Plunkett

“ Young Plunkett was one of those big-headed boys who are born to make plans. It was not the first time he had considered the problem of Ralph McGregor, and he had a general idea of what ought to be done; but he was not entirely satisfied with the details of his project. He was glad of this opportunity to foment a conspiracy, and promptly took advantage of it.
"It's no fun having you rolled around in the mud, Tom," he answered, smiling; "and, as you say, it's precious little use. But I 've got a notion—" Here the boys all chuckled, for Plunkett's "notions" were a staple joke among them. ”

“ There were gaps in the thickness of the hedge, and Murtagh could see the pair quite distinctly. The child's head rested lovingly upon her father's shoulder, the golden hair scattered a little over his sleeve. One arm was round his neck, and the delicate little face was illumined by that look of perfect contentment which is almost more beautiful than a smile.
"Mr. Plunkett was walking along the Path on the Other Side of the Hedge."
"How nice it is that you are so strong, Fardie," she said caressingly, as they passed close by Murtagh.
"Are you comfortable, dear?" asked Mr. Plunkett. ”

“ Plunkett had three strong claims in his favour: he was a handsome man—a soldier—and an Irishman. The general propensity of the Quakers, in favor of the Royal cause, exempted the sect in a great measure from suspicion, in so great a degree indeed, that the barriers of the city were generally entrusted to the care of their members, as the best judges of the characters of those persons who might be allowed to pass them, without injury to the British interests. A female Friend, of low origin, officiating as a servant in a farm near the city, was in the family, on a visit to a relative. ”

“ Plunkett knows it, and after all, your martyrs of the middle ages did not do so very much more than persevere in their duty when they knew it might cost them their life."
"Yes, that is brave," said Nessa, looking up.
Her uncle's words made Mr. Plunkett's character appear to her in a new light, but they gave her an unpleasant creeping sensation. She was beginning to think that Ireland was a very unsafe place to live in.
"Well," said her uncle, as they rose to leave the dining-room, "are you convinced now of Plunkett's excellent qualities?" ”

“ Plunkett, and he bowed and left the room.
"Ah!" sighed Murtagh, on the terrace, as the children, joining him, repeated Mr. Plunkett's every word and gesture. "It is too bad the way every plan we have gets spoilt; I did think this one was going to be all right!"
"Well, you know," said Winnie, "it has been all right really. About the shirts was our last plan; and we gave back the money when we thought that part wasn't right."
"Yes; but it's all the same, the way things get mixed up. You do one little thing, and then that makes you have to do a lot more. ”

“ Plunkett was dazzled to behold.
"Lands alive, Rose Mary, you carry your thirty years mighty easy, and that's no mistake. You put me in mind of that blush peony bush of yourn by the front gate. When it blooms it makes all the other flowers look like they was too puny to shake out a petal. And for sheep's eyes, them glances Mr. Gid Newsome casts at you makes all of Bob Nickols' look like foolish lamb squints. And for what Mr. Mark does in the line of sheeps—Now there they come, and I can see from Louisa Helen's looks she have invited that rampage in to supper. ”

“ Though they do say a tiger can pick up an ox like a cat picking up a mouse, and heave it over his shoulder, and make nothing of it."
"They 'do say' a great many mistaken things," remarked a voice close behind, and Plunkett turned to find himself addressed by an elderly gentleman, military as to his moustache, and placid as to his expression. "The proportionate sizes of a tiger and an ox are rather different from those of a cat and a mouse."
"But a tiger can kill an ox, sir," protested Plunkett.
"Kill it! Ay, with a single blow of his paw! And drag it away to his lair. That's one thing. ”

“ By the way, I heard there was another person trying to locate Sanders.”
“Otis Clymer!” exclaimed Jack and Charlie in a breath.
“No,” replied Prawle, shaking his head. “It was a big man, named Plunkett.”
“Plunkett!” shouted Charlie Fox, in a tone of astonishment. “Not Dave Plunkett?”
“I didn’t hear what his first name was. Do you know somebody by that name?”
“The cheap hotel where Otis Clymer lodged of late in Sackville is kept by a man named Dave Plunkett. ”

“ PLUNKETT, JOHN HUBERT (1802–1869) , Australian statesman, was the younger of the twin sons of George Plunkett of Roscommon and Miss O'Kelly of Tycooly, co. Galway. Born at Roscommon in June 1802, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. with some distinction in 1824. He was called to the Irish bar in 1826, and joined the Connaught circuit. He soon threw himself vigorously into politics; and, as a catholic whose family properties had been confiscated under penal laws, he earnestly advocated the catholic emancipation. ”

“ Otis called for whisky, and poured out such a stiff dose that Plunkett looked at him in some surprise.
He swallowed it at a single gulp, and then asked Dave if he could see him in private.
“Cert,” answered Plunkett, regarding his customer with a suspicious stare. “But what’s up? You looked excited. You ain’t been doin’ nothin’ that’ll get you into limbo, have you?”
“Never mind what I’ve been doing,” retorted Clymer, shortly. “I’ve got something to tell you that you’ll be glad to learn.”
“Will I?” said Plunkett coolly. “Well, go into my little room, at the back of the office. ”

“ DAOUD
O master, O sole Lord of Al Shaldomir, named the elect, from that quarter.
JOHN
That quarter? Why, that is the gracious lady's innermost chamber.
DAOUD
From that quarter, great master, O Lord of the Pass.
JOHN
Daoud, I have cast men into prison for saying less than this. Men have been flogged on the feet for less than this.
DAOUD
Slay me, master, but hear my words.
JOHN
I will not slay you. You are mistaken, Daoud. You have made a great mistake. The thing is absurd. Why, the gracious lady has scarcely seen Hafiz. She knows nothing of the talk of the market. Who could tell her? ”

“ This is Lord Peter Wimsey—a very old friend of mine; that is to say, I'm a very old friend of his; ha, ha!"
"Good morning, sir; good morning, your lordship. I'm sure Plunkett will be very pleased to see you. Please step in. Plunkett, here's Mr. Pym to see you."
The elderly man who sat crouching over the fire turned a mournful face towards them, and half rose, touching his forehead.
"Well, now, Plunkett, what's the trouble?" enquired Mr. Frobisher-Pym, with the hearty bedside manner adopted by country gentlefolk visiting their dependants. "Sorry not to see you out and about. ”

“ HAFIZ
You exalt yourself over us as none did aforetime.
JOHN
Yes. And I will exalt myself. I have been Shereef hitherto, but now I will be king. Al Shaldomir is less than I desire. I have ruled too long over a little country. I will be the equal of Persia. I will be king; I proclaim it. The pass is mine; the mountains shall be mine also. And he that rules the mountains has mastery over all the plains beyond. If the men of the plains will not own it let them make ready; for my wrath will fall on them in the hour when they think me afar, on a night when they think I dream. ”

“ If Plunkett had been [Pg 161] educated in an Irish school and sent to Trinity, do you think he'd have done anything decent for Ireland?"
"Yes," Henry had replied promptly. "He's that kind of man!"
"No, he wouldn't," Galway retorted. "They'd have educated the decency out of him, and he'd have been a ... a sort of Lord Ashtown!"
But Henry would have none of that. He would not believe that a man's nature can be altered by pedagogues.
"Horace Plunkett would have been a good Irishman if he'd been born and reared and educated in an Orange Lodge," he said. ”

“ Plunkett.
"The beasts ain't always such fools as men and women, after all," quoth Plunkett. "Anyway, they're worth looking at. I do believe Narcissus has never seen a tiger in her life. There hasn't been a beast show here since I don't know when."
"Since I was so high," Marigold said, putting out her hand. "Narcissus was too little, but I went, and I haven't forgotten. Only there was no elephant that time, and they've got one now—such an enormous creature!"
"Narcissus won't be called by her name at the Parsonage," broke in Mrs. Plunkett. "I know that. It's no name for a servant." ”

“ So the Mongolian was duly instructed and dispatched.
“If he succeeds in getting his fingers on that paper the game will be in our hands,” said Plunkett to his partner in the nefarious scheme, as they sat at the table in Coffey’s saloon awaiting the return of their moon-eyed agent.
“Yes,” coincided Clymer, “for we have already managed to get a duplicate from Sanders in our own names to take the place of the original. A hundred dollar bill will induce the old soak to swear that he sold the claim to us, and that he doesn’t know anything about this man Prawle and his companions.” ”

“ Mr. Plunkett thinks that he owns Plunkett's woods and Bob's Hill. I mean the very top of it. And somebody has been cutting trees off from Greylock, until it looks like a picked chicken in spots. But we call them all ours because we have more fun with them than anybody else does, and it seems to us that things belong to those who get the most out of them.
We knew from the way Skinny was acting that he had something on his mind, so we sat down and waited for him to tell us.
"Fellers," said he, after a while, "we've been Injuns and we've been bandits, and we have had fun, good and plenty. ”

“ I ought to have the larger share.”
“Can’t help that,” replied Plunkett, doggedly. “You can’t do nothing without money, and I’ve got the dust. I’ve made up my mind to be an equal partner, and so halves it’s got to be.”
“But I hold the option on the ground,” insisted Otis.
“Pooh! What good is it to you? It ain’t in your name, and if it was you haven’t the money to complete the deal. What you want to do with that option is to destroy it; then it won’t turn up to put us in a hole, may be. I’m goin’ to look up Jim Sanders right away. ”

“ I continued. "The three Indians you fired at on the river last night have come over here. You don't mean to run away from three Indians—do you?"
"No; but I don't like the situation," said Plunkett.
The cotton-wood trees were large enough to furnish us ample shelter, and we waited a reasonable time, with our guns pointed, for the savages to show themselves; but they were no more disposed to do so than we were. It looked like a slow and lazy fight, and I was afraid the main body of the redskins would attack the lieutenant before we could reach him with the gun. ”

“ When I sleep in my inner chamber my ear is in the market, while I sit at meat I hear men whisper far hence and know their innermost thoughts. Hope not to overcome me by your plans nor by any manner of craftiness. My gods are gods of brass; none have escaped them. They cannot be overthrown. Of all men they favour my people. Their hands reach out to the uttermost ends of the earth. Take heed, for my gods are terrible. I am the Shereef ”

“ Plunkett.
"Because," said Marion, "I looked at them in church, and a butterfly flew in, and went on the side of Murtagh's nose, and I laughed, and he laughed, too, quite kind."
Adrienne could not help smiling at the earnest, half-pleading tone in which the child spoke, but Mrs. Plunkett said: "Nonsense, Maimy, you don't know anything about it! No; I don't believe there's any one in this world they care one bit about, except it is little Frankie."
As Mrs. Plunkett enunciated for the second time her disbelief in the children's powers of affection, some one called from down-stairs, "Marion! ”

“ And with them went the singer, Soul of the South, and the sweet singer, Dream of the Sea, whose voices the gods had attuned to the ears of kings, and old Istahn the cupbearer left his life's work in the palace to tread the common ways, he that had stood at the elbows of three kings of Zarkandhu and had watched his ancient vintage feeding their valour and mirth as the waters of Tondaris feed the green plains to the south. Ever he had stood grave among their jests, but his heart warmed itself solely by the fire of the mirth of Kings. He too, with the singers and dancers, went out into the dark. ”

“ I know not what high galleon shall come for thee, O King, nor what rowers, clad with purple, shall row at the bidding of gods when thou goest back with pomp to the river of Munra-O. But for me Tarn waits where the Seas of the West break over the edge of the world, and, as the years pass over me and the love of the chase sinks low, and as the glamour of the dark woods and mossy places dies down in my soul, ever louder and louder lap the ripples against the canoe of birch bark where, holding his twin-bladed oar, Tarn waits. ”

“ Spanish Dick rode in and anchored his horse to starboard and the cavalry came on slowly from the port.
Not till the afternoon did they come in sight, and all the while that little breeze was blowing.
"One knot," said Shard at noon. "Two knots," he said at six bells and still it grew and the Arabs trotted nearer. By five o'clock the merry men of the bad ship Desperate Lark could make out twelve long old-fashioned guns on low wheeled carts dragged by horses and what looked like lighter guns carried on camels. The wind was blowing a little stronger now. "Shall we hoist sail, sir?" ”

“ But I've been called, sir, and I've got to go. It must come to all of us, I know that. But it's a fearful thing to see the death-coach come for one, and know that the dead are in it, that cannot rest in the grave."
"Come now, Plunkett, you don't mean to tell me you believe in that old foolishness about the death-coach. I thought you were an educated man. What would Alf say if he heard you talking such nonsense?"
"Ah, sir, young people don't know everything, and there's many more things in God's creation than what you'll find in the printed books." ”