Nettleton

“ When I visited the camp of the rebels last week, what was my surprise to meet her. I learned her history, and I found she was detained as a prisoner. But it is growing late. In ten minutes we must meet the general. I will explain all this at some future time."
"Ah! here comes Nettleton. I want him," said the captain.
Nettleton entered the tent.
"William, tell me which you prefer: to serve in the ranks, or to act as my body-guard?"
"Why, captain, I want to remain just as I am. Why? You don't want to have me superceded, do you?"
"Oh! no; but why do you object to being in the ranks?" ”

“ He could fancy her expression at every line and the culmination of scorn with which she would read the last few words. For there could be very little doubt that Marcia Nettleton was perusing the following paragraph: "A marriage has been arranged between Mr. Frederick Nettleton, second son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel R. Nettleton (Coldstream Guards) , and Miss Celestine Vincent, daughter of the late Mr. William Vincent, of Brighton, and granddaughter of Mr. Noel Forrester, of Mere Park, Shropshire." ”

“ The Indian pointed to the cavern.
“Walker, too?”
Fall-leaf nodded, and scowled so fiercely that Nettleton perceived the savage wanted no interference in his case.
“Shan’t I do the job for ye?”
“No—Fall-leaf mad. Me kill ’em—you go way.”
“That’s the talk, Ingen. You shall have your man; but, Jerusalem, don’t I ache to git my paws on him!”
A noise was now heard in the cave; it was Walker’s voice. “I’ll not permit you to sing, I again tell you. If those men crossing the river are Union soldiers, you shall not betray our whereabouts, and if Fall-leaf moves I’ll shoot him!” ”

“ The ramshackle wooden hotels about the square were all hung with flags and paper lanterns, and as Harney and Charity turned into the main street, with its brick and granite business blocks crowding out the old low-storied shops, and its towering poles strung with innumerable wires that seemed to tremble and buzz in the heat, they saw the double line of flags and lanterns tapering away gaily to the park at the other end of the perspective. The noise and colour of this holiday vision seemed to transform Nettleton into a metropolis. ”

“ He blames me for ever having truck with such a fellow in the first instance. But when a man has been science beak in a public school—and such a school—it sounds good enough for Witching Hill, doesn't it? Who would have thought he'd had the sack? Public-school masters don't often get it."
"They've got to do something pretty desperate first, I fancy," whispered Uvo, with a gleam in his sunken eyes. He had not denied the fact. I felt encouraged to elaborate my grievance against Edgar Nettleton. ”

“ We cannot be more than ten miles from our outposts, and they will not dare pursue us much farther." They had scarcely prepared to set off again, when Nettleton said:
"There come the skunks that went after the powder!"
It was true. In the opposite direction came the party of twenty. Behind, they were followed by they knew not how large a force, and before, twenty rebels were approaching. Whether they could be so easily misled this time, was a matter of considerable doubt.
"Quick—ride for the wood, Miss Alibamo. You may save yourself—we must fight. Stay! They see you. It will be too late ”

“ Nettlepoint proceeded to observe—to such idle speculations does the vacancy of sea-hours give encouragement—that she wondered whether it were better to be an ordinary girl very well brought up or an extraordinary girl not brought up at all.
“Oh I go in for the extraordinary girl under all circumstances.”
“It’s true that if you’re very well brought up you’re not, you can’t be, ordinary,” said Mrs. Nettlepoint, smelling her strong salts. “You’re a lady, at any rate.”
“And Miss Mavis is fifty miles out—is that what you mean?” ”

“ So, at least, they had seemed when Nettleship played his first match at Lord's as a freshman. They were now, it was remarked, a trifle sharp and angular. In short—though it was the face of a determined, persevering poet, at least looking the part, rather than that of a born athlete—it was a face that every one knew. Even the ladies at Lord's, who notoriously never look at the cricket, except to furnish their annual supply of high-class 'comic copy' in the form of artless comment—even the ladies knew Mr. Nettleship by sight, and really watched the game if he fielded close to the ropes. ”

“ Another pause.
'Such a thousand pities!' murmured Nettleship to himself.
'Are you referring to yourself and Elaine?' inquired Mrs. M'Ilwraith sweetly.
'Oh dear no. I was thinking of Professor Josling. The poor old chap will be so awfully cut up. After looking forward to his quiet afternoon with you—soaking in his favourite subject, and talking shop to a good listener, for once, and generally boring you to his heart's content. He is counting upon an hour's real sympathy, you may depend upon it; for clever men's wives never appreciate them, as you know, Mrs. M'Ilwraith. Poor old chap! ”

“ Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock ownership.
Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at his elbow—a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough, grizzled beard, a mass of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue eyes that confronted the formidable glasses of the examiner without a flicker.
"Er—Major Kingman, our president—er—Mr. Nettlewick," said the cashier. ”

“ On this shelf of the world he could live into old age, pack his avid brain with the master thoughts of other men, and one day, possibly, give to the world a thought system of his own.
“He kinder gives me the dumps,” remarked Fritz Nettlebeck, as he filled his pipe in the kitchen that evening. “I don’t take to people who looks as if their brains was distributed all over them. His head-piece is twice the size of an ordinary man’s, but he looks as if he kept that for Sundays, and any other part of him would do as well for other days.”
“You’re gitten imagination,” said Christina, with contempt. ”

“ Mrs. M'Ilwraith closed her eyes and gloated over the splendid impossibility for one weak, yearning, despairing minute. And during that minute Nettleship felt that he had collared the bowling at last, and might safely force the game.
'There is,' he continued accordingly, in an altered tone, 'another thing to consider—the Professor's curiosity. He means getting a sight of the vase, and, like the indelicate little boy, he won't be happy, you know, till he does get it. If you went away, he'd apply to Mr. M'Ilwraith straight. ”

“ Nettlepoint.
“Yes, if she didn’t. But you say that to protect Jasper—not to protect her,” I smiled.
“You are cold-blooded—it’s uncanny!” my friend exclaimed.
“Ah this is nothing yet! Wait a while—you’ll see. At sea in general I’m awful—I exceed the limits. If I’ve outraged her in thought I’ll jump overboard. There are ways of asking—a man doesn’t need to tell a woman that—without the crude words.”
“I don’t know what you imagine between them,” said Mrs. Nettlepoint. ”

“ But horror and love, and the awful idea that Netta's life was at stake, seemed to supply him at once with unwonted energy. He lifted it in his arms as he would have lifted a child, and straining in every limb stretched it at last full across both rails, a formidable obstacle before the approaching engine.
Hurrah! hurrah! he had succeeded now. It would throw the train off the line—and Netta would be saved for him.
To think and do all this under the spur of the circumstances took Ughtred something less than twenty seconds. In a great crisis men live rapidly. ”

“ As if in a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St. George's. The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer man!
The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the church-roof—about some repairs. He had spoken unconsciously in his diplomatic way.
It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs—but not about those of the church-roof.
Between heaven and earth is the slater's realm. Between heaven and earth, high up on the roof of St. George's Fritz Nettenmair was at work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him. ”

“ Nettie waited, gathered breath, for the talk made her heart beat, and then said, "'This is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.'"
"How can a sinful man take such a promise?" said Mr. Mathieson, with suppressed feeling. "That is for people like you, Nettie, not me."
"Oh, Jesus, has bought it!" cried Nettie; "it's free. It's without price. You may have it if you'll believe in Him and love Him, father.—I can't talk." ”

“ Tears of gladness and hope slowly gathered in Nettie's eyes. The children of God will enter in, by-and-bye, through those pearly gates, into that city of gold "where they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light."
"So He can give me light here—or what's better than light," thought Nettie. "God isn't only out there, in all that beautiful moonlight world—He is here in my poor little attic too; and He will take just as good care of me as He does of the birds, and better, for I am His child, and they are only His beautiful little servants." ”

“ Her mother would be troubled, and her father would be angry, and the lodger would be disturbed, and there was no telling how much harm would come of it. No; the peacemaker of the family must not do that. And then the words floated into Nettie's mind again, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Like a strain of the sweetest music it floated in; and if an angel had come and brought the words straight to Nettie, she could not have been more comforted. She felt the rats could not hurt her while she was within hearing of that music ”

“ The next morning Master Philip left the breakfast-table to go out on a voyage of discovery. Bestriding a handsome bay horse, his father’s latest gift, he rode down to Nestleton Forge, and arrived just in time to hear the final strophes of Blithe Natty’s latest anvil song. That vivacious son of Vulcan was engaged in sharpening and tempering millers’ chisels, and as the labour was not hard, and the blows required were light and rapid, Natty’s song dovetailed with the accompaniment:—
Every cloud has a lining of light,
Morning is certain to follow the night ”

“ There is a great deal more in nettles, I believe, than most people are apt to imagine; indeed, the nettle-philosophy at present current with the larger part of the world seems to me lamentably one-sided. As a rule, the sting is the only point in the whole organization of the family over which we ever waste a single thought. This is our ordinary human narrowness; in each plant or animal we interest ourselves about that one part alone which has special reference to our own relations with it, for good or for evil. In a strawberry, we think only of the fruit ”

“ AMONGST all the good people of Nestleton and its environs there was none who entertained a more grateful love to the fair young mistress of Waverdale Hall than Old Kasper Crabtree, to whom she had been so gentle a nurse, and by whom he had been brought into possession of the Gospel hope. Soon after the return of Philip and Lucy from their wedding trip, and when they had fairly settled down among the villagers, in the midst of whom their lives were to be spent “in giving and receiving good,” they received a message from the old man requesting an early visit. ”

“ Netta laughed. "As you know, he comes here two or three times a week and puts himself into such rages that, as he stamps up and down the room, I expect to hear a crash and to find that the dining-room ceiling has fallen down. He is a thoroughly kind-hearted man, but is a dreadful specimen of what an English gentleman may come to after he has had the command of an Indian regiment for some years, and been accustomed to have his will obeyed in everything. It is very bad for a man." ”

“ He couldn't bear to leave Netta thus alone in the field. She wouldn't allow him to see her home, to be sure, and that being so, he was too much a gentleman to force himself upon her. But he was too much a man, too, to let her find her way back so late entirely by herself. Unseen himself, he must still watch over her. Against her will, he must still protect her. He would go on to the railway, and there sit by the side of the line, under cover of the hedge, till Netta crossed by the other path. ”

“ Fritz Nettenmair gnawed his nails and ignored the gesture that was intended to excite him to ask what the fellow meant when he said, that would not last long. He went toward the living room and as he went he flew out quietly at somebody who was not there: "Uprightness? Knowledge of business, as that Philistine of an inspector says? I know why you're forcing your way in and insinuating yourself in here, you fluff-picker! Pretend to be as innocent as you like, I"—he made the gesture that meant: "I am one who know life and the species that wears long hair and aprons!" ”

“ The phantom watched them, silently.
"What made pa so cross and grim, to-night? Tell Netty—do," she pleaded.
"Oh! because;—everything went wrong with me, to-day. There." And he looked as sulky, at that moment, as he ever did in his life.
"No, no, pa-sy; that won't do. I want the particulars," continued Netty, shaking her head, smilingly.
"Particulars! Well, then, Miss Nathalie Renton," he began, with mock gravity, "your professional father is losing some of his oldest patients. Everybody is in ruinous good health; and the grass is growing in the graveyards." ”

“ If Netta has found me a tolerable companion, I have found her a charming one; and all yours and aunt Rachel's teachings—ah! I fear I'm much the debtor after all," she said, shaking her head, doubtfully, and smiling in her listener's face with artless simplicity and gratitude.
"No, no, not a debtor, Annie," he said, stroking her bright curls; "I cannot admit that. Let the benefits be mutual, if you will, nothing more. I see Netta in the garden gathering flowers. She is a good little girl, and loves you dearly, though she has none of the brilliancies that characterize your mind. ”