Lauds

“ Here the young man told him the events which had taken place, and her fears that Laud had returned to his old career.
“I do not think he has. His old companions are as active as ever; but I heard that he had split with them, and that, when he was taken by the pressgang, he was quarrelling with Luff, who, as I understood, escaped, and swore to finish his work upon Laud whenever he could catch him. There is not a man among us but would run any risk to deliver that fellow up to justice. We have had orders from Government to secure him if we can, and the reward is extended to us. ”

“ What was it old Ladd had once called him? A lucky cove! Old Ladd was right, too! Luck had always seemed on his side. He might have gone on at the old game, perhaps, and never have been caught. One seldom heard of anyone who practised the fine arts of crime and came out scatheless at the end, but it seemed conceivable that this might have happened over and over again; careful men might have made bagfuls of money at the work and then retired, taking gorgeous public-houses for a hobby in the autumn of their days. That would be something like a career. ”

“ She had all winter, all last summer, and no one but themselves knew how long before that, and where was there any other man like Laddie? Of course she loved him! Who so deserving of love? Who else had his dancing eyes of deep tender blue, cheeks so pink, teeth so white, such waving chestnut hair, and his height and breadth? There was no other man who could ride, swim, leap, and wrestle as he could. None who could sing the notes, do the queer sums with letters having little figures at the corners in the college books, read Latin as fast as English, and even the Greek Bible. ”

“ Luff had found out Laud’s deep-rooted fancy for the maiden, and, villain as he was, was proposing a deep-laid scheme for the destruction of the poor girl, who at that very time was undergoing a severe trial of her affection.
“I’ll tell you what, Laud, the thing is easily to be done. We have nothing to do but to run the cutter, at the beginning of our next voyage, into Harwich Harbour, at the fall of the evening, when the mists hide us from the shore; you and I can run up the Orwell in the gig, and soon carry off the prize. Once on board, and she is yours as long as you like.” ”

“ Mayer had her flowerbed, and the cowslips greening under the water of the swale at the foot of the hill, while there might be a Fairy under any leaf. I was so full, so swelled up and excited, that when I got ready to pick up a book, I could learn a lesson in a few minutes, tell all about it, spell every word, and read it back, front, and sideways. I never learned lessons so quick and so easy in all my life; father, Laddie, and every one of them had to say so. ”

“ God never made anything more beautiful than those butterflies, with their wings of brightly painted velvet down, their bright eyes, their curious antennae, and their queer, tickly feet. Laddie had promised me a book telling all about every kind there was, the first time he went to a city, so I was wishing I had it, and was among my pet beauties with it, when I discovered him bending over me. ”

“ With the compassion of a kindly man in a plasterer's spattered suit of white, we did what we could, but it was very little. I at least was not yet armed with the facts that, among others, the headless form of Archbishop Laud had been carried from the block on Tower Hill and laid in All Hallows; and if I had known it, I must have felt that though Laud could be related to our beginnings through his persecution of the Puritans, whom he harried into exile, his interment in All Hallows was only of remote American interest. ”

“ Whereat, after a wistfully miserable glance from one to the other of the exclusive pair, Lad would trot slowly back to his human deities; and, with a queerly sobbing little sigh, he would curl up at the Mistress's feet.
"It's a shame, Laddie!" declared the Mistress, at one such time. "It's a SHAME! Why, you are worth a million of those crazy playdogs! You're a million times wiser and beautifuller and more lovable. Why do you bother with them? Master and I are ever so much better company for you; and we love to have you with us. ”

“ Laddie went on. "Sarah, what do you suppose sends a frail little woman pacing the yard, and up and down the road, sometimes in storm and rain, gripping both hands over her heart?"
"I suppose it's some shameful thing I don't want you mixed up with!" said Sarah Hood promptly, and people just shouted.
"Sarah," said Laddie, "I've seen her closely, watched her move, and studied her expression. There's not one grain of possibility that you, or mother, or Mrs. Fall, or any woman here, could be any closer connected with SHAME. Shame there is," said Laddie, "and what a word! ”

“ So Laddie let go the Princess, and held him down while he said: "Mr. Pryor, answer me this. Do you want to spend the remainder of your life in an invalid's chair, or would you like to walk abroad and sit a horse again?" ”

“ As for Laddie, he was fond of asking riddles such as:
“You can have a house full and a hole full but you can’t keep a bowl full. What is it?” The answer, of course, is “smoke,” but nothing gave Laddie more pleasure than to find some one who couldn’t answer that or some [Pg 17] other riddle he asked. Sometimes he made up riddles himself, or he might ask one that came out of a book. A queer little chap was Laddie.
Then there was Margy, who was seldom called by her real name of Margaret, and Mun Bun, otherwise known as Munroe Ford, as I have mentioned. ”

“ Laddie had come out from his cave to see the show-goers off. The Mistress, looking back, had a last glimpse of him, standing in the front doorway; staring wistfully after the car. She waved her hand to him in farewell. Lad wagged his plumed tail, once, in reply, to the salute. Then, heavily, he turned back again into the house.
"Dear old Laddie!" sighed the Mistress. "He used to hate to go to shows. And now he hates being left behind. It seems so cruel to leave him. And yet—"
"Oh the maids will take good care of him!" consoled the Master. "They spoil him, whenever they get a chance. ”

“ Heylyn has not brought to light any new facts, but he is the first writer who has attempted to estimate the losses as well as the gains of the religious convulsion of the sixteenth century. He dwells upon the irregularities and disorders as a justification of Laud's attempt to restore ecclesiastical order. 'Cyprianus Anglicus, or the History of the Life and Death of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury' (1668, 1671, 1719) , is a defence of Laud against Prynne's 'Canterburies Doom,' and is the chief authority for Laud's personal character and private life. ”

“ She went straight to the door of the willow room and walked in as if she belonged there. What if she found the hollow and took Laddie's letter! Fast as I could slip over the leaves, I went back. She was on the moss carpet, on her knees, and the letter was in her fingers. It's a good thing to have your manners soundly thrashed into you. You've got to be scared stiff before you forget them. ”

“ I was just perfectly amazed at grown people! After all the things our folks had said! You'd have supposed that Laddie would have been locked in the barn; father reading the thirty second Psalm to the Princess, and mother on her knees asking God to open her eyes like Saul's when he tried to kick against the pricks, and make her to see, as he did, that God was not a myth, Well, there was no one in the sitting-room or the parlour, but there were voices farther on ”

“ I called him “the Lad,” because he looked so young by the side of the Man of the World.
One day as I was talking with my friend, the Butterfly Hunter, I was startled by being told that the Lad had done some brilliant scientific work, and had already made for himself a reputation.
25“He is only a boy!” I exclaimed.
“He is a man of twenty-seven,” said the Lad, who had come in unnoticed.
After that we became acquainted rapidly.
I had never seen anybody so keenly alive. He was eager, restless, quivering with vitality. There was a kind of ferocity in his way of working ”

“ Laodice put up her veil and looked with hurrying heart at her hostess. Before she could get a preliminary idea of the woman she was to meet, John spoke lightly:
"Be wearied no longer. I have brought you a mystery–a stranger, without the countersign, asking audience with you." ”

“ I admit the cleanliness, I strive for decency, I delight in being humanely interesting, even for an hour; you might think worse, much worse! You might consider me a 'clown.' 'A country clod.' Rather a lowdown, common thing, a 'clod,' don't you think? And a 'clown'! And 'gross' on top of that!"
"What can you mean?" asked the Princess.
"Since you don't seem to share the estimate of me, I believe I'll tell you," said Laddie. "The other day I was driving from the gravel pit with a very heavy load. The road was wide and level on either side. A man came toward me on horseback. ”

“ When I had calmed down so I could, I climbed the fence, and reached through a crack for the pie. As I followed the cool, damp furrow, and Laddie's whistle, clear as the lark's above the wheat, thrilled me, I was almost insane with joy. Just joy! Pure joy! Oh what a good world it was!—most of the time! Most of the time! Of course, there WERE Paget men in it. But anyway, THIS couldn't be beaten. I had a message for Laddie from the Princess that would send him to the seventh heaven, wherever that was; no one at our house spent any time thinking farther than the first one. ”

“ This was right, but in my heart I also knew that if Laddie had asked me, I would be shivering on top of that cordwood on a hot August day, when it was wrong. On the whole, I thought it would be more honest to leave God out of it, and take the risk myself. That made me think of the Crusaders, and the little gold trinket in father's chest till. There were four shells on it and each one stood for a trip on foot or horseback to the Holy City when you had to fight almost every step of the way. ”

“ Laddie fairly shouted it.
"Docs SHE like secrets?"
"No more than I do!"
"Then why——?"
"There you go!" said Laddie. "Zeus, but the woman is beginning to measle out all over you! You know as well as any one that there's something wrong at her house. I don't know what it is; I can't even make a sensible guess as yet, but it's worse than the neighbours think. It's a thing that has driven a family from their home country, under a name that I have doubts about being theirs, and sent them across an ocean, 'strangers in a strange land,' as it says in the Bible. ”

“ Maybe I only THOUGHT I loved Laddie best. I guess if I had been forced to take my choice when I had the fever, I'd have stuck pretty tight to mother. Even Dr. Fenner said if I pulled through she'd have to make me. I might have been lying there yet, if it hadn't been for the book Frank sent me, with the poetry piece in it. It began:
"Somewhere on a sunny bank, buttercups are bright,
Somewhere 'mid the frozen grass, peeps the daisy white." ”

“ You'll step on the Fairies and crush a whole band with one foot. No wonder the Queen makes her daughter grow big when she sends her to you. If you make so much noise, some one will hear you, then this won't be a secret any more."
Laddie laughed, but he stepped carefully in the path after that, and he said: "There are times, Little Sister, when I don't care whether this secret is secret another minute or not. Secrets don't agree with me. I'm too big, and broad, and too much of a man, to go creeping through the woods with a secret. ”

“ Can't you make her understand that God is not a myth?"
"I'm none too sure what I believe myself," said Laddie. "Not that there is no God—I don't mean that—but I surely don't believe all father's teachings."
"If you believe God, do other little things matter, Laddie?"
"I think not," said Laddie, "else Heaven would be all Methodists. As for the Princess, all she has heard in her life has been against there being a God. Now, she is learning something on the other side. After a while she can judge for herself. ”

“ Armand.
"Why, the truth is, Mr. Ludlow cannot go to the Springs with them this season, and they are so afraid that it will become known that they are burying themselves in the back part of the house, and denying all visiters."
"Why so? I cannot comprehend it."
"All fashionable people, you know, are expected to go to the sea-shore or the Springs; and my sister and her two eldest daughters are so silly, as to fear that they will lose caste, if it is known that they could not go this season. Do you understand now?" ”

“ The works written by Laud are but few in number. They are Officium Quotidianum, or a Manual of Private Devotions; A Summary of Devotions; his Diary; and A History of his Troubles and Tryal; together with some smaller pieces, sermons, and speeches. A Relation of the Conference between him and Fisher the Jesuit, by Laud's chaplain John Baily, was printed in 1624. A collected edition of his works, edited by Henry Wharton, was printed in 1695-1700, and a second one in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, in six volumes in 1847-49.
Portraits of him are to be found in St. ”

“ Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair.
“About the Tablets of the Gods, you mean⁠—and that they lie somewhere hidden in the sands,” he said patiently. A sudden gleam of interest came into his face as he turned to catch the professor’s reply.
“And that I am to be the one to find them, to decipher them, and to give the great knowledge to the world⁠—”
“Who will not believe,” laughed Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spite of his thinly-veiled contempt. ”