Ramsden

“ Looking over the field, Ramsden felt that the only serious rivalry was to be feared from Marcella Bingley and her colleague, a 16-handicap youth named George Perkins, with whom they were paired for the opening round. George was a pretty indifferent performer, but Marcella, a weather-beaten female with bobbed hair and the wrists of a welterweight pugilist, had once appeared in the women's open championship and swung a nasty iron. ”

“ Helen smiled deprecatingly. “It will be due to your own kind heart, Miss Van Ramsden,” she returned. “I see that everybody in the city is not 240 so busy with their own affairs that they cannot think of other people.”
The young lady kissed her again and said goodbye. But that did not end the matter—no, indeed! The news that Miss Van Ramsden had been taken to the topmost story of the Starkweather mansion—supposedly to Helen’s own room only—by the Western girl, dribbled through the servants to Belle Starkweather herself when she came home. ”

“ RAMSDEN, JESSE (1735–1800) , English astronomical instrument maker, was born at Salterhebble near Halifax, Yorkshire, on the 6th of October 1735. After serving his apprenticeship with a cloth-worker in Halifax, he went in 1755 to London, where in 1758 he was apprenticed to a mathematical instrument maker. ”

“ We would die a thousand deaths if we were taught to be afraid of anything on four legs.”
“It must be an exceedingly crude country,” remarked Hortense, her nose tip-tilted.
“Shocking!” agreed Belle.
“I’d like to go there,” announced Flossie, suddenly. “I think it must be fine.”
“Quite right,” agreed Miss Van Ramsden.
The older Starkweather girls could not go against their most influential caller. They were only too glad to have the Van Ramsden girl come to see them. But while the group were discussing Helen’s story, the girl from Sunset Ranch stole away and went up to her room. ”

“ After some years of declining health, Ramsden went to Brighton to recruit, and there died on 5 Nov. 1800, aged 65. Delambre styled him ‘le plus grand de tous les artistes.’ The demand from all parts of Europe for his incomparable instruments was greater than could be satisfied by the constant labour of sixty workmen; yet they were considerably cheaper than those by other makers. His life was one of extreme frugality. He ate and slept little and studied much. His favourite scientific authors were Euler and Bouguer, and in advanced years he learned French enough to read Boileau and Molière. ”

“ Once May Van Ramsden ran in to see Belle and caught Helen going through the hall on her way to her own room. It was just after luncheon, which she and Belle had eaten in a silence that could be felt. Belle would not speak to her cousin unless she was obliged to, and Helen did not see that forcing her attentions upon the other girl would do any good. 233
“Why, here you are, Helen Morrell! Why don’t I ever see you when I come here?” cried the caller, shaking Helen by both hands and smiling upon her heartily from her superior height. “When are your cousins going to bring you to call upon me?” ”

“ Starkweather, angrily, “unless you can speak with more respect for—ahem!—for a faithful old servitor of the Starkweather family, I shall have to—ahem!—ask you to leave the table.”
“You won’t have to ask me—I’m going!” exclaimed Flossie, flirting out of her chair and picking up her books. “But I want to say one thing while I’m on my way,” observed the slangy youngster: “You’re all just as tiresome as you can be! Why don’t you own up that you’d never have given the old woman a thought if it wasn’t for May Van Ramsden and her friends—and Helen?” ”

“ He entered the Theatine Order in 1764, accepted the chair of mathematics in the academy of Palermo in 1780, and persuaded the Viceroy, Prince Caramanico, to build an observatory there. During a visit to England in 1788 he procured from Jesse Ramsden a five-foot altazimuth, with which he collected at Palermo, 1792–1813, the materials for two admirable star-catalogues, published in 1803 and 1814 respectively. While engaged on this work he discovered, on the 1st of January 1801, the first asteroid or minor planet, to which he gave the name of Ceres, the tutelary deity of Sicily. ”

“ Nor will the experiments be worth anything, unless the curves be most accurately measured and worked, and the lenses centered and adjusted with a degree of precision which, to those who are familiar only with telescopes, will be quite unprecedented.
The Huyghenean eye-piece which we have described is the best for merely optical purposes, but when it is required to measure the magnified image, we use the eye-piece invented by Mr. Ramsden, and called, from its purpose, the micrometer eye-piece. ”

“ At first Helen had merely bowed to the girls to whom she was introduced. She had meant to drink her tea quietly and excuse herself. She did not wish now to display a rude manner before Belle’s guests; but her oldest cousin seemed determined to rouse animosity in her soul.
“Yes,” she said, “Helen is paying us a little visit—a very brief one. She is not at all used to our ways. In fact, Indian squaws and what-do-you call-’ems—Greasers—are about all the people she sees out her way.”
“Is that so?” cried Miss Van Ramsden. “It must be a perfectly charming country. ”

“ I—I must beg you to compose yourself, Belle——”
“I won’t—and that’s flat!” declared his eldest daughter. “Either she goes; or I do.”
“Do let Belle go, Pa,” drawled Flossie. “She is getting too bossy, anyway. I don’t mind having Helen here. She is rather good fun. And May Van Ramsden came here particularly to see Helen.” 241
“That’s not so!” cried Belle, stamping her foot.
“It is. Maggie heard her say so. Maggie was coming up the stairs and heard May ask Helen to take her to her room. What could the poor girl do?” ”

“ Helen was not a little embarrassed. She would have been glad to withdraw from the party. But then she saw the looks exchanged between Belle and Hortense, and they fathered a wicked desire in the Western girl’s heart to give her proud cousins just what they were looking for.
She began, almost unconsciously, to stretch her legs out in a mannish style, and drop into the drawl of the range.
“Coyote running is about as good fun as we 181 have,” she told Miss Van Ramsden in answer to a question. “Yes, they’re cowardly critters; but they can run like a streak o’ greased lightning—yes-sir-ree-bob!” ”

“ That was before your cousins lived here, Helen. Then I went to Europe for several years and when we returned the house had all been done over, your uncle’s family was here, and I think—I am not sure—somebody told me dear old Mary Boyle was dead.”
“No,” observed Helen, thoughtfully. “She is not dead. She is only forgotten.”
Miss Van Ramsden looked at the Western girl for some moments in silence. She seemed to understand 237 the whole matter without a word of further explanation. ”

“ Olstrom, your housekeeper will attend to all the arrangements. Helen knows about it, and she’ll help pour the tea. Mary thinks there is nobody quite like Helen.”
These shocks were coming too fast for Mr. Starkweather. Had anything further occurred that evening to torment him it is doubtful if he would have got through it as gracefully as he did through this call. May Van Ramsden went away assured that no obstacle would be placed in the way of Mary Boyle’s party in the attic. ”

“ Ramsay muttered under his breath. "As a criminal psychologist, you have no equal in the world. It was your marvellous book on the ramifications of the criminal mind that first attracted you to me. And it was my privilege to do you some trifling service "
"To save my life and my reputation. If only I had your scientific knowledge!"
"Yes, yes," Ramsay said impatiently. "If ever I found myself in trouble, you promised to come and help me. Hence my telegram this morning. Brownsden, I am in the deepest distress—nobody but you can save me. Look round you." ”

“ Ramsay! Whip and spur! Nothing's won but at cost of a sting! Throw off those jack-boots, Jean! They're a handicap! Loose your holsters, lad! An any highwaymen come at us to-day I'll send him a short way to a place where he'll stay! Whip up! Whip up!"
"What have you under your arm?" cries Jean breathlessly.
"Rare furs for the king," calls Radisson.
Then the wind is in our hair, and thatched cots race off in a blur on either side; plodding workmen stand to stare and are gone; open fields give place to forest, forest to village, village to bare heath; and still we race on. ”

“ Ramsay said, as Brownsden merely nodded. The half-defiant snarl in his voice was almost pathetic. "Here is my story in a nutshell. I am a gentleman by birth, by education, by instinct. Never mind what the temptation was—under the same circumstances I would do it again. After that I met with this accident, that has crippled me for life; but even that had its compensations, for it indirectly gave me a fresh start in life—under my proper name this time."
"I fancy I see what you are afraid of," Brownsden said.
"Of course you do. I am a solitary man; nobody knows anything about me. ”

“ Ramsay, she thought, stepping back and screwing up her eyes. (It must have altered the design a good deal when she was sitting on the step with James. There must have been a shadow.) When she thought of herself and Charles throwing ducks and drakes and of the whole scene on the beach, it seemed to depend somehow upon Mrs. Ramsay sitting under the rock, with a pad on her knee, writing letters. (She wrote innumerable letters, and sometimes the wind took them and she and Charles just saved a page from the sea.) But what a power was in the human soul! ”

“ To the end of life, Ramsay remained the same kindly, genial, honourable man, whose appearance in any of the social circles he frequented, was the signal for 'quips and cranks and wreathèd smiles' to go round, and for the feast of reason and the flow of soul to commence. His squat, podgy figure waddling down the High Street on his way to his shop in the Luckenbooths, his head covered with the quaint three-cornered hat of the period, beneath which peeped his tie-wig, was one of the familiar sights of Edinburgh, to be pointed out to strangers with a pride and an affection that never diminished. ”

“ Ramsay said almost fiercely. "Gathered together bit by bit, pieced like some perfect old mosaic. It has been the one delight in a hard and gloomy life. All the house is the same. And the name of Dr. Alfred Ramsay is becoming known. Then it is all kicked away by a sudden and unexpected tragedy. Sit down."
Brownsden sat down obediently in a Cromwellian chair upholstered in speaking tapestry. It was his cue to get the other to talk. ”

“ This feeling being reciprocated by Ramsay, an intimacy sprung up between them, the consequence of which was, that Ramsay, after delivering his mails to the postmaster (a rheumatic old woman, deaf, and almost blind) , came as regularly as a clock to have a smoke and a chat with Dan and the Marvels. A curious character was Ramsay; a man who had seen better days--who had, indeed, once been very wealthy--who had been plundered and deceived from his youth upwards--and who yet retained a kindliness to every living thing with which he came in contact. ”

“ Ramsay repeated, never taking his eyes from her face, that he was a failure. She blew the words back at him. "Charles Tansley . . ." she said. But he must have more than that. It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness made fertile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life the drawing-room; behind the drawing-room the kitchen; above the kitchen the bedrooms; and beyond them the nurseries; they must be furnished, they must be filled with life. ”

“ Ramsay; you are the finest human being that I know; you have neither wife nor child (without any sexual feeling, she longed to cherish that loneliness) , you live for science (involuntarily, sections of potatoes rose before her eyes) ; praise would be an insult to you; generous, pure-hearted, heroic man! But simultaneously, she remembered how he had brought a valet all the way up here; objected to dogs on chairs; would prose for hours (until Mr. Ramsay slammed out of the room) about salt in vegetables and the iniquity of English cooks. ”

“ No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys: port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy!” Most toper sentiments! But Ramsay did not stint his guests, and these were constantly of a noble order. Lord Bute, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Bath, Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Richmond were often at the painter’s table, discussing all sorts of political questions with him. Every man was a politician in those days, especially after dinner. But Ramsay was not content to be simply a talker upon the topics of the day—he became also a writer. ”

“ If you take my advice, you will not stir out of the house all day, because I may have to telephone or telegraph you. And don't forget that you are entirely in my hands."
"I could not wish for a more capable man," Ramsay said gratefully.
It was nearly five before the telephone rang out in the startled house, and by instinct Ramsay seemed to know that Brownsden was calling him from London. Brownsden's voice was low and clear, but there was a certain pleased ring about it that the listener liked. ”

“ I will have revenge upon that dastard; there is no time to lose; five minutes for reflection, and then to act,” thought Ramsay, as he twisted up this timely notice, which, it must be evident to the reader, must have been sent by one who had been summoned to the council. Ramsay’s plans were soon formed; he dispatched a trusty messenger to the Jesuit’s, desiring him to communicate immediately with the others, and upon what plan to proceed. He then wrote a note to Vanslyperken, requesting his immediate presence, and hastened to the morning apartment of Wilhelmina. ”