land, into which the likeness of their own Kirk had somehow strayed. But the feeling passed quickly. The Maestro behind the silver urn was a human being, after all, talking of the Sturgis Water Line--a most delightful human being, full of kindliness and humor. Kirk was really their own, too. He leaned beside Felicia's chair, stirring his tea and she slipped an arm about him, just to establish her right of possession. ”

“ He knew that his power with Kitty came largely from a certain stoicism, a certain hardness, mingled, as he would prove to her, with a boundless devotion. Let him carry it through—without fears—and so enlarge her being and his own! And as to responsibilities beyond, as to their later lives—let time take care of its own births. For the modern determinist of Cliffe's type there is no responsibility. ”

“ Oh, Ken, aren't we having fun?"
"Aren't we, though!" breathed his brother, pulling the end of the Burberry over Kirk's shoulders.
The sun is a good thing. It clears away not only the dark shadows in the corners of empty rooms, but also the gloom that settles in anxious people's minds at midnight. The rising of the sun made, to be sure, small difference to Kirk, whose mind harbored very little gloom, and was lit principally by the spirits of those around him. ”

“ The dimly firelit room swam with the exquisite echo of the melody. Ken and Martin sat quiet in their corner. Felicia gazed at the dear people in the home she had made: at Ken, who had made it with her--dear old Ken, the defender of his kindred; at Kirk, for whom they had kept the joy of living alight; at the Maestro, the beautiful spirit of the place; at her mother, given back to them at last. Mrs. Sturgis looked wonderingly at her children in the firelight, but most of all at Kirk, whose face was lighted, as he leaned beside the Maestro, with a radiance she had never before seen there. ”

“ Kit—oh, my Kit, my own and ever only Kit—or Christopher, if you like it better, darling—here have I been for whole hours and hours, and not one word will you say to me! If ever I laughed at you, Kit, in my life, you must have felt how proud I was. There is not anything in all the world, or anybody to come near you, Kit. ”

“ And, indeed, when they met him, standing beside the laden tea-table on the terrace, they thought him scarcely more of an actuality, so utterly in keeping was he with the dreaming garden and the still house. Felicia, who had not quite realized the depth of friendship which had grown between this old gentleman and her small brother, noted with the familiar strangeness of a dream the proprietary action with which the Maestro drew Kirk to him, and Kirk's instant and unconscious response. ”

“ Karl said, his tone less firm than usual with emotion and pain. "I ought to have exercised more thought; to have foreseen what must be the inevitable ending. Colonel Cleeve has my promise that I will never again seek you in any way: that from henceforth we shall be as strangers. Oh my darling!--I may surely call you so in this last hour!--this is painful I fear to you as to me."
She went quite close to him, her eyes cast up to his with a piteous mourning in their depths; eyes too sad for tears.
"They have told me the same, Karl. There is no hope at all for us. ”

“ Alternately I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations with my successor—to speak more accurately, my successors—with amused interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave. ”

“ Always speak the truth. At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me the key.’
The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the river. ”

“ Ricks. I have my head left--and my right arm. I can think and I can write, and even if one of my wheels is flat, I can hike longer and faster after an order than most. Got a job for me, Mr. Ricks?"
"No, I haven't, Mr. Peck. I'm out of it, you know. Retired ten years ago. This office is merely a headquarters for social frivolity--a place to get my mail and mill over the gossip of the street. Our Mr. Skinner is the chap you should see."
"I have seen Mr. Skinner, sir," the erstwhile warrior replied, "but he wasn't very sympathetic. ”

“ Kit spent two years at the Orphanage in an antique, preposterous suit—snuff-coloured coat with lappels, canary waistcoat, and corduroy small-clothes. And they gave him his meals regularly. There were ninety-nine other boys who all throve on the food: but Kit pined. And the ninety-nine, being full of food, made a racket at times; but Kit found it quiet—deathly quiet; and his eyes wore a listening look.
For the truth was, he missed the noise of the beach, and was listening for it. And deep down in his small heart the sea was piping and calling to him. And the world had grown dumb ”

“ Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy to see that the boy was troubled in his mind. He must be held innocent of everything that followed. Kitty was pale and nervous, and looked long at the bracelet. Barr-Saggott was gorgeously dressed, even more nervous than Kitty, and more hideous than ever.
Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as befitted the mother of a potential Commissioneress, and the shooting began; all the world standing in a semicircle as the ladies came out one after the other. ”

“ Oh, I was so proud of being a Kildare, one of the Kildares of Storm; so ashamed of anything that did not quite come up to the standard of—of my father! Bah—my father! Not even man enough to take the consequences of his sin, to stand by them. My father," she cried fiercely, "was a coward! And I thought that everything that is good in me, pride and courage, and truthfulness, whatever manly virtues I may have, came from him, instead of—from you!"
"No, no—from yourself, dear," said Kate, quickly. "For everything that is best in you, you have yourself to thank." ”

“ He had been too unmindful of them, getting back to his lodgings at any hour of the night, either to let himself in by his pass-key—all the lights out and everybody asleep—or to find only Kitty or John, or both, at work over their accounts or waiting up for Mike or Bobby or for one of their wagons detained on some dock. And since Kling had raised his salary, enabling him not only to recover his dressing-case, which then rested on his mantel, but to take his meals wherever he happened to be at the moment—he had seldom dined at home—a great relief in many ways to a man of his tastes. ”

“ Kline knit his brows, and gazed with anger and disappointment at the little Carl; and the rest, seeing him do this, felt themselves aggrieved; but suddenly the cloud cleared from Kline's face, and rushing forward, he caught Carl in his arms, crying—'Forgive me, dear Carl! ”

“ A red bull and a colonel on a horse will come, but first, my father said, come the two men making ready the ground for these matters. That is how, my father said, they always did; and it is always so when men work magic.'
If the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by the Provincial Lodge and sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills; but what she had heard of magic she distrusted. Kim, too, held views of his own. ”

“ How could I reject a boy who simply would not be rejected? Why, I'll bet a ripe peach that Bill Peck was one of the doggondest finest soldiers you ever saw. He carries his objective. He sized you up just like that, Skinner. He declined to permit you to block him. Skinner, that Peck person has been opposed by experts. Yes, sir--experts! What kind of a job are you going to give him, Skinner, my dear boy?"
"Andrews' job, of course."
"Oh, yes, I forgot. Skinner, dear boy, haven't we got about half a million feet of skunk spruce to saw off on somebody?" Mr. ”