Ramsey

“ His words were neither impromptu nor printed, but, as every one quickly perceived and Ramsey had known beforehand, were memorized and were fresh from the pen of the actor. Diffidence warped the first phrase or two, but soon each word came clear, warm from the heart, and reaching all hearts, however borne back by the rapturous yells with which the exhorter broke in at every pause.
"And though to our own sight," pleaded the supplicant, "we are but atoms in thy boundless creation, we yet believe that prayer offered thee in love, humility, and trust cannot offend. ”

“ A hundred beholders laughed, and then turning and peering at the dim, central figure of Ramsey suddenly redoubled the laugh and presently redoubled it again.
Yet it yielded a certain relief. While there is mirth there is hope. Even now the player of the part was recognized only as Mrs. Gilmore's maid. Her resemblance to Ramsey was passing for pure accident. That the whole thing was visibly offensive to Hayle's twins made it all the more amusing, and Ramsey's pause in the aisle seemed the most natural thing she could do on finding herself in two places at the same time. ”

“ At different points three men stood up at once. In the front row appeared Julian. A few seats behind him loomed the exhorter. The third rose just at Ramsey's elbow, offering her his seat, yet counting it but courtesy still to keep his attention mainly on the play. It was the first clerk, he who had once been clerk on the Quakeress, where he had known Phyllis as Hugh's nurse, and whose scrutiny "Harriet" had until now somehow escaped. Whether in thanking him Ramsey accepted or declined she hardly knew, for just then the gaze he still bent on "Harriet" showed a gleam of recognition. ”

“ Ramsey Thomas, happening to be in a near-by city, and answering a summons by telegraph, arrived at the scene in an automobile as Courtland stood there, grimed and tattered from his fight with death.
Ramsey Thomas, baffled, angry, distressed, wriggled out of his car to the sidewalk and faced Courtland, curiously conspicuous and recognizable with all his disarray. Courtland towered above the great man with righteous wrath in his eyes. ”

“ Ramsey, words are the mightiest weapon on earth. The world's one perfect man—we needn't be pious to say it—set about to conquer the human race by the sheer power of words and died rather than use any other weapon. ”

“ Miss Ramsey smiled.
"Some of us never have a first," she said; and Mariana took her in her arms and kissed her. "You shall have yours," she declared. "I will give it to you."
When she went up-stairs a little later she took down an old square desk from a shelf in the dressing-room and brought it to the rug before the fire. Kneeling beside it, she turned the key and raised the narrow lid of ink-stained mahogany. It was like unlocking the past years to sit surrounded by these memories in tangible forms, to smell the close, musty odor which clings about the relics of a life or a love that is dead. ”

“ The girl stared round at him and then back at his father, her eyes wide with merriment. "No Ramsey to the pilot-house with him if he can help it!" she managed to say, and fell over her mother and nurse, down into her chair and across its arm, her laughter jingling like a basket of glass rolling down-stairs. Suddenly she hearkened. The captain was speaking to her mother:
"Must you reach Loui'ville as quickly as you can?"
"Ah!—well? yes? we muz' do our possible. My 'usband he—Ramsey!" ”

“ Mr. Ramsey had been there in his surplice, reading the burial service, and a mob of Mistwell fellows were making a frightful row. He felt dazed. Then, suddenly, he remembered everything.
No one would expect him to keep such a promise. He had hardly known what he was saying. He made up his mind that he would go straight to Mr. Jerrold and talk it over with him. And, if he met Grace, he would speak frankly to her, as she had spoken to Mr. Ramsey. ”

“ As the Votaress—or Gideon Hayle's Wild Girl—might, in full career, strike on hidden sands, so Ramsey struck on the thought—or call it the unformulated perception—that whoever would really live must, by clear choice and force of will, keep himself—herself—adjusted to this world as a whole; as one great multitudinous entity with a stronger, higher claim on each mere part's sympathy, service, sacrifice, than any mere part can ever hold on it. ”

“ So his father had just left him, leaving with him the thought, though without hint of it in word or tone, that some night, on some boat as deeply freighted with cares as this one, he must sit thus, her master. The wonder of it, with the wonder of the boat herself and all she carried, sounded a continuous stern alarum through his spirit like a long roll sounding through a camp: "Be a man! Make haste! See even those Hayle twins, with all their faults, and up! Make haste! Rise up and be a man!" Had the wonder-loving Ramsey been there she must have laughed again ”

“ It was tincture of digitalis. Miss Ramsey measured out the drops and gave them to her. After she had swallowed them the color in her face became more natural and her breathing less labored. Miss Ramsey was applying a mustard-plaster to her chest, while the maid rubbed her cold, white feet, which lay like plaster casts in the large, red hands.
Mariana looked at them wistfully. "I have done foolish things all my life," she said, "and this is the most foolish of all." ”

“ No song is so poor that it may not thrill a partisan devotion. Ramsey stood on her toes. Down in his berth and in torture the shut-in Lucian faintly heard, turned his gaze to his brother, whispered "the Regent!" ”

“ Ramsey turned to the grandfather and with sudden deference sprang to help him rise. He faced her and the Californian together.
"Miss Ramsey, Hugh has all your feelings in this matter."
Madame, "California," and old Joy eagerly assented.
"But poor, blundering old Mrs. Grundy, always wronging some one," the old man smilingly continued, "is really fighting hard for a better human race. That's the greatest battle she can fight, my dear young lady, and when——"
"Well," rejoined Ramsey with eyes frankly tearful, "she fights it mighty badly." ”

“ Ramsey guessed the trouble. "We are veree oblige'," said her mother; "we'll continue on the Votarezz."
"Goody!" murmured the daughter to old Joy, to Hugh, and to the captain as he left the group. "Goody!"
"Mother!" protested the twins, "you must not!"
"Oh-h! you?" she radiantly inquired, "you rather go ashore, you, eh? Veree well. Doubdlezz the captain be please' to put you." Her smile grew stately as Ramsey laughed. She turned to the grandfather. "Never in my life I di'n' ran away from sicknezz. I billieve anybody can't die till his time come'. When his time come' he'll die. ”

“ And certainly, as even the Gilmores would have said, it is not when our spiritual vision sees things at their completest values that all the world's a stage and its men and women merely players. Nor is it at our best that we discern our own story, as a story, while it happens. It is a poor eye that sees itself. When Ramsey arrived at the table Hugh's gaze was so big with the reality, not the romance, of things on all the three decks that she had to laugh a little to keep her balance. ”

“ All they've got is awful old. But I heard George Ramsey say he wouldn't swap one of those old mahogany pieces for the best new thing to be bought. Well, everybody to their taste. If I had had my house all fixed up that way, I should have wanted new furniture to correspond.”
“What is George Ramsey doing?” asked Maria, with a little, conscious blush of which she was ashamed. Maria, all her life, would blush because people expected it of her. She knew as plainly as if she had spoken, that her aunt Maria was considering suddenly the advantages of a possible match between herself and George Ramsey. ”

“ Ramsey's mouth and eyes spread wide. She turned to Hugh and at sight of his heavy face whisked round again with her handkerchief to her lips. The mate spoke for her:
"That's Captain Courteney's son, sir."
"What Miss Hayle wants—" began Hugh——
"What we want," said Ramsey——
"Yes," said Hugh, "what we want is the recall of——"
"An order," broke in the mate. "I know; my order for them two twins to go ashore. You can't have that, Hugh."
"We can!" said Ramsey, with tears in her laugh.
"No, sir-ee!" said the mate. "Ashore they go!" ”

“ Hugh's queer solemnity deepened. "He's down in a stateroom with your brothers. The senator and the general have just joined them."
What a freshet of grave information! Ramsey laughed straight at him. "You talk like a trance medium."
"Not at all."
"You do! I heard one once. You're in a trance now."
"Not at all."
"You are! Y'always are." When Hugh laughed, her laugh redoubled. The mate and the players, though busy talking, took time to smile; the mate winked an eye. Suddenly Ramsey sobered. "Is Basile in hot water again? Tell me quick." ”

“ Ramsey settled himself more deeply in his chair and crossed his knees, lightly quoting: “'They also serve, who only stand and wait.' The quality that insures success, Achison,” he went on, “is the staying power. And I am with you to the bitter end.”
“I am afraid it will indeed be the bitter end for you.” The lawyer lighted a cigarette, and threw one arm carelessly over the back of his chair.
“I listened closely to you and Brown,” said Ramsey deliberately, “and the longer I listened, the more my conviction grew that there is something crooked in this affair.” ”

“ It reminded him of the morgue in that. For a minute he began to think that if the Presence was here in this peculiar sense, then, of course, it was an indication that he was needed here to work for these people, as Uncle Ramsey had tried with strange worldly wisdom to make him understand. But then, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the face of the little minister, white under its freckles, with a righteous wrath as he fixed his gaze sternly on the door at the end of the long room. He looked up quickly to hear the click of a key in a lock as the foreman passed from one room to another. ”

“ Ramsey glanced cautiously at Watson, but the pilot's eyes were a league ahead. Hers returned to Hugh. "Wasn't it my brothers changed your mind—the twins?"
"They helped."
She looked him over absently: "I love my brothers."
"I don't," said Hugh.
She stared again and slowly remarked: "You haven't got to.... You're powerful queer, ain't you?" ”

“ Hugh said.
"So, then—he—he had it when he came aboard?"
"He had it when he came aboard," assented Hugh, moving for the group to be seated. "But——"
"Wait," said Ramsey. "Mustn't we all be as gay and happy as we can?" And when every one but the judge's sister playfully said yes she turned to the Vicksburg merchant: "Then will you change places with Mr. Gilmore?"
Faith, he would! It paired him with the actor's wife, and his wife with the actor. Gayety began forthwith. "And will you change—with—with you?" Ramsey asked the planter of Milliken's Bend and the squire's brother-in-law. ”

“ An' if we find one doctor, who's goin' nurse us in that maladee?"
"Is Asia—?" tried Ramsey again, but hushed with a strange thrill as her ear caught, remotely beneath her, a faint sawing and hammering.
"Mo' better, I billieve," continued her mother, "we continue on the boat and ourselve' nurse those sick. When the Mother of God see' that she'll maybe privent from coming our time to die."
"If Germany—" whined Ramsey, but huddled down in her seat as the sawing and hammering came again——
"What, my chile?"
Light at last! She instantly sat up: "Why do they call it the Asiatic cholera if—?" ”

“ Ramsey himself.
35 "You're all ready?" he cried. "Good! Come right along as fast as you can."
A boy had already snatched up their hand-bags and was hurrying off with them. Mr. Ramsey rushed them along the hall and into the elevator, then they were hurried into a taxi-cab which stood waiting and off they went.
As soon as they had started, Mr. Ramsey looked at his watch. "It's a close shave, but I think we can make it," he said. Then he leaned over to speak to the driver. "Get us to the Fall River boat in time and you shall have an extra tip," he said. ”

“ Hugh, I've got money a-plenty. It's all I have got excep' maybe a good tempeh, an' I'm goin' back to the diggin's anyhow; one man to the squa' mile is too crowded fo' me. Meantime, madam"—he turned again and this time he was invincible, although madame straightened and sparkled and Ramsey gave a staring attention, having throughout all her pilot-house talk heard everything——"Meantime, madam, with a priest right here on boa'd, if I can buy, at any price, Phyllis's free papehs——"
"You can't!" chanted Ramsey. "She can have 'em for nothing but nobody can buy 'em." ”

“ Ramsey’s face was set and cold, but all his capacity for insolent indifference did not enable him to conceal his annoyance. His eyes flashed with anger.
“I think we ought to be going; it is getting rather late. We don’t want to be swept out with the dust, do we?” He addressed Madame de Corantin.
“Oh, I am in no hurry, Mr. Ramsey,” she replied. “It gives me great pleasure to see Mr. Froelich again. I was obliged to leave Paris so suddenly, and never had an opportunity of showing him how much I appreciated his kindness to me.”
Ramsey said nothing, but he glared at Bobby vindictively. ”

“ RAMSAY or RAMSEY, LAURENCE (fl. 1550–1588) , versifier, apparently joined in 1550 a body of sectaries, meeting at Faversham in Kent, who advocated anabaptism and Pelagianism (Strype, Memorials, II. i. 370) . Subsequently he identified himself with advanced puritanism. About 1571 he venomously attacked the catholics in a pedestrian poem in seven-line stanzas entitled ‘The Practise of the Diuell. The auncient poisened Practises of the Diuell, in his Papistes, against the true professors of Gods holie worde, in these our latter dayes. ”