Meyrick

“ He had only countered with a mild: "What do you do that for, Pelly?" when the brave one smacked his head. "Because I hate sneaks and funks," Pelly had replied and Meyrick said no more. Rawson took a smaller size in victims when it was a question of physical torments; but he had invented a most offensive tale about Meyrick and had told it all over the school, where it was universally believed. ”

“ However, the head-lines of the Mail were staring up at him from the bench. He stooped, pocketed the paper, and growled:
"I understand. Come on!"
There must be some escape. The trap seemed absurdly simple. Across the hotel lawn, down the hot avenue, in the less hot plaza, Meyrick sought a way. A naturally impulsive man, he had difficulty restraining himself. But he thought of his daughter, whose happiness was more than money in his eyes.
No way offered. At the counter of the tiny bank Meyrick stood writing his check, Gonzale at his elbow. ”

“ Certainly he did not repeat the adventure of Little Russell Row, nor, so far as I am aware, did he address anyone besides his old schoolmaster in a Rabelaisian epistle. There are certain acts of lunacy which are like certain acts of heroism: they are hardly to be achieved twice by the same men.
But Meyrick continued to do odd things. He became a strolling player instead of becoming a scholar of Balliol. ”

“ Poor Meyrick! He is one more chapter in her history."
"But what do you think of the designs?"
"They are frightful. Lock the book up again, Austin. If I were you I would burn it; it must be a terrible companion even though it be in a chest."
"Yes, they are singular drawings. But I wonder what connection there could be between Meyrick and Mrs. ”

“ MEYRICK, FREDERICK (1827–1906) , divine, born at Ramsbury vicarage, Wiltshire, on 28 Jan. 1827, was the youngest son of Edward Graves Meyrick, vicar of Ramsbury, by his wife Myra Howard. He claimed descent from the ancient family of Meyricks of Bodorgan, Anglesey, through Rowland Merrick or Meyrick, bishop of Bangor, 1559-66 [q. v.] . Educated first at Ramsbury school, he won a scholarship at Trinity College, Oxford, and matriculated on 12 June 1843. He graduated B.A., with a second class in final classical school, in 1847, and proceeded M.A. in 1850. ”

“ Rawson, who would not have put his observations into such terms, drew his own conclusions readily enough and imparted them to Pelly after Chapel. "Look here, old chap," he said, "did you notice young Meyrick at breakfast?"
Pelly simply blasted Meyrick and announced his intention of giving him the worst thrashing he had ever had at an early date.
"Don't you try it on," said Rawson. "I had my eye on him all the time. He didn't see I was spotting him. He's cracked; he's dangerous. ”

“ Meyrick was a lover of antiquity and a special lover of survivals, but he could never see that the round of Greek syntax, and Latin prose, of Elegiacs and verbs in μι with the mystery of the Oratio obliqua and the Optative, was one of the most strange and picturesque survivals of modern life. It is to be noted, by the way, that the very meaning of the word "scholar" has been radically changed. ”

“ Meyrick told his son why old Cradock was to be treated with respect—indeed, with reverence.
"He is just what he looks," he said, "an old farmer with a small freehold up here on the mountain side; and, as you heard, his English is no better than that of any other farmer in this country. And, compared with Cradock, the Duke of Norfolk is a man of yesterday. He is of the tribe of Teilo the Saint ”

“ Of the bishop's three bitterest enemies, Young and Constantine sought his pardon before his martyrdom in 1555, but Meyrick made no such concession. The accession of Mary, shortly followed by Meyrick's marriage in 1554 to Catherine, daughter of Owen Barret of Gellyswick and Hascard, Pembrokeshire, put a period to Meyrick's advancement, and he was ejected from his canonry at St. ”

“ Harrowby suggested.
Mr. Huntley rose promptly to his feet.
"Nix," he said. "There's a door out of that room leading into the hall. If you go in there, I go, too."
Mr. Meyrick glared. Harrowby stood embarrassed.
"Very well," said Meyrick through his teeth. "We'll stay here. It doesn't matter to me. I simply want to say, Lord Harrowby, that when you get to Jersey City you needn't trouble to come back, as far as my family is concerned." ”

“ After living there for a year, or perhaps a little more, she disappeared as suddenly as she came, and they saw nothing of her till about the time of the Paul Street case. At first she came to her old haunts only occasionally, then more frequently, and finally took up her abode there as before, and remained for six or eight months. It’s of no use my going into details as to the life that woman led; if you want particulars you can look at Meyrick’s legacy. ”

“ Meyrick who fell into shell holes and lost his rifle or the jam for his section; Meyrick who forgot to lie down when a flare went up, but stood vacantly gazing at it until partially stunned by his next-door neighbour. Periodically messages would [65] come through from the next regiment asking if they'd lost the regimental pet, and that he was being returned. It was always Meyrick....
"I can't do nothing with 'im, sir." It was the Company-Sergeant-Major speaking to Seymour. "'E seems soft like in the 'ead. Whenever 'e does do anything and doesn't forget, 'e does it wrong. ”

“ In early life, 'he was a notorious freebooter and highwayman,' and levied black mail on the country within reach of his mountain abode, with the aid of a small band of followers. He soon reformed, married a rich heiress, was then created a justice of peace for Brecon, and ultimately became sheriff of that county and Carmarthenshire. He was, observes Sir S.R. Meyrick, esteemed as an antiquarian and poet, but is more known for the tricks attributed to him as a robber. ”

“ He had rare tact, too, in talking to women. Of all the ladies on the Algeria, I question if there were any but the staunchest Protestants. Some few held themselves aloof at first and declined an introduction. "Father Shamrock! An Irish priest! How can Miss Meyrick walk with him and present him as she does?" But the party of recalcitrants grew less and less, and Fanny Meyrick was very frank in her admiration. "Convert you?" ”

“ Wood) .
Meyrick left four sons: Sir Gelly, who is separately noticed; Francis, Harry, and John. Francis, like his elder brother, served under and was knighted by Essex in Ireland, died in 1603, and was buried in the Priory Church of Monkton, Pembrokeshire, where his monument was destroyed during the civil wars; he was father of Sir John Meyrick (d. 1659) [q. v.] ”

“ Horbury had evidently made upon some of his oldest friends; but Meyrick was, to the last, an infidel. He read the verses in the Guardian (he would never subscribe to the Luptonian) and jeered savagely at the whole sentiment of the memoir, and at the poetry, too.
"Isn't it incredible?" he would say. "Let's allow that the main purpose of the great Public Schools is to breed brave average boobies by means of rocker, sticker and mucker and the rest of it. ”

“ Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be glad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still more, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair. Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the intensity of Mirah’s feeling about Judaism would slowly subside, and be merged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with her new friends. In fact, her secret favorite continuation of the romance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but something much more favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. ”

“ They talked no more on the subject, and presently Catharine Elsmere rose, and went into the house.
Mary sat on by the water-side thinking. Meynell's aspect, Meynell's words, were in her mind—little traits too and incidents of his parochial life that she had come across in the village. A man might preach and preach, and be a villain! But for a man—a hasty, preoccupied, student man—so to live, through twenty years, among these vigorous, quick-tempered, sharp-brained miners, as to hold the place among them Richard Meynell held, was not to be done by any mere pretender, any spiritual charlatan. ”

“ We know him!" The speaker brought one massive hand down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And don't you, my friends"—he turned to the room—"don't you be turned back from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with Mr. Meynell in many of his views. ”

“ But I—will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me—what does it matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!—we could keep it from her—we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it could disgrace Edith and the girls—people would only say she and Ralph had been very good to me. But Richard Meynell!—with these trials coming on—and all the excitement about him—there'll be ever so many who would be wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is—they'll want to crush him! And he—he'll never say a word for himself—to explain—never! ”

“ No effort must be spared by the Church party to obtain the right men.
Meanwhile, in the drawing-room which he had left, there was silence for a moment after his departure. Then Meynell said:
"I am afraid I frightened him away. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Flaxman."
Rose laughed, and glanced at the girl sitting hidden behind the tea-table.
"Oh, I had had quite enough of Mr. Barron. Mr. Meynell, have I ever introduced you to my niece?"
"Oh, but we know each other!" said Meynell, eagerly. "We met first at Miss Puttenham's, a week ago—and since then—Miss Elsmere has been visiting a woman I know." ”

“ There had sprung up in Mary's mind, indeed, a saeva indignatio, not for herself, but for Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must sometimes be forgotten in a natural resentment for high aims thwarted, and a great movement risked, by the wicked folly of a girl of eighteen, on whom every affection and every care had been lavished.
"The roads will be impassable to-morrow," said Catharine, drawing aside the curtain, only to see a window already blocked with drifted snow. ”

“ Treherne, the dear old scholar in whose house they had met to draw up the Manifesto, under the shadow of the Cathedral, pressed his hand and launched a Latin quotation; Rollin, fat, untidy and talkative as ever, could not refrain from "interviewing" Meynell, for a weekly paper; while Derrick, the Socialist and poet, talked to him in a low voice and with eyes that blazed, of certain "brotherhoods" that had been spreading the Modernist faith, and Modernist Sacraments among the slums of a great midland town. ”

“ And—it is very odd, but—it was just on these occasions that Meyerl felt himself drawn to his home. In the street things were as usual, but at home it was like being in Shool during the Solemn Days at the blowing of the ram's horn, when so many tall "fathers" stand with prayer-scarfs over their heads, and hold their breath, and when out of the distance there comes, unfolding over the heads of the people, the long, loud blast of the Shofar. ”

“ Some such conviction is essential to the religious leader—to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it was not withheld from Richard Meynell.
When he rose and went out, he saw coming toward him a man he knew well—Fenton, the Vicar of a church on the outskirts of Markborough, famous for its "high" doctrine and services; a young boyish fellow, curly haired, in whom the "gayety" that Catholicism, Anglican or Roman, prescribes to her most devout children was as conspicuous as an ascetic and labourious life. Meynell loved and admired him. ”

“ The handwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestral estate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or the village spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walked on Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of his threefold dignity—as squire, magistrate, and churchwarden.
"It's my business to fight him!" Meynell thought, looking at the house, and squaring his broad shoulders unconsciously. "It's not my business to hate him—not at all—rather to respect and sympathize with him. ”

“ The two heads drew together again, and Meynell resumed conversation, talking rapidly, in a kind, persuasive voice, putting the common sense of the situation—holding out distant hopes. The young man's face gradually cleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached to his mentor.
At last the Rector sprang up, consulting his watch.
"I must send you off, and go to sleep. But we'll talk of this again."
"Sleep!" exclaimed Barron, astonished. "It's just seven o'clock. What are you up to now?"
"There's a drunken fellow in the village—dying—and his wife won't look after him. ”

“ Every one knows the truth now—every one who cares; and every one understands. But now—after the effort poor Alice has made—after all that she and you have suffered—you insist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives, your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it—how they may interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!—no right whatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself—but—to Mary!"
Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynell rose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her. ”