Ritchie

“ Ritchie always insisted on his giving his full hour’s show, even although it was to a beggarly array of empty benches, and he even used to make a practice of seating himself in front of the conjuror and ticking off each item on his programme in order to be sure that the unhappy man missed no single one of his tricks; and this, too, on wet mornings, or off days, when possibly he (Ritchie) was the sole “audience.” A more irritating or depressing experience for a performer than this, I should imagine, it would be impossible to conceive. ”

“ Ritchie knows a lady when he sees one. I can readily believe it.”
Madame laughed.
“He at least has a negative knowledge,” she replied. “And he has brought into New Orleans no coins, boxes, or clocks against your Excellency's orders with the image and superscription of the Goddess in whose name all things are done. He has not sung 'Ça Ira' at the theatres, and he detests the tricolored cockades as much as you do.” ”

“ Ritchie, known to the numerous readers of the Christian World as “Christopher Crayon,” has the pen of a ready, racy, refreshing writer. He never writes a dull line, and never for a moment allows our interest to flag. In the work before us, which is not his first, he is, I should think, at his best. The volume is the outcome of extensive reading, many rambles over the districts described, and of thoughtful observation. We seem to live and move and have our being in East Anglia. ”

“ Original turned at the far corner of the corral to wave his hand; a wave was returned him. Then, west and north toward the far-flung blue of the Big Horns, gem clear through the crystal lens of the morning, he turned his pony. The track of the herd was laid down like a yellow carpet strip over the swelling crests of divides in the distance—a mere worm trail in the immensity of the Big Country. Far out and away stood the carved pillars of grotesque buttes, buttressing the sky. A rowdy wind searched his lungs, filled all his body with vigor mounting to giddiness. ”

“ That night Bethell sent one of his printers to my house with an imperative message that I join him at Looie’s immediately. I was at my dinner when the coolie arrived; in half an hour I was trundling through the black streets in my ricksha. A misty rain made the night Stygian. I could hardly see the bobbing head of my puller, so dense was the darkness. Only occasionally did a cranny of light shining through the shutter crack of some house give proof that I was in the heart of a city of thousands, and not a desert in Mongolia. ”

“ Ritchie, trusting to the retentiveness of his memory, had left few observations in writing; but Lyon's quick perception, literary gift, and skill as a draughtsman rendered the account of this abortive expedition, which he published in 1821, one of the most entertaining books of African travel.
Ritchie was undoubtedly a man of superior character and ability, whose life was thrown away in an ill-conceived and ill-supported enterprise, for the mismanagement of which he was in no way responsible. ”

“ Ritchie would not be willing to withdraw the epithet of ‘coward,’ in case Mr. Pleasants should come upon the field. His reply was that Mr. Ritchie conscientiously believed Mr. Pleasants to be a coward.”
The persuasions of other friends to whom he spoke, at an evening party (!) , of the affair to come off on the morrow, overcame the scruples of the reluctant pacificator. He accompanied the surgeon (the most eminent in the city, and one of the Faculty of Richmond Medical College) to the ground next morning. ”

“ He passes from point to point in a delightfully cheerful and contagious mood. Mr. Ritchie’s reading has been as extensive and careful as his observation is keen and his temper genial; and his pages, which appeared in the Christian World Magazine, well deserve the honour of book-form, with the additions he has been able to make to them.’—British Quarterly Review. ”

“ Ritchie. He heard the steward's cry of alarm; and immediately sprang from his berth, and, seizing his trousers, rushed upon deck. He noticed that some of the sailors were leaping into a boat, and without loss of time, and with great presence of mind, he at once seized a rope, and by a marvellous effort swung himself into it. He afterwards looked upon his escape as nothing short of miraculous. Just as the boat was leaving the ship, two persons made frantic efforts to detain it. They were the aunt and uncle of Mr. Ritchie. ”

“ O are na ye sorry now, ladye,
For to forsake the Earl o Hume,
And follow me, your footman-laddie?'
'How could I be sorry, Ritchie,
How could I be sorry, Ritchie?
Such a gudely man as you,
And the lot that lies afore me, Ritchie.'
As they rode up through Edinburgh toun,
Her gowd watch hang doun sae gaudie;
Monie a lord made her a bow,
But nane o them thoucht she was Ritchie's ladye.
Whan they cam to Ritchie's yetts,
Dear vow, but the music playd bonnie!
There were four-and-twenty gay ladies
To welcome hame Richard Storry's ladye. ”

“ Ritchie received his early schooling at Jedburgh Academy. Not allowed to make friends with other boys of his own age, he never learned to play games, and lived a solitary life, concentrating his mind rather too early on purely intellectual subjects. ”

“ To give a few sketches of the character and habits of David Ritchie, and contrast them with those of the more sublime Elshender, will, it is hoped, prove a more grateful entertainment.
David Ritchie was a pauper, who lived the greater part of a long life, and finally died so late as the year 1811, in a solitary cottage situated in the romantic glen of Manor in Peebles-shire. This vale, now rendered classic ground by the abode of the Black Dwarf, was otherwise formerly remarkable as having been the retirement of the illustrious and venerable Professor Ferguson. ”

“ Old Man Ring laid blame for the halt on his horse and querulously jerked at the bit. Christian sighed and took the down grade at what long years of service had established as a courtesy trot. They drew nigh the Thirst Cutter Saloon, outpost of Two Moons' convivial welcome. Old Man Ring turned yearningly in his saddle and caught a whiff of ardent spirits wafted out from swinging screen doors. But, no; he had something important to tell the sheriff of Broken Horn. "You, Christian!" Again a yank at the bridle. Main Street received them. ”

“ Ritchie pensively. “To ‘pal’ always suggests a comfortable arm-in-arm state of intimacy, eh?”
“Exactly! Ally makes friends rather easily.” The last words were almost abrupt.
“I don’t think Ritchie is so good at that as at listening. If you know what I mean, other men make friends with him, and he listens. I should think Captain Lewin was always very popular.”
“Invariably. I cannot remember, on looking back through my life, any single person who knew Ally and disliked him.”
“It is rather a fatal gift at times,—if you do not mind my saying so.”
Chum did not answer directly. ”

“ Ritchie’s arrival in Malta, I was fortunate enough to become acquainted with him, and hearing him express his disappointment at having failed to obtain Captain Marryat as his companion on the proposed expedition, I ventured to offer my best endeavours to supply his place, and although conscious that I had but little talent to boast, I yet hoped that the zeal by which I was actuated would in some degree make amends for my deficiencies in other respects. ”

“ Quelele laid two heavy flat stones in the middle of the street; the kettle carriers deposited their burden, rim down on the rocks. A space of two inches or more showed between the kettle rim and the hard adobe.
Still the hollow bum-bum-bum of the water-drum, whisper and cluck of the notched sticks. A very old man, the skin of whose naked legs was grey and tough as elephant hide, had attached ceremonial circlets of dried yucca pods about his ankles in a cuff extending almost to the knees. He took his stand by the instrumentalists and his feet moved in a shuffle in time to the drum beats. ”

“ The people crowd and gape round. One fellow, in a crimson waistcoat, driving past in a donkey-cart, stops short and stares hard at the trap and at Raban. Frank knew him, and nodded with a smile. Two more stumpy leather-gaiters, greeting each other, looked up as he drove by, and grinned. He remembered them too. There was the old Quaker, in his white neckcloth, standing at the door of his handsome old shop; and Squire Anley, walking along to the bank, all dressed from head to foot in loose grey clothes, with his bull-terrier at his heels. ”

“ Ritchie is well and favourably known as one of those writers who, whilst possessed of a keen and observant eye, remarks all the social inconsistencies of which human society in the great modern Babylon is composed, and spares neither those who may be said to hold the language of the first murderer—‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ nor others, who grovel in the sensuality, which speedily deforms man into little less than the beast of the earth. ”

“ The girl, seeing them, stops short and turns back deliberately and walks as far as the old sun-dial before she retraces her steps.
How oddly all our comings and goings, and purposes and cross-purposes combine, fulfil, frustrate each other. It is like a wonderful symphony, of which every note is a human life. The chapel bell had just finished ringing, as Rhoda (for it is Rhoda) turned in through the narrow door leading to the garden, and John Morgan, with Dolly beside him, came quickly across the worn green space in front of the barracks. ”

“ Ritchie's grandfather was a Scottish earl,” said Nick, immediately, a piece of news that startled me into protest. “It is true, Davy, though you may not know it,” he added.
“And you, Monsieur?” she said to Nick.
“I am his cousin,—is it not honor enough?” said he.
“Yet you do not resemble one another.”
“Mr. Ritchie has all the good looks in the family,” said Nick.
“Oh!” cried the young lady, and this time she gave us her profile.
394 “Come, Mademoiselle,” said Nick, “since the fates have cast the die, let us all sit down in the shade. The place was made for us.” ”

“ The mob bayed. Still from the pitchy blackness beyond the inner fence of steel not a sound.
For ten minutes the steel forest of the cell block was clangorous with the crash of sledge. Then the lock gave and the gate bounded open. A snarling cheer and the foremost of the mob pushed into the narrow corridor which ran four sides round the central block of cells.
"Hey, you Killer! We got you now!"
Slowly, inexorably, the lantern marched at the head of a shadowy rank of men, pausing at each door to be upheld, that its light might fall through bars. ”

“ Ritchie’s illness, an old man, aged eighty, came to consult us about his back, which was very much bent, and had been so for many years: he had seen us give a liniment to a person who had sprained his ankle, which got well in a few days; and his request was, that some of the same medicine might be given him to strengthen his back, which, he said, was becoming very inconvenient to him. ”

“ Ritchie in regard to political and theological questions, they cannot fail to gain much enjoyment from his excellent delineation of old days in East Anglia.’—Norwich Mercury.
‘“East Anglia” has the merit of not being a compilation, which is more than can be said of the great majority of books produced in these days to satisfy the revived taste for topographical gossip. Mr. Ritchie is a Suffolk man—the son of a Nonconformist minister of Wrentham in that county—and he looks back to the old neighbourhood and the old times with an affection which is likely to communicate itself to his readers. ”

“ Christian—for that was his name—was earth-born in a land where the horse is long. The man who rode him was plebeian, loutish even in the careless sag of his overalls tucked into square-toed boots, the hump of his collar high round his ears. His wizened face was all fallen into hollows and crevasses beneath protuberant cheek bones and outstanding ears; skin above the scraggy gray beard baked a pipestone red; blue eyes which never cleansed themselves of dazedness. ”

“ Then:
“I will accompany you to Henri. It is safe, and may be necessary.”
Before he stripped off his smoking gown, he took the jeweled collar from the pocket and laid it on the table. Detournelles pounced upon it eagerly, held it stretched between his fingers, and lovingly fondled with his gaze each soft spot of royal color.
“Yes, a good haul—a very good haul,” the Phantom commented, as he slipped his arms into jacket sleeves and next buried himself in the lapping folds of a heavy fur coat. “Come! We will put the little beauty away for the night.” ”

“ She had put the lantern on a corner of the carved chimney-sill, from whence its glimmers fell upon oaken panels and black-and-white flags of marble, upon a dark oak staircase winding up into the house.
'Will you go in there?' said the girl, in a low voice, pointing to an open door.
Then she quickly and noiselessly barred and fixed the heavy bolts; her hands slid along the old iron hasps and hooks. Raban stood watching her at work; he found himself comparing her to an ivy plant, she seemed to bloom so freshly in the damp and darkness, as she went moving hither and thither in her odd green gown. ”

“ All [205] here including you, Señor Hickman, and you, Señor Bagley, will endure this test even as I just have done. Put your fingers to the kettle and show them to all, blackened. God will speak through the mouth of the imprisoned cock when the guilty man touches the iron.”
Grant gave the girl a steady look, then without a word he stepped to the blackened dome, swept the fingers of his right hand across it and held them aloft. Benicia was looking away when Grant stepped back beside her; he saw a convulsive movement of her throat—no other sign. Then big Bim dared the oracle with an easy grace. ”