Ratcliff

“ He drew near to Clara and took her hand, which she quickly withdrew. “Only maiden coyness,” thought he, and said: “We must be better acquainted. But I must now hasten from your dangerous society, or I shall miss the steamer. Good by, my dear. Good by, Mrs. Gentry. You shall hear from me very soon.”
And Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and black Tarquin opened the door for Ratcliff. As it closed upon him, “Who is that old man?” asked Clara.
“Old? Why, he does doesn’t look a year over forty,” replied Mrs. Gentry. “That’s the rich Mr. Ratcliff.” ”

“ It is, my lord.
KING RICHARD
Bid my guard watch; leave me.
Ratcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent
And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.
[KING RICHARD retires into his tent. Exeunt RATCLIFF and CATESBY.] [RICHMOND's tent opens, and discovers him and his Officers, &c.] STANLEY
Fortune and victory sit on thy helm! ”

“ Ratcliff paused at the uppermost stair on the third story. From the room came the sound of a piano-forte, with a vocal 403accompaniment. Clara was singing “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,”—a hymn which, though written by Helen Maria Williams when she thought herself a deist, is used by thousands of Christian congregations to interpret their highest mood of devout trust and pious resignation. As the clear, out-swelling notes fell on Ratcliff’s ears, he drew back as if a flaming sword had been waved menacingly before his face. ”

“ Esha’s stories of his conduct to Estelle had withered the last bloom of affection which Josephine’s heart had cherished towards him.
“I’m glad you’re so indifferent to this white slave,” said Mrs. Ratcliff to her husband.
“And why should you be glad, my pet?”
“Because, Ratcliff, I want you to give her to me.”
Staggered by the suddenness of the request, and puzzled for an answer, he replied: “But she may prove a very valuable piece of property. There’s many a man who would pay ten thousand dollars for her, two or three years hence.” ”

“ Ratcliff seized his hat and passed out of the room up-stairs as fast as his somewhat pursy habit of body would allow.
“There goes a man who puts his hat on the head of a fool,” muttered the old lawyer. “Confound him! If he weren’t so deep in my books, I would leave him to his own destruction, and join the enemy. I’m not sure this wouldn’t be the best policy as it is.”
Thus venting his anger in soliloquy Mr. Semmes quitted the house, and walked in meditative mood to his office. ”

“ Ratcliff’s future bride. As soon as he has you secure as his wife, he will emancipate you,—make you a free woman. Think of that! Mr. Ratcliff is supposed to be worth at least five millions. You will at once have such a purse as no other young woman in the city can boast. Now why not be reasonable? Why not say yes to the proposition?”
“Never! never!” cried Clara, carrying her hand again to her breast with a gesture she thought significant only to herself.
Josephine rose and felt of the bosom of Clara’s dress till she distinguished the weapon of which Esha had spoken. ”

“ Ratcliff’s man of business. I may not be home to dinner. 313You’d better not take out the carriage. The horses would be frightened; for the streets are all in commotion with salvos for our great victory. Good by till I return.”
Once more he turned on Clara that look from which she had twice before shrunk dismayed and exasperated.
After he had gone, “Help me to escape at once!” she exclaimed.
“No,” replied Josephine. “This is our safest place for the present. The avenues of escape from the city are all closed; and we should find it difficult to go where we would not be tracked. ”

“ To the same life none ever twice awoke.”
Young. Three days after his interview with the “remarkable man,” Ratcliff was at Montgomery, Ala. There he telegraphed to Semmes, and received these words in reply: “All safe. On your arrival, go first to my office for directions.” Ratcliff obeyed, and found a letter telling him not to go home, but to meet Semmes immediately at the house to which the latter had transferred the white slave. Half an hour did not elapse before lawyer and client sat in the curtained drawing-room of this house, discussing their affairs. ”

“ I vaguely wondered if Viney's confederate were smashing windows in the partition; and then I ran my hardest after Grandfather Nat.
Viney had made up the street toward the bridge and Ratcliff Highway, and Captain Nat pursued with shouts of "Stop him!" Breathless and unsteady, I made slow progress with my smaller legs over the rough cobble-stones, which twisted my feet all ways as I ran. But I was conscious of a gathering of other cries ahead, and I struggled on, with throbbing head and bursting heart. Plainly there were more shouts as I neared the corner, and a running of more men than two. ”

“ Ratcliff gnawed his lips a moment, and then remarked: “The fact that the record speaks of the child as a quadroon does not amount to much. She may have been born of a quadroon mother, and may have been tanned while an infant 398so as to appear herself like a quadroon; and subsequently her skin may have turned fair. All that will be of little account. Half of the white slaves in the city would not be suspected of having African blood in their veins, but for the record. Who would think of disputing my claim to a slave,—one, too, that had been held by me for some fifteen years?” ”

“ When I have most need to employ a friend, 36
And most assured that he is a friend,
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he unto me! This do I beg of heaven,
When I am cold in love to you or yours. 40
[They] embrace.
K. Edw. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here
To make the blessed period of this peace. 44
Buck. And, in good time, here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the duke.
Enter Ratcliff and Gloucester.
Rich. Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen ”

“ Ratcliff, interrogatively.
"She sat up every night for a week with Blanche Carter's children when they had diphtheria, and saved their lives by her nursing," said Elsie Paine indignantly. "That is the woman that those good people sneer at. You are not fair to her, Mrs. Hart. She has a sweet face when you come to know her."
"There, you have put Elsie up," cried mischievous Bertie. "No more peace for you here, Mrs. Hart. Come out into the garden with me, and postpone this question in favour of tennis."
The conclave broke up and Mark Ratcliff said and heard no more of Margaret Mildmay. ”

“ I’ve encountered women before in my day. You don’t speak to a novice in woman-taming. I never met but one yet who ventured to hold out against me,—and she got the worst of it, I reckon.” And a grim smile passed over Ratcliff’s face as he thought of Estelle. ”

“ Ratcliff of New Orleans made his escape from Fort Lafayette ten days ago. The Department has taken active measures to have him rearrested.”
372 CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE LAWYER AND THE LADY. “The Devil is an ass.”—Old Proverb.
Peek’s apprehensions in regard to Ratcliff’s agent, Semmes, were not imaginary. Semmes was of the school in politics and policy of old Mr. Slidell. He did not believe in the vitality and absoluteness of right and goodness. His life maxim was, while bowing and smirking to all the world, to hold all the world as cheats. To his mind, slavery was right, because it was profitable ”

“ Clara took a seat where she could be within reach of the door, and then pointed to the sofa.
“Yes, I will sit here,” said the quadroon, complying with the tacit invitation. “Now, listen, dear young lady, to a proposition I am authorized to make. Mr. Ratcliff will very soon be a widower. His wife cannot survive three months. He has seen you, and likes you. He is willing to lift you from slavery to freedom,—from poverty to wealth,—from obscurity to grandeur,—on one very easy condition ”

“ Should the ribbon be black, tell him to wait ten minutes. Then do you run round the corner to Aurora Street, where you’ll see a carriage with a white handkerchief held out at the right-hand window. You’ll find me there. We’ll drive to the St. Charles, and take the girl with us somewhere out of Ratcliff’s reach. Can you remember all I’ve told you?”
293“Ebry word ob it, missis! Tahnk de Lord fur sendin’ yer. Watch Massa Ratcliff sharp. Fix him sure, missis,—fix him sure!”
“Trust me, Esha! He seizes no young girl to-day, unless I let him. But be very prudent. ”

“ Finding that Surgeon Mooney, though a Northern man, had conservative notions on the subject of the “nigger,” he addressed himself to the work of befooling that functionary. Inasmuch as Nature had already half done it to his hands, he did not find the task a difficult one.
In his imprisonment Ratcliff had ample time for indulging in day-dreams. He grew almost maudlin over that photograph of Clara. Yes! By his splendid generosity he would bind to him forever that beautiful young girl.
He must transmit his proud name to legitimate children. He must be the founder of a noble house ”

“ Ratcliffe, his mind full of pirates and bucaneers, Spaniards and plate-ships, found himself wondering if men had ever been marooned here, if Morgan and Van Horn and all that crowd had ever had dealings on that beach, and what the moon could tell about it all if she could remember and speak. He was thinking this when the creak of block and cordage struck his ear, and past the stern of the Dryad came gliding the fore canvas of a small vessel, a thing that seemed no larger than a fishing boat. ”

“ Ratcliff’s plan, at the time you intercepted him in his career, and had him sent North, was to offer marriage 369to this young girl he claims to hold as a slave. Marriage with him would plainly be as hateful to her as any other species of relation; and my present wish is to put her as soon as possible beyond his reach, lest he should any time unexpectedly return. Madame Volney is so confident in her power to save her, that Clara’s anxieties seem to be much allayed ”

“ Their gay plumage is only lent to them to go a hunting in. It belongs to the odious male and female wretches who own the dens to which helpless drunken men are beguiled.
Let any one who doubts this pay a visit to Ratcliff or Shadwell any morning, say at noon. That is an "off-time" at the various sailors' drinking places and dancing saloons. The foolish Jacks who are ashore are still abed sleeping off the effects of the over-night's spree, or those that have beer, cleared out have skulked off somewhere penniless and ashamed; but the public-houses are not without customers. ”

“ Mr. Ratcliffe's, like one of those delicious pieces of scenery, touched by the pencil of Rysdael or Hobbima, exhibited to the beholder's eye a spot equally interesting, but less varied and extensive. The sweeping foliage and rich pasture of the former could not, perhaps, afford greater gratification than did the thatched cottage, abrupt declivities, and gushing streams of the latter. To change the metaphor—Mr. West's was a magnificent repository, Mr. Ratcliffe's a choice cabinet of gems. ”

“ Sir Alexander Ratcliff, Knight of the noble Order of the Bath, his adopted heir unto this manor, who was descended from Sir Alexander Ratcliff of Ordsall, Knt. grandson to Robert Ratcliff, the first Earl of Sussex of that name, which Alexander died in 1548, leaving by Alice, daughter of Sir John Booth, one son, viz. Sir William Ratcliff of Ordsall, Knt. who married Margaret, daughter of Sir Edmund Trafford, by whom he had Sir John Ratcliff of Ordsall, Knt. who was killed in the engagement against the French at the isle of Rhee, Oct. ”

“ The response behavior in two-choice decision making tasks is well described by so-called sequential sampling models [5] , of which Ratcliff's Diffusion model [6] , [7] is a particularly successful variant. According to the Diffusion model there is a decision variable , the evolution in time of which is given by the linear diffusion equation
(1)
where is zero-mean Gaussian white noise with unit variance, is the noise strength and is a constant drift term. On each trial, evolves from an initial condition until it reaches one of two fixed thresholds corresponding to the two decisions. ”

“ Wigman was so drunk he couldn’t distinguish jest from earnest.”
“So Robson told me. But touching this Miss Brown,—is she as pretty as her photograph would declare?”
“It hardly does her justice. But her sweet face is the least of her charms. She talks well,—sings well,—plays well,—and, young as she is, has the bearing, the dignity, the grace, of the consummate lady.”
Here there was another rustling, as if the grape-vine were pulled. Ratcliff started, went to the window, looked out, but, seeing nothing, remarked, “The wind must be rising,” and returned to his seat. ”

“ Ratcliffe's grey eyes grew colder and stonier than ever as he gradually perceived that Baron Jacobi was carrying on a set scheme with malignant ingenuity, to drive him out of Madeleine's house, and he swore a terrible oath that he would not be beaten by that monkey-faced foreigner. On the other hand Jacobi had little hope of success: "What can an old man do?" said he with perfect sincerity to Carrington; "If I were forty years younger, that great oaf should not have his own way. ”

“ Ratcliffe and the West than if he were the giant of a fairy-story, and lived at the top of a bean-stalk. She must be treated as a child; with gentleness, affection, forbearance, but with firmness and decision. She must be refused what she asked, for her own good. ”

“ Ratcliffe leaped out and hurried on board. “Off with you as quick as you can!” said he to the negro-hands, and in another moment the little steamer had begun her journey, pounding the muddy waters of the Potomac and sending up its small column of smoke as though it were a newly invented incense-burner approaching the temple of the national deity. Ratcliffe explained in great glee how he had barely managed to escape his visitors by telling them that the British Minister was waiting for him, and that he would be back again presently. ”