Lambert

“ When Lambert was dredged he gave up worthless stuff, scraps of stale news, old jokes worn to pieces, venerable conundrums that had lost their point, and familiar anecdotes retailed without salt. Undredged, he yielded nothing, except among those of his own mental calibre, and with them he talked about people he had met, houses at which he had visited, wines that he had drunk, game that he had shot, the relationships of his acquaintance, about jolly fellows, nice girls, good cigars, and scrumptious dinners. ”

“ There was nothing about Lambert's appearance to scare anybody, and least of all a bow-legged man beside a fire in the open air of the Bad Lands, where things are not just as they are in any other part of this world at all. His manner was rather boyish and diffident, and wholly apologetic, and the All-in-One glistened in his hand like a razor, or a revolver, or anything terrible and destructive that a startled camp cook might make it out to be. ”

“ Louis Lambert suffered in every spot where pain can touch the soul or the flesh. Stuck on a form, restricted to the acreage of his desk, a victim of the strap and to a sickly frame, tortured in every sense, environed by distress—everything compelled him to give his body up to the myriad tyrannies of school life; and, like the martyrs who smiled in the midst of suffering, he took refuge in heaven, which lay open to his mind. ”

“ Lambert shook his head, and had again to laugh as he now looked into the face of the beloved one, which beamed with happiness as before. "Yes, yes, who could withstand you? Who would not willingly do what you wish?"
They had reached the block-house, and entered the open door. Lambert looked about the room with as much wonder as though he now saw it for the first time. About the hearth, on the shelves, there hung and stood kettles, pitchers and pots clean and burnished. ”

“ Lambert ruminated on the trouble that had been laid out for him that night as he rode away from town, going slowly, in no hurry to put walls between him and the soft, pleasant night.
He was confronted by the disadvantage of an unsought notoriety, or reputation, or whatever his local fame might be called. A man with a fighting name must live up to it, however distasteful the strife and turmoil, or move beyond the circle of his fame. Move he would not, could not, although it seemed a foolish thing, on reflection, to hang on there in the lure of Grace Kerr's dark eyes. ”

“ You do yourself no good, Master Lambert, by talking thus to me of the man I love and honor beyond all things in this world. You are blind and see not things as they are: blind to the merits of one who is as infinitely above you as the stars. But nathless I waste my breath again. ”

“ Lambert was one of those characters which are, too unfortunately, rare in this world, but of which alone shall doubtless be composed the population of that Holy City, where nothing that defileth shall in any wise enter in: with a powerful mind, and many a noble intellectual quality, he had sought and attained to the innocency of life and humility of heart of a little child, who once was set as an example to the gifted of this earth. ”

“ At this stage of weakness and strength, of childish grace and superhuman powers, Louis Lambert is the creature who, more than any other, gave me a poetical and truthful image of the being we call an angel, always excepting one woman whose name, whose features, whose identity, and whose life I would fain hide from all the world, so as to be sole master of the secret of her existence, and to bury it in the depths of my heart. ”

“ Lambert moved a little nearer his prisoner, where he stood waiting. He had not shaved during the two days between Chicago and Glendora; the dust of the road was on his face. His hat was tipped forward to shelter his eyes against the afternoon glare, the leather thong at the back rumpling his close-cut hair. He stood lean and long-limbed, easy and indifferent in his pose, as it would seem to look at him as one might glance in passing, the smoke of his cigarette rising straight from its fresh-lit tip in the calm air of the somnolent day. ”

“ Lambert's cheeks became deathly pale. The first inkling of the deadly peril of his own situation had suddenly come to him with Sir Marmaduke's callous words. It seemed to him as if the very universe must stand still in the face of such treachery. The man whom he loved with all the fervor of a grateful nature, the man who knew him and whom he had wholly trusted, was proving his most bitter, most damning enemy.
After Sir Marmaduke's speech, his own employer's repudiation, he felt that all his chances of clearing his character before these sneering gentlemen had suddenly vanished. ”

“ It seemed as though the restlessness, the anxiety about his home that spoke in Lambert's words and looks, had also seized her. "Were they indeed dead--were they all dead--and were we two, he and I, to dwell in yonder house!"
They had reached the valley. Here, along the creek, which flowed in many windings between the meadow banks, there was an easier though narrower path. The horse thrust forward his ears, neighed and stepped along quicker. Lambert had to hold him by the bridle. Catherine walked a little to one side. It did not tire the slim, vigorous girl to come along. ”

“ Lambert, which she placed in the passage, and an unpainted stool for herself. An opening hymn had been sung, and then the children united in repeating with the young teacher the Lord's Prayer.
Peeping through a space formed by a man's uplifted arm, Mr. Lambert could see the crippled boy seated in his wheeled chair, in front of group of wondering children. His back was toward the door, but the spectator could easily imagine the expression of fervor there would be in his soft brown eyes, the sweet serenity of the brow as he talked to them on the subjects he held most dear. ”

“ Lambert bowed.
"And that neither you, nor Conrad, nor any man in this earthly vale of tears, is good enough for the maiden?"
Lambert's eyes said: "Yes."
"I have now for the first time carefully looked at her," said Aunt Ursul; "as she lay there, white and bloody, like the doves this morning. There is not one false or distorted line in her lovely face. Everything is entire purity and innocence, as though the Lord God had opened a window in heaven and sent her forth upon the earth. ”

“ I must give Lambert warning, for he is very nervous about any one coming near him. He is so possessed by the idea that he is being watched. It is an awful feeling, I had no conception what it is until I saw a man under its influence. I will settle with him and Elsie when they shall receive you. At present I am not quite so uneasy about them, for Deering is out of town. I am afraid he has some very strong hold on Lambert. ”

“ One man's life was as good as another's; but he watched Lambert as he could, while in his tired brain lingered a feeling of fear for that woman's son.
During the peaceful days dividing the Aisne and the Argonne he looked at Lambert and fingered his own clothing, stained and torn where death had nearly reached, with a wondering doubt that they could both be whole, that Mrs. Planter in her unemotional way could still welcome guests to Oakmont. And he recalled that impression he had shared with Sylvia on the bluff above Lake Champlain of being suspended, but he no longer felt free. ”

“ Little of the trouble had left Lambert's face, but George fancied Sylvia's brother looked at him with curiosity, with a form of respect.
"I'm glad you've come," George said, "but I don't intend to apologize for what I did this evening. I think we all, no matter what our inheritance, fight without thought of affectations for our happiness. That's what I did. I love your sister, Lambert. Never dreamed how much until to-night. Not a great deal to say, but it's enormous beyond definition to think. You have Betty, so perhaps you can understand." ”

“ The many characters that introduced themselves to Lambert’s observation in the metropolis, furnished him with a great number of anecdotes, which a retentive memory enabled him to relate with good effect.
One day the room being rather crowded with company, a young man in the front, almost [Pg 22] close to Lambert, made incessant use of one of those indispensable appendages of a modern beau, called a quizzing-glass. The conversation turned on the changes of the weather, and in what manner Lambert felt himself affected by them—“What do you dislike most?” ”

“ Some of them expanded up to the size for ranch owners, superintendents, bosses; stopped [Pg 54] there, set in their mold. Lambert never had heard of one stretching so wide that he was drawn out of himself entirely, his eyes fixed on the far light of a nobler life. He liked to imagine a man so inspired out of the lonely watches, the stormy rides, the battle against blizzard and night.
This train of thought had carried him away that gentle spring day as he rode to Misery. ”

“ Mildred Lambert's life for eight-and-twenty years might be summed up in a few sentences. A happy youth, scarcely clouded by the remembrance of a dead father and the graves of the sisters that came between her infancy and the maturer age of her only brother; and then the blurred brightness when Arnold, who had married before he had taken orders, became the hard-working vicar of a remote Westmorland parish—and he and his wife and children passed out of Milly's daily life. ”

“ Lambert was a person of far less consequence than her husband. She had had the money certainly, but that quality was a good deal overlooked by the Lismoyle people in their admiration for the manner in which her husband spent it. It was natural that they should respect the captor rather than the captive, and, in any case, Mr. Roderick Lambert’s horses and traps were more impressive facts than the Maltese terrier and the shelf of patent medicines that were Mrs. Lambert’s only extravagances. ”

“ The troll placed a powerful and majestic hoof on one of Lambert's flippers. "Excuse me," he said. "But I told you that you have no further work to do here. Please pick up your toys and get off of my ranch. And take your disobedient helpers with you. Also, you may have as many milkweed pods as you can carry. I'll never let it be said that I am heartless."
"But, master!" stammered Lambert. "You can't do this! You mustn't! We've come such a long way already! I was up for a raise next year!" ”

“ There was a watch-dog at Sue's heels, stern, alert, unyielding. Richard Lambert was probing the secret of the mysterious prince, with the unerring eye of the disappointed lover.
The meeting to-night had been terribly dangerous. Sir Marmaduke knew that Lambert was lurking somewhere in the park.
At present even the remotest inkling of the truth must still be far from the young man's mind. The whole scheme was so strange, so daring, so foreign to the simple ideas of the Quaker-bred lad, that its very boldness had defied suspicion. ”

“ The news of Sir Charles Lambert’s violence had reached his parsonage before him; and in the stone porch his old housekeeper met him as soon as he had dismounted, with as much anxiety as if he had narrowly escaped murder himself. The good old body, with that genuine philanthropy of feeling which is as natural as their breathing to kindly natures, learned the safety of Cuthbert, whom she had never seen or heard of before, with a lively expression of [Pg 133] motherly joy; and Juxon was roused to remember how very narrowly the youth had missed an early and melancholy fate. ”

“ Must they fall as booty into the hands of the enemy? There stood his barn. Must it go up in flames? There was his strongly built house. Must he and she be buried beneath its fragments?
Thus, in deep, oppressive anxiety, Lambert stood at the edge of the forest, looking over the valley that contained his home, glittering in the bright sunlight. There was no noise in the wide circuit except the buzz of insects over the soft bending grass and flowers of the prairie, and an occasional bird-note from the branches of the dark-green pines which, motionless, drank in the heat of the sun. ”

“ Lambert was too well used to incivility from nobles to heed her manner, though in point of fact a Flemish noble was far more civilised than this North Country dame. He looked anxiously at Bernard, who moaned a little and turned his head away. “Nay, now, Bernard,” entreated his sister; “look up at the good man, he that sent you the sugar-balls. He is come to try to make you well.” ”

“ M. de Lambert said. “Look at Touchet! He is listening with that expression he wears when he hears two people speaking Russ. Now and then a gleam of absolute complaisance crosses his face, when he really understands a sentence; at other times he is the picture of contemptuous bewilderment.”
“Pierrot is worth a hundred such,” I said; “men like Touchet come for the asking, but there are few like Pierrot. Astute, cautious, devoted—my cause is his.”
“You have the quality that attaches men to you, monsieur,” M. de Lambert rejoined pleasantly; “it is a good fortune to serve the Maréchal de Brousson.” ”

“ He is not a companion fit for any young woman—a wild scapegrace. Mr Lambert would be glad to be quit of him. Now, if your box is taken to your chamber, you may go and lay aside your hood. I suppose you have more gowns than that you stand up in?'
'Yes, I have changes of gowns and aprons.'
'Very well, I think you will suit me. Mr Lambert comes into his dinner at half after one o'clock; it is near that now. You can take your meals with us, and see my friends when they visit me. ”

“ It was impossible to behold his excessive corpulence, without being astonished that he was not long before suffocated by such an accumulation of substance. The perfect and uninterrupted flow of health which he enjoyed in his progress to his vast dimensions is likewise a remarkable trait in the history of Lambert.
While these, and other points of singularity, afford abundant room for speculation to [Pg 46] the philosopher, the moralist will delight to investigate the qualities of that mind which animated such a prodigious body. ”