Matt Coyle

“ Without saying a word to any body the red-nosed man, who answered to the name of Matt Coyle, took possession of a piece of ground that had been cleared but not fenced in, and began the erection of a shanty with boards which formed a part of the punt's cargo. While he and his sons were at work Mr. Hastings, who was one of the village trustees, rode by. He did not at all 1ike the appearance of the new-comers, but he had nothing to say to them. There was room for more guides and boatmen, and Matt and his family might turn out better than they looked. ”

“ From the overturned chuck wagon scattered food lay trampled into the ground by sharp feet. The surveying instruments were broken beyond repair.
A huddled mass lay motionless in the track of the avalanche. Tug knelt beside it and looked into the battered outline of what a few moments earlier had been a man’s face quick with life. No second glance was necessary to see that the spirit had passed out of the crushed body. The engineer recognized him by the clothes. His name was Coyle. He had been a harmless old fellow of many quips and jests, one full of the milk of human kindness. ”

“ Spencer Coyle, however, paid the penalty of his own profundity in feeling more and more worried; he could so easily see that there were all sorts of things in his young friend that the people of Paramore wouldn't understand. He began even already to react against the notion of his being harassed—to reflect that, after all, he had a right to his ideas—to remember that he was of a substance too fine to be in fairness roughly used. ”

“ The young man gave Mr. Coyle a more perceptive glance. "I'm sure he wouldn't do anything dishonorable."
"Well—it won't look right. He must be made to feel that—work it up. Give him a comrade's point of view—that of a brother-in-arms."
"That's what I thought we were going to be!" young Lechmere mused, romantically, much uplifted by the nature of the mission imposed on him. "He's an awfully good sort."
"No one will think so if he backs out!" said Spencer Coyle.
"They mustn't say it to me!" his pupil rejoined, with a flush. ”

“ Coyle became so nervous about their persecuted young friend, and so possessed by the fear that that wicked girl had availed herself of his invitation to put him to an abominable test, that she begged her husband to go and look into the matter, at whatever cost to his own equilibrium. ”

“ When he figures out where we are going, he’ll start something.”
“I don’t quite see what he can do.”
“Nor I, but we didn’t foresee what he would do last time. He killed poor Coyle, and he didn’t leave enough evidence to prove in a law court that he did it.”
“He’d ought to be behind the bars right now—him an’ that Black too,” the foreman said bitterly.
“But they’re not—and they won’t be. That’s his reputation, to do all sorts of deviltry and get away with it. That’s why men won’t cross him, why they’re so afraid of him. He’s got no scruples and he’s as cunning as the devil.” ”

“ Coyle looked at his watch.
"You may smoke one cigarette."
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned round to see his wife tilting candlegrease upon his coat. The ladies were going to bed, and it was Sir Philip's inveterate hour; but Mrs. Coyle confided to her husband that after the dreadful things he had told her she positively declined to be left alone, for no matter how short an interval, in any part of the house. He promised to follow her within three minutes, and after the orthodox hand-shakes the ladies rustled away. ”

“ He could afford the time, he was so well up—when Spencer Coyle remembered how well up he was he could have boxed his ears. The tall, athletic young man was not physically a subject for simplified reasoning; but there was a troubled gentleness in his handsome face, the index of compunction mixed with pertinacity, which signified that if it could have done any good he would have turned both cheeks. He evidently didn't pretend that his wisdom was superior; he only presented it as his own. It was his own career, after all, that was in question. ”

“ Although strictly conservative by profession, as became a lady of ancient family, Miss Coyle had that kind of radicalism which consists in detesting every one better off than herself. She cherished a savage hatred of Beatrix, considering it an injustice in the distribution of wealth and power that a young woman of twenty [225] should have ten thousand a year, and a fine old mansion at her sole disposal, while she, Dulcinea Coyle, should be cabined, cribbed, and confined in a cottage hardly big enough for a dovecote. True that the cottage was pretty, and that Miss Coyle was fond and proud of it ”

“ Coyle to-day.
Flo Dear papa, how I wish you would get another agent.
Sir E Nonsense, Florence, impossible. He knows my affairs. His father was agent for the late Baronet. He's one of the family, almost.
Flo Papa, I have implicit faith in my own judgement of faces. Depend upon it, that man is not to be trusted.
Sir E Florence, you are ridiculous. I could not get on a week without him. [Aside.] Curse him, I wish I could! Coyle is a most intelligent agent, and a most faithful servant of the family.
Enter Binny, L. 3 E.
Binny Mr. Coyle and hagent with papers. ”

“ Coyle started vigorous applause at this, but now another spoke up.
[159]
“I haven’t a thing to say against Griffin,” he began. “He’s well up in the drill, and understands the duties of a captain; but the same is true of Graham, and I’m sure that most of the officers will vote for him. I don’t believe we could elect Griffin.”
“Oh, shucks! We can elect him if we all hang together,” cried Coyle, springing to his feet again. “Now see here—there are twenty-two officers, and in Company C there are forty men. ”

“ This temptation, however, said nothing to Spencer Coyle, for whom, as a strong character revealing itself in color and sound, she was as a spectacle, and who was glad to regard her as a force exerted on his own side. He wished her nephew had more of her narrowness instead of being almost cursed with the tendency to look at things in their relations. He wondered why, when she came up to town, she always resorted to Baker Street for lodgings. He had never known nor heard of Baker Street as a residence—he associated it only with bazaars and photographers. ”

“ But at the same instant he heard a sound in the room—the occupant was doing to the window something which showed him that he might knock without the reproach of waking his pupil up. Young Lechmere came in fact to the door in his shirt and trousers. He admitted his visitor in some surprise, and when the door was closed again Spencer Coyle said:
"I don't want to make your life a bur den to you, but I had it on my conscience to see for myself that you're not exposed to undue excitement."
"Oh, there's plenty of that!" said the ingenuous youth. "Miss Julian came down again." ”

“ Now Jug Coyle (mistress of the shebeen hard-by) --this was a tremendous secret--was deeply involved in the affairs of the society. Her back garden contained many more pike-heads than praties. It stood to reason that she should be so involved, for was she not a collough, a trafficker in charms and simples, who was called in by the peasantry around for the curing of their bodily ills; and was it possible for one who was bone of their bone to refrain from meddling with their wrongs also? ”

“ Even he had lesser men in authority under him and many of those who were almost directly under his employ believed that they were allied to the regular secret police and did not know of their employer's official capacity.
Tom Coyle, a huge rough bearded Irishman who in outward appearance might have passed anywhere for a Russian, was not less efficient or less loved and trusted by me than O'Malley. As a proprietor of a cab stand every driver was a minion of his and served him precisely as O'Malley's waiters did their chief ”

“ It was indeed a military house, and she was, at any rate, a person who placed her ideal of manhood (young persons doubtless always had their ideals of manhood) in the type of the belted warrior. It was a taste like another; but, even a quarter of an hour later, finding himself near young Lechmere, in whom this type was embodied, Spencer Coyle was still so ruffled that he addressed the innocent lad with a certain magisterial dryness. "You're not to sit up late, you know. ”

“ Petersburg. Every one of the waiters in his establishment were spies in his employ brought with him from Paris, and not one of them knew of my existence. Thus they did their work in the dark, but they did it well. Another Irishman, Tom Coyle, who looked like a Russian, established a cab stand on the English plan, and he had a small army of men under him who worked in the same way as Malet's servants. A Frenchman and his wife—their names were St. Cyr—ran a high class intelligence office, and furnished valets, maids, cooks, coachmen, etc., for the best families at the Russian capitol. ”

“ M. and Georgina.]
Closed In.
Scene 2—Library in Trenchard Manor. Oriel Window, L. C., with curtains. Two chairs and table brought on at change.
Enter Binny and Coyle, L. 1 E.
Binny Sir Hedward will see you directly, Mr. Coyle.
Coyle Very well. House full of company, I see, Mr. Binny.
Binny Cram full, Mr. Coyle. As one of the first families in the country we must keep up our position.
Coyle [Rubbing his hands.] Certainly, certainly, that is as long as we can, Mr. Binny. Tell Murcott, my clerk, to bring my papers in here. ”

“ Might as well be in a reform school, and done with it.”
[161]
“Right you are,” responded Coyle. “Gordon and Hamlin have managed somehow to get hold of about all the section except you and me, and they’ve set ’em all to digging. Not much like last year, is it? Who’d ever have believed that Crawford would go over to the L. A. O.! He’s as meek as Moses now-a-days.”
“So he is,” echoed Barber, “an’ if we have Graham or Raleigh for captain, the drill will be as bad as the school-room. They’ll make the fellows toe the mark and be down on ’em like sixty for the least thing wrong.” ”

“ Asa Yes, I think the next thing will be to get washed. You're not a handsome man at best, and now you're awful. [Coyle makes a dash at Murcott. Asa catches him and turns him round to R.] Mr. Coyle, in your present state of mind, you had better go first.
Coyle [Bitterly.] Oh, sir, it is your turn now.
Asa Yes, it is my turn, but you can have the first wash. Come along Murcott. [Exeunt, R. 1 E]
Change Scene
Scene 7—Library in Trenchard Manor in 3 or 4.
Sir Edward discovered seated R. of table.
Sir E The clock is on the stroke of two, and Coyle is waiting my decision. ”

“ For our own parts, we side with Coleridge. Malice is not always of the heart. There is a malice of the understanding and the fancy. Neither do we think the worse of a man for having invented the most horrible and old-woman-troubling curse that demons ever listened to. We are too apt to swear horribly ourselves; and often have we frightened the cat, to say nothing of the kettle, by our shocking [far too shocking!] oaths.
There were other celebrated men whom Coleridge detested, or seemed to detest—Paley, Sir Sidney Smith, Lord Hutchinson, (the last Lord Donoughmore,) and Cuvier. ”

“ In a letter of Sir H. Davy, addressed to his friend Mr. Poole, 1803, he thus writes of S. T. C.
"Coleridge has left London for Keswick. During his stay in town, I saw him seldomer than usual; when I did see him, it was generally in the midst of large companies, where he is the image of power and activity. His eloquence is unimpaired; perhaps it is softer and stronger. His will is less than ever commensurate with his ability. Brilliant images of greatness float upon his mind, like images of the morning clouds on the waters. ”

“ Soon the "penniless and friendless" man was to find another supporter, Thomas de Quincey, who, after meeting the poet and spending one evening in his company, supplied him anonymously, through Cottle the publisher, with a loan of three hundred pounds, without any conditions, in order that his financial troubles might be ended.
Here we have another proof of the extraordinary personal magnetism of Coleridge. However badly he might behave, his friends forgave him and continued to love him, strangers helped to smooth the rough road over which his follies drew him—all in vain. ”

“ The effect upon his intellectual activity must be a matter of speculation. De Quincey holds that it 'killed him as a poet,' but stimulated him as a philosopher (xi. 106-7) , though it doubtless weakened whatever powers of systematic application he possessed. From the first Coleridge was infirm of will, a dreamer of great schemes never to be fulfilled, diverted at any moment by his marvellous versatility from every path which he entered, and as conspicuous from first to last for the absence of all business-like power as for the presence of other faculties. ”

“ He specified as points on which they were uncomfortable, Coleridge's own letter, or letters, respecting opium, and the circumstances of a gift of three hundred pounds from Mr. De Quincey.
The truth is, that Coleridge's relations are placed in a most uncomfortable position. They cannot say that any one of themselves will bring out a full and authentic account of C. because they know how much there is, which all who have any regard for Coleridge's memory, would wish to be buried with him. But we will talk over the subject when we meet. ”

“ The condemnation which Wordsworth then passed upon it, and even the more rational and penetrating criticism which Coleridge later brought to his own analysis of the whole question of the language fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the course of the nineteenth century to a definite but uncritical tendency to disparage and underrate the entire poetic output of the period, not only of the Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum, when the old order was slowly making way for the new. ”