Oswald

“ The path now issued into the highroad, where a free open view of the country round was to be had. Oswald drew rein a moment, and gazed about him searchingly--but in vain. He saw nothing but a broad, white expanse of plain, at some distance the dark firs on Stag's Hill standing out in sombre relief, and beyond them the lowering mists of an overcast winter forenoon.
All around was desolate; not a living creature was to be seen. The hope of barring Edmund's passage proved illusory. He must have passed long since. The track of his sledge was distinctly visible on the freshly-fallen snow. ”

“ Whilst they held such language as this around Oswald, he proceeded with the utmost speed towards the madhouse, and the crowd, by whom he was censured, followed him with a confused sentiment of involuntary enthusiasm. As Oswald approached the house, he saw, at the only window which was not surrounded with flames, a number of lunatics, who regarded the progress of the fire with that horrid kind of smile which either supposes ignorance of all the ills of life, or so much grief at the bottom of the soul that death in no shape can terrify it. ”

“ No human being had ever yet made so deep an impression upon Oswald as this strange boy. He loved him as the artist loves the work with which he is occupied, as the father loves his son in whom he hopes to realize what he has himself failed to accomplish, as a mother loves her child for whom she has to work, to watch, and to care. ”

“ A flash of lightning reveals, in the rear, the dwarf climbing up the mountain, leading Oswald by the hand. Instantly loud and prolonged shouting bursts up from about a hundred feet below. The two come hurrying forward along the ledge. Oswald's face is streaked with blood and from the end of its black cord, his silver crucifix, likewise stained, dangles almost to his knees. Gradually it slips lower and lower till it finally falls and lies upon the grass. Having reached the path, they make their way up and are soon lost to view. ”

“ Oswald's brow contracted darkly, and he replied with much irritation:
'How often have I begged you to spare me this perpetual banter? Cannot you desist from it for once, if it be only for a moment?'
Count Edmund, who greatly enjoyed the spectacle of his cousin's wrath, broke into a fit of laughter.
'Make your mind easy,' he said. 'I should be the first to protest against an exchange, and I hardly think Hedwig would be disposed to agree to it. I have no intention of abdicating in your favour. But now come. ”

“ Of Oswald's mother; of the conduct of her family towards her; of the insensate folly--it was his son called it so--that still estranged Sir Philip from Oswald Cray. They talked freely and fully as though they had been intimate for years--far more confidentially than Oswald had ever talked to his half-brother.
"I shall be proud of your friendship, Oswald," cried the young man, warmly; "if that's not an ominous word for one of us. But I fancy you inherit the family failing far more than I. You will be one of the world's great men yet, making yourself a name that the best might envy." ”

“ Reassured upon the score of Lady Oswald, Oswald quitted Mark, and went amidst the wounded. Proud man though he was accused of being, though he was, never was there a tenderer heart, a softer hand, a gentler voice for the sick and suffering, than his. All the patients appeared to have been attended to in some degree; and they were in good hands now. Oswald halted by the side of the poor stoker, a swarthy honest-faced man, who was moaning out his pain.
"What, is it you, Bigg?" he said, recognising the man. ”

“ He sat up, and again looked round the hut. The bunches of herbs dangling from their string looked ghostly in the grey light. Oswald, lying on a bed of bracken, slept soundly.
Peregrine got up from his couch, donned his clothes, barely conscious that he did so. His mind was busily astir; though as yet his thoughts had found no conscious articulation. Being clad, he took a chunk of bread from a shelf. This much he knew his host would have freely given him. Then he moved softly to the door, opened it.
The forest lay in the quiet which reigns most supremely betwixt night and dawn. ”

“ And now, when everything in the house and the barn was safe, Oswald had time to draw his breath and think, and to remember with despair exactly who it was that had launched a devastating fire-balloon over the peaceful marsh.
It was getting dusk by this time; but even the splendour of all those burning ricks against the darkening sky was merely wormwood and gall to Oswald's upright heart, and he jolly soon saw that it was the same to Dicky's. ”

“ In this very room, where she now stood, Oswald had been born. The poor little boy, sent adrift as may be said without a home, motherless, as good as fatherless, had worked out his own way in the world, striving always to make a friend of God. Ah, when did it ever fail? It is the only sure help in life.
And what had her own later troubles been; her cares, anxieties, sorrows? Looking back, Sara saw great cause to reproach herself: why had she so given way to despair? ”

“ This youngest was named Oswald; though he always accompanied his brothers to war, and was the very bravest of all the knights, he thought it was useless to fight about everything. Life would be much happier if people were kind and peace-loving; and unless there were a serious question to fight about, he did not believe in fighting at all. He much preferred to roam the forest, studying the sky and the trees, or the lovely waters of the clear blue lakes. ”

“ I'll take it," she said, in answer to the chair he offered. "And I will take off my fur," she added, unwinding a boa from her neck, and untying her bonnet-strings. "Your room feels very warm to one coming in from the keen air outside."
There was something in her frank manners that struck most pleasingly on the mind of Oswald. She sat there as confidingly in his room as though he had been her brother: a good, modest, single-minded woman, whom even a bad man could not do otherwise than respect. ”

“ And Oswald's knights?
Vig. Sleep in Avesta's dungeons.
Bion. Banissat,
Avesta's golden prince, speak you the doom
Of Bertrand——
Ard. Doom? O——
Ber. Do not waste the breath
A kiss may save. A thousand times, your lips!
Ard. [To Biondel] Let him not die!
Vig. You'll pray soon that he may!
Speak, noble prince.
Ban. I, lord of conquered Suli,
Condemn the son of Oswald unto death
By crucifixion. Be his body nailed
Upon the cross now raised on Kidmir peak,
That Oswald may behold his groaning son,
And every Christian dog look up and see
How dies the Prophet's enemy. ”

“ Holding the dog by his long, curly hair, Oswald went across the meadow. On the steps the noise of Boncœur's paws deadened the sound of his own light footsteps, and thus he crept along on the veranda which surrounded the cottage till he came to the window. The window was open, and through the Venetian ivy which had been trained over it Oswald looked into the room. ”

“ Oswald never hesitated. He crammed the cricket-ball into his pocket and climbed up the shelves and unbolted the trap-door, and shoved it up, and pulled himself up through it. Though above all was dark and smelled of spiders, Oswald fearlessly shut the trap-door down again before he struck a match. He always carries matches. He is a boy fertile in every subtle expedient. ”

“ At such a time one feels instinctively a desire to sigh out to the stars alone one's bliss or misery. Do my words displease you again? Oswald, my mother has just solemnly proclaimed me head of the house and representative-in-chief of the family. In this exalted capacity, I now forbid me those black looks of yours, and call on you to show a smiling countenance. I will have no clouds, nothing but sunshine, in this my Castle of Ettersberg.'
He would have thrown his arms about his cousin's shoulder in the old familiar fashion, but the Countess suddenly stepped between the two. ”

“ May I inquire that?"
"I knew Master Edward before I knew you, sir," replied Oswald.
"Then you had better follow him," rejoined the Intendant, in an angry tone.
"Very well, sir," replied Oswald, who quitted the room. "Good Heaven! how all my plans have been frustrated!" exclaimed the Intendant, when he was alone. He then read the letter over more carefully than he had done at first. "'Circumstances had occurred of which no explanation could be given by him.' I do not comprehend that -- I must see Patience." ”

“ Then said Ina: "What more could be done by Oswald?--Will men help a Saxon?"
"This must be between ourselves, King Ina," Jago said plainly. "It is in my mind that if Oswald and I or some known lord of the British will go to that place and sit there quietly with rewards in our hands, we may learn much; for men fear Gerent the king in his wrath, and they fled from his coming."
"So be it," said Ina. "Oswald shall go, and it seems to me that every day is precious, so that he shall go at once. Is there thought that Owen may be taken out of the country, as Oswald was taken?" ”

“ Aunt Bettina nodded her stately head. "I like Mr. Oswald Cray. He is a favourite of mine, Lady Oswald."
"As he is of everybody's, Miss Davenal," returned Lady Oswald. "I'd have remembered him in my will but for offending the Oswald family. They are dreadfully prejudiced."
"Pinched!" echoed Miss Davenal. "Where's he pinched?"
"Prejudiced, Aunt Bettina. Lady Oswald says the Oswald family are prejudiced."
"You need not roar out in that way, Sara; I can hear, I hope. I am not so deaf as all that comes to. What's he prejudiced at?--the railway? He ought not to be, he is one of its engineers." ”

“ Davenal, scarcely understanding in his surprise. "Oswald Cray true! Yes, Lady Oswald. Never man lived yet more honestly true than Oswald Cray."
He looked towards Oswald Cray as he spoke, pacing the broad middle walk with his son and Sara; at the calm good face with its earnest expression, every line, every feature speaking truth and honour; and the doctor's judgment re-echoed his words.
"Yes, Lady Oswald, he is a true man, whatever else he may be." ”

“ Here Oswald looked the whole world in the face, proud indeed! One hand rested upon the beast's kneecap in a proprietary caress. Oswald looked too insufferably complacent. It was the look to be forgiven a man only when he wears it in the presence of his first-born. If snapshots tell anything at all, these told that Oswald was the father of a mammoth sauropod and had merely dug up the baby in a fossil bed somewhere.
"That's where the man's heart really lies," said his stern critic, "even if he does drivel about his little flower with bones and a voice! ”

“ The dark brown of that magnificent hair contrasted with the ivory white of a complexion which was only relieved by transient blushes of faint rose-colour, that came and went with emotion or excitement.
"Be good enough to take a seat," said Sir Oswald: "I wish to have a little conversation with you. I want to help you, if I can. You do not seem fitted for the life you are leading; and I am convinced that you possess talent which would elevate you to a far higher sphere. ”

“ Oswald passed his hand across his brow, which was covered with a cold sweat. In keen and terrible suspense he followed his cousin's every movement. Perhaps no interference of his would be necessary; perhaps accident might relieve him of the onerous task which he felt must be fulfilled in one way or another. Edmund had gone up to the writing-table, and as he spoke on, he took up some of the papers unthinkingly, and threw them aside without looking at them. ”

“ Mark returned to his wife. He had not quite liked to use that deliberate deceit to Oswald Cray in her presence. But Mark was ingenious in sophistries, in that kind of logic which tends to "make the worse appear the better reason," and Caroline put full faith in him as she listened to his half-apology, half-explanation.
"It would never have done to enlighten him," observed Mark. "What I have said, I said for your sake, Carine. Oswald is one who would rather let a man plod on for years on bread and cheese, than see him make a dash and raise himself at once to independence. ”

“ Although stricken down and faint from loss of blood, Oswald still lived, and witnessed with [112] anguish of mind the cowardly and ignominious flight of his army. The Mercians came over the field, killing those of the fallen who were merely wounded; but when they came to Oswald they spared him, whom they had recognised, and brought him, with staggering steps and downcast heart, into the presence of their chief.
"Thou art he, then," said Penda, addressing him, "who darest to invade my dominions—the dominions of a descendant of Woden—thou, a worshipper of false gods!" ”

“ There stood Sara Davenal. She had stayed with Mrs. Cray later than she intended, and was hastening home to dinner: in leaving the Abbey by this back entrance a few minutes of the road were saved.
They met face to face. Sara's heart stood still, and her countenance changed from white to red with emotion. And Oswald?--all the love that he had been endeavouring to suppress returned in its deepest force.
Ah, it is of no use! Try as we may, we cannot evade the laws of nature; we cannot bend them to our own will. ”

“ Oswald always took a joke as if you'd made it beside the casket holding all that was mortal of his dear mother. In the presence of lightsome talk poor Oswald was just a chill. He was an eater of spoon-meat, and finicking. He could talk like Half Hours With the World's Best Authors, and yet had nothing to say but words.
Still, I enjoyed them evenings. I learned to be interested in vital questions and to keep up with the world's best thought, in company with these gents that was a few laps ahead of it. But not so with the motherless chit. ”