Lynn

“ THE BELLS OF LYNN,
HEARD AT NAHANT.
O CURFEW of the setting sun! O Bells of Lynn!
O requiem of the dying day! O Bells of Lynn!
From the dark belfries of yon cloud-cathedral wafted,
Your sounds aerial seem to float, O Bells of Lynn!
Borne on the evening wind across the crimson twilight,
O'er land and sea they rise and fall, O Bells of Lynn!
The fisherman in his boat, far out beyond the headland,
Listens, and leisurely rows ashore, O Bells of Lynn!
Over the shining sands the wandering cattle homeward
Follow each other at your call, O Bells of Lynn! ”

“ Le Roy. "It was like a romance. You have never written anything stranger in all your novels, Mrs. Lynn. But you must not expect me to describe it to you in the language of fiction. Your own imagination must invest it with all the eloquence it merits. I have been surprised at many things in my life, Mrs. Lynn, but I was never more surprised, never more shocked, than I was in the moment when I led my Beatrix up to her mother. I had expected demonstrations of delighted affection, I beheld only utter dismay and confusion. Can you believe it, Mrs. Lynn? ”

“ As the entertainment progressed, Lynn’s admiration of Iris increased. She seemed equally at home in Miss Field’s stately mansion and in the tiny bird-house on the brink of a precipice, where everything appeared to be made out of something else. She was in high spirits and kept them all laughing. Yet, in spite of her merry chatter, there was an undertone of tender wistfulness that set his heart to beating. ”

“ Lynn stood like a statue; since her first exclamation she had remained silent but her face had changed. Something resembling hope had crept into her eyes and mingled with the fierce love that illumined them whenever they rested on her brother. As he lay back, breathing faintly, she moved toward him and stood, looking down.
"God is not all cruel," she said, as though to herself. "He has taken all the rest—but He has given me this, at least, before you die—the knowledge that you do care a little, Liol. ”

“ You compel me to—very well, I'll go to Ricossia, then; I'll make him listen to reason and, and if he won't, I'll"——
"Gerald!"
Lynn's voice was alive with a sudden, horrible fear.
"Gerald," she said swiftly, clasping his arm with her hands, "you loved me once, didn't you? For the sake of that, because of that, will you do me a favour? Deal with me, alone. I'm strong, I can stand anything. Say what you please to me, do as you think best—but let him alone. He's so young, he—he's so weak—and he's dying, Gerald, dying. He may be dead, to-morrow. While he lives, let him alone. ”

“ And indeed a great part of that indecision at which Lucinda in those days played so daintily was due to the knowledge, unformulated in her consciousness but none the less exercising constant influence on her moods, that she was less in love with Lynn than in love with being loved by Lynn Summerlad the idolized.
In many ways admirable, a fine animal who kept himself always exquisitely fit, intelligent enough to share or seem to share her every taste and prejudice, Lynn had laid a spell upon her mind no less than on her senses. ”

“ She seized Lynn’s hand and the two began to hurry along the path again, for at a bend just above them were the holland frocks and mushroom hats of Florence and Effie.
Down, down, a hundred steps here, round a bend there, down a damp ladder, hard as they could go, and yet the holland frocks gained on the blue every moment. Lynn was panting, Pauline’s face streamed with perspiration, and still they sought to increase the distance; they could not have run more conscientiously from their little friends if they had been lepers. ”

“ This was Judge Lynn,—good-natured, frank, easy-going, improvident, in debt to everybody, and still willing to borrow. Unendowed with wisdom—and yet ignorant as a child of the fact—a man whom everybody liked simply because there was no reason why he should be hated.
He knew every resident of Meade—in fact he knew every soul in the county and for miles beyond its borders—he also, in turn, was known. He was a pioneer of Kansas—came out from Indiana when very young, and in his years of residence in the Southwest had told people of his boyhood exploits on the banks of the Wabash. ”

“ On this particular afternoon, Lynn was exceedingly restless. Like many other men, to whom the thing is impossible, he vaguely feared feminisation. The variety of soft influences continually about him had a subtle, enervating effect.
[Pg 97]
Iris was reading, his mother was writing letters, and Aunt Peace was endeavouring to entertain him with reminiscences of her early youth. When life lies fair in the distance, with the rosy hues of anticipation transfiguring its rugged steeps and yawning chasms, we are young, though our years may number threescore and ten. ”

“ What is it to be, Mr Lynn? You are the governor’s son: is it to be run for our lives like cowards and, if we escape, face the principals with the best tale we can tell, or fight?”
“If we defend the place and are not able to beat them off, I suppose they will burn the hong and us in it?”
“Most likely,” said Blunt savagely; “but some of them will not live to see the flames rising. I’m afraid you don’t want to fight, Mr Lynn.”
“I don’t,” said Stan frankly. “The idea of shedding a fellow-creature’s blood is horrible.” ”

“ Brantley's carriage, and Laura understood that she might ride in her black silk dress and her straw bonnet.
They crossed at the Winnisimmet Ferry, rode through Chelsea, and soon arrived at the flourishing town of Lynn, where every man was making shoes, and every woman binding them. The last sunbeams were glowing in the west, when they came to the beautiful Long Beach that connects the rocks of Lynn with those of Nahant, the sand being so firm and smooth that the shadow of every object is reflected in it downwards. ”

“ LYNN, Jan. 5 [1864] .
... I very rarely see the B——s; they go to a different church, and you know with that class of people "not to be with us is to be against us." Indeed, I know very little of Lynn people. If I can get at Mr. J., when you come to see me I'll ask him to tea. He has called several times, but he's in such demand that he must be engaged some weeks in advance! Would you, if you lived in Lynn, want to fall into such a mass of idolaters? ”

“ Would Barbara Lynn ever become the wife of some good, honest, plain man, and chain her mind to making and mending, the bearing of children, the ordinary toils of a married woman's life. He could not imagine her as such. ”

“ As Lynn (Lun, Lenne, Bishop’s Lynn) owes its origin to the trade which its early settlers carried by the Ouse and its tributaries its history dates from the period of settled occupation by the Saxons. It belonged to the bishops of Thetford before the Conquest and remained with the see when it was translated to Norwich. Herbert de Losinga (c. 1054–1119) granted its jurisdiction to the cathedral of Norwich but this right was resumed by a later bishop, John de Gray, who in 1204 had obtained from John a charter establishing Lynn as a free borough. ”

“ She felt herself to be a part of a great order. There was a bond between the golden clouds of dawn and herself, between the winds and her. She had a common bond, too, with all living things, sheep, birds, and also the foxes and the ravens. All were in their place, and she was in her place. This gave to her life a sense of repose.
But such a sense of security alone could not have built up the character of Barbara Lynn. Mere freedom from fear is a negative quality, unless the emancipated soul makes use of its privileges to flow out in search of worthier objects to stimulate its energies. ”

“ Lynn. She spared no pains until she obtained an introduction to the noted writer, over whose charms of mind and person all the best people at the seaside were enthusiastic in admiration. When she had done so, she was almost frightened by the astonishing likeness of Mrs. Lynn to Laurel Vane.
"It is the dead alive!" she said to herself. "I can no longer believe that St. Leon's wife drowned herself. There has been some great mistake. She went away and hid herself from all who knew her, and she has reappeared as Mrs. Lynn. ”

“ Don't you know, my dear child, that you are experiencing in a faint degree what you will experience all your life if you don't hurry up and settle yourself. Don't you know that for the next fifty years you will, not only feel, but be a derelict if you don't accept Lighton and marry him before he changes his mind."
"Thank goodness, this drive can't last forever," exclaimed Lynn, laughing. "Otherwise I should be compelled to get out and walk. You are perfectly unendurable sometimes, Del, and this is certainly one of the times." ”

“ Margaret and St. Nicholas, destroyed during "restoration," and North Runcton church, three miles from Lynn, are other works of this very able artist.
Until the Reformation Lynn was known as Bishop's Lynn, and galled itself under the yoke of the Bishop of Norwich; but Henry freed the townsfolk from their bondage and ordered the name to be changed to Lynn Regis. Whether the good people throve better under the control of the tyrant who crushed all their guilds and appropriated the spoil than under the episcopal yoke may be doubtful ”

“ With splendid dignity, with exquisite phrasing, with masterful interpretation, the concerto moved to its end. It left her faint, her heart wildly beating. Through Lynn, Franz had worked out her salvation, her atonement; through Lynn full payment had been made.
When he came out of his room, she was in the hall, her face alight with her great happiness. “Lynn!” she cried. A world of meaning was in the name.
“I know,” he returned, but all the youth was gone out of his voice. At once she realised that he had crossed the dividing line, that, even to her, he was no longer a child, but a man. ”

“ Bernard Lynn was a tall and muscular man, somewhat inclined to corpulence. His dark complexion was contrasted with the masses of snow-white hair, which surrounded his forehead, and the eyebrows, also white, which gave additional luster to his dark eyes. ”

“ As he introduced Lynn, he wrote down the name of the party of the second part, as they say. Lynn did a lot of handshaking. Jenkins suddenly scratched his chin, grinned and wrote two full pages on the tab.
“That girl back of the cigar-stand is Nellie Milliken,” he wrote. “She's the whitest little skirt that ever rooted for baseball or church—no nonsense, no lallygagging. She likes you or she don't, and you find it out the moment the game is called. She cottons to me because I'm married and got a couple of kids; and she and the Missus are great pals. She works because she has to. ”

“ They knew the time by instinct, and, half an hour before, might be seen travelling along the dale from all directions, and gathering round the thicket where the hollies grew.
This winter Mistress Annas Lynn began to feel the cold, and another woollen rug was put on the bed. She spent most of the day in keeping herself warm, and her usual occupation of knitting ceased. She did not sleep much, and often Barbara would tip-toe to the bedside to see if her great-grandmother were awake, and would find the bright eyes open, and raised to her face in an instant, with a keen searching look. ”

“ The merchants of Lynn are an extinct race, and most of their old mansions are gone. Yet in the old days, when Lynn supplied seven counties with coals, timber, and wine from the North of England, from the Baltic, and from many a port in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, to be a Lynn merchant was no mean or inconsiderable thing. ”

“ To offset a choke in her voice Lucinda added with a hard laugh: "Awfully!"
"It's terrible to have to give up a man like Lynn.... Don't I know!"
Lucinda bluntly changed the subject. "What will you do now?" she asked—"I mean, after this blows over. Will you go on with your picture work in the East?"
"I don't know.... I guess not.... Nobody's likely to give me another chance.... Lynn isn't going to be able to keep the truth from leaking out inside the business, of course; and he's terribly popular, his friends will take good care I don't get another job. ”

“ That lets Lynn out! But my set here is now complete, and is the equal of the G. E. installation; so I’ll talk to my princess tonight, if the static will only let up.”
He seemed very happy.
After the evening meal was over, he lit a lantern and started back to his laboratory. As we accompanied him to the door, he pointed to the evening sky.
“Late tonight, long after midnight,” said he, “there will appear above that horizon the star which holds all that is dear to me in this universe. My wife, my child, my people, and my home. Good night. Do not sit up for me. I may be very late.” ”

“ Lynn's experiment of fastening his attendant to a sort of penitential stool with copper wire, surrounded by scrutineers from the audience, and then making the man's coat come off, and a ring pass over his arm, behind a simple rug held in front of him, is quite as wonderful as anything I have ever witnessed at a séance. It has the great advantage of being done in the light, instead of, as in Mr. Fay's case, in darkness, and without a cabinet. ”

“ Lynn was a most real person. The book was now brought [Pg 124] to her and she, with little Caroline, looked with deep and mournful interest at the picture of the empty sleigh.
“It certainly is a awful country to live in; seem like it ain’t fitten for a dog, much less white folks. To think o’ Mr. Lynn hisself bein’ froze to death. Well! well! well! It certainly was onexpected.”
The children’s story books furnished Mammy with many thoughts. Among them was a set of German nursery tales, full of quaint colored pictures, in which she took especial pleasure. ”