Rattray

“ Arthur Rattray, one of the sub-editors, a young man who had already distinguished himself on the staff of the Age by his intelligent perception of paying matter, and his enterprise in securing it. Elfrida continued to carry her opinions upon the social ideals of her native democracy in their much stained envelope, but there was a light in her eyes which seemed to be the reflection of success. ”

“ Rattray had an indefinite idea that in case of a rejection he might find it necessary to go out of town for some weeks to pull himself together again—it was the traditional course—and if such an exigency occurred before July the office would go to pieces under the pressure of events. ”

“ This time, with one turn of the handle, the motor started, so contrary is this strange beast, the automobile. One day you toil at the starting-handle half an hour, the next the thing comes to life with a touch, and nobody can explain why. Bowing to madame and the hotel people, we sailed gracefully out of the hotel yard, Rattray tootooing a fanfarronade on the horn. It was a splendid start!
The streets of Dieppe are of those horrid uneven tones that the French call pavé, and our car jolted over them with as much noise and clatter as if we'd had a cargo of dishes. ”

“ But,” he continued, as I was about to interrupt him, “for fear the old man might object to Rattler, I've lent him enough to set him up in business for himself in Dogtown. A pushing, active, brilliant fellow, you know, like Rattler can get along, and will soon be in his old position again—and you needn't be hard on him, you know, if he doesn't. ”

“ Ratty grunted scornfully. “Beautiful,” he [278] said. “An’ we’re doin’ wonderful well ourselves. I never remember gettin’ over the No Man’s Land so easy, or seein’ a trench took so quick an’ simple in my life as this one we’re in; or seein’ a’tillery barrage move so nice an’ even and steady to time.”
“You’ve seed a lot, Ratty,” said his companion. “But you ain’t seed everything.”
“That’s true,” said Ratty. “I’ve never seen a lot o’ grown men playin’ let’s-pretend like a lot of school kids. Just look at that fool wi’ the big drum, Johnny.” ”

“ Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how could he put into cold words what had mostly been suggestion? How recall, for another's benefit, the haunting sea voices that had sung to him, how reproduce at second-hand the magic of the Seafarer's hundred reminiscences? Even to himself, now the spell was broken and the glamour gone, he found it difficult to account for what had seemed, some hours ago, the inevitable and only thing. It is not surprising, then, that he failed to convey to the Mole any clear idea of what he had been through that day. ”

“ Rattar's conduct, Mr. Rattar's looks, and even Mr. Rattar's very infrequent words had been troubling her strangely. How or why his looks and words should trouble her, she knew not precisely, and his conduct, generally speaking, she admitted was as regular as ever.
"You don't mean that just now and then he takes a wee drop too much?" enquired her visitor helpfully.
"Oh, no, sir," said she, "the master never did take more than what a gentleman should, and he's not a smoking gentleman either—quite a principle against smokers, he has, sir. Oh, it's nothing like that!" ”

“ Brain against brute force—and brain came out on the top—as it's bound to do. Poor old Ratty! My! won't he catch it when the Badger gets back! A worthy fellow, Ratty, with many good qualities, but very little intelligence and absolutely no education. ”

“ But as this is rather difficult, what we ought to be careful about is, that we never fight except in a good cause and with a clear conscience.
It was well for Martin Rattler, on that great day, that the formation of the ground favoured him. The spot on which the fight took place was uneven, and covered with little hillocks and hollows, over which Bob Croaker stumbled, and into which he fell,—being a clumsy boy on his legs,—and did himself considerable damage; while Martin, who was firmly knit and active as a kitten, scarcely ever fell, or, if he did, sprang up again like an India-rubber ball. ”

“ It was a joyous day at Rattlers Ridge that was equally the advent of his change of heart and the first stagecoach that had been induced to diverge from the highroad and stop regularly at our settlement. Flags were flying from the post office and Polka saloon, and Bones was flying before the brass band that he detested, when the sweetest girl in the county—Pinkey Preston—daughter of the county judge and hopelessly beloved by all Rattlers Ridge, stepped from the coach which she had glorified by occupying as an invited guest.
“What makes him run away?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ratty only wanted to have a yarn. He and the traveller would camp in the shade for half an hour or so and yarn and smoke. The old man would find out where the traveller came from, and how long he'd been there, and where he was making for, and how long he reckoned he'd be away; and ask if there had been any rain along the traveller's back track, and how the country looked after the drought; and he'd get the traveller's ideas on abstract questions—if he had any. ”

“ Rattler opened his sleepy eyes, threw himself on guard with a snap and a buzz, and shook his bony clappers savagely. But the King of Snakes was not afraid. Every snake has a weak spot somewhere, and that is the place to strike him. If he hadn't a weak spot no one else could live about him, and then perhaps he would starve to death at last. If he had not some strong points, where no one could harm him, he couldn't live himself.
As the black crest rose. Old Rattler's tail grew cold, his head dropped, his mouth closed, he straightened out his coil, and staggered helplessly toward his hole. ”

“ Who goes there without?"
"'Tis I, sire," replied Sir Richard Ratcliffe; appearing at the door.
"Ah, Ratcliffe, come hither," said the king. "The queen is very ill, Ratcliffe--dying, her physicians tell me."
"Your Grace must bear Heaven's will patiently," replied the courtier.
"I will so," answered Richard; "but we must foresee events, Ratcliffe. The queen is dying. Men will say that I poisoned her; think you not so, Ratcliffe?"
"It matters little what men say, sire," answered the other, "since we well know that half they say is false." ”

“ Here and there, scattered at wide intervals throughout the village, were to be seen other rattlers, of all sizes, from foot-long youngsters up to stout fellows over a yard in length, either basking in the hollows or lazily wriggling their way between the hillocks. They seemed to pay no attention whatever to the furry villagers; for a rattler likes to make a huge meal when he's about it, and therefore does not bother often about the, to him, rather laborious process of dining. ”

“ Rattleton trotted alongside, talking incessantly, and in a short time the military cantonment of Barrackpore broke in view.
We crossed the parade, where all was life and animation; soldiers drilling, recruits on one leg doing the goose-step, drums beating, drill-sergeants shouting, and bugles sounding.
We passed through the lines, thronged with sepoys in their graceful undress, and were soon at my friend’s bungalow, in which, after dismissing my bearers, I entered to take up my quarters. Rattleton gave me another shake, as if he had been working a pump handle and cordially bidding me welcome. ”

“ The lively rat shook his ears with all his natural vivacity. “Pardon me,” he cried, “but I’m of Oddity’s opinion,—heroes like Sir Whiskerandos are the very worst travelling companions in the world! How Ratto has escaped with his life I cannot imagine, but I shall certainly not try the experiment of following your fortunes for an hour! I’ve no fancy to be baked in a pie, or starved on a barrel, crushed by a drosky, or worried by a dog, drowned in a sack, or suspended by my tail! ”

“ Ratcliffe. At first she was violently angry and then she laughed in spite of herself; there was truth in the portrait. In secret, too, she was the less offended because she half thought that it had depended only on herself to make of Mr. Gore something more than a friend. If she had overheard his parting words to Carrington, she would have had still more reason to think that a little jealousy of Ratcliffe's success sharpened the barb of Gore's enmity.
“Take care of Ratcliffe!” was his farewell; “he is a clever dog. He has set his mark on Mrs. Lee. Look out that he doesn't walk off with her!” ”

“ It is unwise for a midshipman to argue with the lieutenant of the watch, whilst there are three lofty mastheads unoccupied. QED.
One morning, after a literary skirmish in the captain’s cabin the overnight, Mr Silva smiled me over to him on his side of the quarter-deck, just as day was breaking. The weather was beautiful, and we had got well into the trade winds.
“Mr Rattlin,” said he, “you have not yet read my book. You are very young, but you have had a liberal education.” ”

“ No man in that northern county was better known or more widely respected than Mr. Simon Rattar. In person, he was a thickset man of middle height and elderly middle age, with cold steady eyes and grizzled hair. His clean shaved face was chiefly remarkable for the hardness of his tight-shut mouth, and the obstinacy of the chin beneath it. Professionally, he was lawyer to several of the larger landowners and factor on their estates, and lawyer and adviser also to many other people in various stations in life. ”

“ There was much virtue in the rattan, and it should never have been given up. We have all been flogged with the rattan at the drill, and never felt ourselves disgraced by it-we were shāgirds (scholars) , and the drill-sergeant, who had the rattan, was our ustād (schoolmaster) ; but when we left the drill, and took our station in the ranks as sepoys, the case was altered, and we should have felt disgraced by a flogging, whatever might have been the nature of the offence we committed. ”

“ Rattler,” said I. “I’m not as much afraid of your shots as you were of the bear. You won’t drive me up a tree with your threats. I recommend you to bury your dead comrade; I would not leave him lying thus.”
“Is some one dead?” asked Bancroft, startled.
“Yes, Rollins,” Rattler replied. “The poor fellow had jumped for a tree, like the rest of us, and would have been all right, but this greenhorn came up, excited the bear, and it tore Rollins horribly.” ”

“ Three days after, Mr Ratman visited his friend Captain E. Oliphant here. Two days later he reached the hotel in London with a Yeld label on his trunk. A week after that he passed note Number 90,356 to settle his bill. There, sir; the Americans are born explorers. I flatter myself there’s not much more to know about my two notes.”
“Quite so,” said the tutor. “You have done a great deal in three weeks. What reparation can be made you?”
“Sir, you are an honest young man. You believe in shielding the memory of a dead enemy. You are right. Continue on that tack and you’ll do yourself credit. ”

“ So there were many in the cañon, beasts and birds and snakes too, who hated Old Rattler, but only a few dared face him. And one of these was Glittershield, [1] whom men call the King of Snakes, and in a minute I shall tell you why.
And when Old Rattler was doing all that I have said, the King Snake lay low on a bed of pine needles, behind a bunch of fern, and watched with keen, sharp eye. The angry buzz of Rattler's tail, which scared the chipmunks and the bullfrogs and all the rest of the beast folk, was music for Glittershield. ”

“ He let himself sink upon the chair that Ratcliffe had vacated; and, running his fingers through the black curls that lay on his shoulders, scrutinised her again insolently through half-closed lids.
[269]
“Lionel Ratcliffe,” quoth he then, “is a gentleman of birth and parts. And if he hath not much of this world’s goods, he hath wits, which is nigh as good. Mightest do worse, Jinny!”
“And is it for this,” cried she, laughing loudly, “that I gave up a king?” But in the midst of her laughter tears welled and ran down her cheeks.
“By the Lord Harry!” ”

“ On one occasion a lieutenant came on board to impress men, and took Rattenbury and put him in confinement. Next day he told the lieutenant that if he would accompany him to Lyme, he would show him a public-house where he was sure to find men whom he could impress. The officer consented and landed with Jack and some other seamen, and proceeded to the tavern; but finding none there he ordered Rattenbury back to the boat. At that moment up came Rattenbury's wife, and he made a rush to escape whilst she threw herself upon the lieutenant and had a scuffle with him ”

“ His voice came to her through the still air, and the frown relaxed somewhat—Hugh Ralton's voice was a very pleasant one. "I'd no idea there was anyone about."
With his cap in his hand he came up to her.
"Do you generally play a course of your own?" she demanded. "Most of us find the proper one good enough."
Ralton laughed, displaying two rows of white even teeth. "I abase myself," he murmured. "The shot that caused me such a heart spasm, and missed you by——"
"About the distance of a putt you'd have to give even to your most hated rival," interrupted the girl. ”