Mr. Lambert

“ Neither were speaking; it seemed as if Mr Lambert were placidly awaiting the arrival of his usual after-dinner sleep; the Maltese terrier was already snoring plethorically on his mistress’s lap, in a manner quite disproportioned to his size, and Mrs. Lambert’s crochet needles were moving more and more slowly through the mazes of the “bosom friend” that she was making for herself, the knowledge that the minute hand of the black marble clock was approaching the hour at which she took her postprandial pill alone keeping her from also yielding to the soft influences of a substantial meal. ”

“ Lambert a little anxiously, “indeed, I was wanting to tell you—Charlotte asked me if I could drive her over to Mrs. Waller’s to-morrow afternoon. I forgot to ask you before if you wanted the horses.”
Mr. Lambert’s fine complexion deepened by one or two shades.
“Upon my soul, Charlotte Mullen has a good cheek! She gets as much work out of my horses as I do myself. I suppose you told her you’d do it?” ”

“ She had ordered the carriage to be back in an hour, and was glad to see that it was at the door. They were seated in it and driving off before the crowd came tumbling down the stairs.
Mr. Lambert sank back in his seat, looking so pale that his companion was really alarmed. She said nothing, however, but fanned him continually till they reached his own door. She herself alighted and rang the bell for the valet to assist his master, who muttered to himself,—
"Whatever he's been up to, he looks like death." ”

“ Lambert was very fond of her; and Mr. Lambert had so firmly resolved on allowing a proper interval to elapse between his wife’s death and that election of her successor upon which he was determined, that he looked upon the present episode as of small importance, and merely a permissible relaxation to a man whose hunting had been stopped, and who had, in a general way, been having the devil of a dull time. He was to go back to Lismoyle on Monday, the first of the year; and it was settled that he was to take Francie on Sunday afternoon to walk on Kingstown pier. ”

“ He possesses the milk of human kindness in an uncommon degree. He is a second Mr. Regy. I am confident that any sum of money I would consent to ask him for in behalf of my protégés would not be refused; and all the time he would be grumbling that it was good money thrown away on a thankless class of vagrants."
"What is Mr. Lambert's full address," inquired the doctor, rising in an excited manner. ”

“ Lambert’s official manner to point out to him the [Pg 29] futility of such a quest; for the most rigid believer in the artlessness of human nature would have known that the sheets destined to meet the forthcoming scrutiny, after all that had been written and read about their previous state, would be characterised, as far as possible, by scrupulous purity. However, being in a position to be thankful for the smallest mercy, I accepted Mr. Lambert’s offer, and drove down to the asylum, with my husband, on the following morning. Mr. ”

“ In spite of his claims upon the sympathy of Lismoyle, Mr. Lambert looked remarkably well able to compete with his lot in life, as he sat smoking his pipe in his dinner costume of carpet slippers and oldest shooting coat, a couple of evenings after Francie’s arrival. As a rule the Lamberts preferred to sit in their dining-room. The hard magnificence of the blue rep chairs in the drawing-room appealed to them from different points of view; Mrs. Lambert holding that they were too good to be used except by “company,” while Mr. ”

“ Mr. Lambert was over sixty; but his hair, naturally light, had not turned gray, and was cut short to his head.
"He stoops a little," added the nurse, "and makes frightful faces. Some of the little ones were afraid of him, but before he went away he coaxed them to sit in his lap and put their hands in his pockets, where they found nuts and raisins and candy in abundance. A lady came in to see a little cripple, and as she passed him surrounded by a group of them, Neddy's chair rolled as close as he could get it, she remarked, smiling, 'It's a blessed work, sir.'"
"Mr. ”

“ Since his death he has become a synonym for hugeness. Mr. George Meredith, in 'One of our Conquerors,' describes London as the 'Daniel Lambert of cities,' Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his 'Study of Sociology,' speaks of a 'Daniel Lambert of learning,' and Mr. Donisthorpe, in his 'Individualism,' of a 'Daniel Lambert view of the salus populi.'
A suit of Lambert's clothes is preserved at Stamford, and in the King's Lynn Museum is a waistcoat of his with a girth of 102 inches. There are several portraits of Lambert ”

“ Planter glanced from clouded eyes at George. His lips between the white hair smiled amiably.
"I don't believe I remember——"
"It's one of Lambert's business friends," Sylvia said, hastily. "Mr. Morton."
The old man shifted his cane and held out his hand.
"Lambert," he joked, "says he's going to make more money through you than I can hope to leave him. You seem to have got the jump on a lot of shrewd men. I'll see you at dinner? Lambert isn't coming to-night?"
George briefly clasped the hand of the big man.
"I must go back to town this afternoon." ”

“ Had his life been protracted, there is every reason to believe, from the process which usually takes place in minds constituted like his, that after an interval of scepticism, these feelings of piety would have returned in their full force. At the same time he indulged himself in satirical effusions on his master, and such of his schoolfellows as had provoked either his resentment or his ridicule.
On the first of July, 1767, he was taken from school, and apprenticed for seven years to Mr. John Lambert, attorney, of Bristol, to be instructed in the art of a scrivener. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was on Cock Hill, passing the time of inaction away by looking down on the Castle that had flouted him so often. His thrifty mind was busy with new methods of attack, when he saw Rupert with his advance-guard come up the High Street. The light—a strong sun beating down through heavy rain-clouds—-showed a clear picture of the horsemen. By the carriage of their heads, by the way they sat their horses, Lambert knew them for Cavaliers. As he was puzzling out the matter—loth to doubt Sir John Mallory's good faith—a man of the town came running up. ”

“ He fancied at intervals he was going back to Paris to his little home there, and that he would find Elsie at the piano, and Madame Weber knitting. Then he would pull himself together, and think hard of a certain plan he was trying to mature.
Reaching the little inn he called for his horse, and asked for a glass of ale.
"You'll have to ride sharp," said the landlord, as Lambert paid his bill. "I thought you wouldn't be back in time; that's what you artist gentlemen don't think of. We've lots of 'em sketching about Denham woods in summer-time." ”

“ Here's a rogue with love-locks—they say he's Prince Rupert—come with a press of horsemen. He's talking with Sir John Mallory fair in front of the Castle gateway."
Lambert's temper fired. What he had seen accorded with the townsman's view. Something quixotic in the man's nature, that always waited on his unguarded moments, bade him go down and ask the meaning of it all. It seemed to him that his faith in all men would go, root and branch, if Sir John Mallory were indeed less than a simple, upright gentleman. ”

“ 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'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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was riding one of Vesta Philbrook's horses, a circumstance that sharpened Lambert's interest in him at once.
As they closed the distance between them, Lambert keeping his hand in the easy neighborhood of his gun, the man raised his hand, palm forward, in the Indian sign of peace. Lambert saw that he wore a shoulder holster which supported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn-looking man with a narrow face, a mustache that crowded Taterleg's for the championship, a buckskin vest with pearl buttons. His coat was tied on the saddle at his back. ”

“ Amid the hardships and scant diversions of this life, Lambert spent his first winter in the Bad Lands, drinking in the noisy revels at Misery, riding the long, bitter miles back to the ranch, despising himself for being so mean and low. It was a life in which a man's soul would either shrink to nothing or expand until it became too large to find contentment within the horizon of such an existence. ”

“ He recognized the clump of trees under which we were standing, the grouping of the woods, the color of the water, the turrets of the chateau, the details, the distance, in fact every part of the prospect which we looked on for the first time. We were mere children; I, at any rate, who was but thirteen; Louis, at fifteen, might have the precocity of genius, but at that time we were incapable of falsehood in the most trivial matters of our life as friends. Indeed, if Lambert's powerful mind had any presentiment of the importance of such facts, he was far from appreciating their whole bearing ”

“ 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!" ”