Robinson

“ When the new shepherd had been following his flock for a few days, Mr. Robinson, while looking out from the verandah of his house over the plains, observed a strange object approaching at some distance. He said to himself, "That is not a horseman, nor an emu, nor a native companion, nor a swagman, nor a kangaroo." He could not make it out; so he fetched his binocular, and then perceived that it was a human being, stark naked. ”

“ From this moment George Robinson will fight the world alone. Brisket, indeed! If it be accounted manliness to have killed hecatombs of oxen, let him be called manly!"
"He would have pretty nigh killed you, young man, on one occasion, if you hadn't made yourself scarce."
"By heavens!" exclaimed Robinson, "if he'll come forth, I'll fight him to-morrow;—with cleavers, if he will!"
"George, George, don't say that," exclaimed Mr. Brown. "'Let dogs delight to bark and bite.'"
"You needn't be afraid," said Maryanne. "He doesn't mean fighting," and she pointed to Robinson. ”

“ Robinson did not go a-sneaking off, with a lie in his mouth and his shoes in the water bucket; a-sneaking off like a spit-thief dog, to use your own expressive words. And yet, even his case was considered serious enough for a putting through on a desert island. Yes! ”

“ Old Robinson. Yes; the Robinson. Don’t you know? The notorious Robinson. The man who smuggled more opium and bagged more seals in his time than any loose Johnny now alive. They say he used to board the sealing-schooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thick that the Lord God, He alone, could tell one man from another. Holy-Terror Robinson. That’s the man. He is with me in that guano thing. The best chance he ever came across in his life. ”

“ You are a prisoner, and a traitor to boot."
"Don't you hear the gentleman say he is hurt?" interposed Robinson. "It's onnatural, and more like a beast than a man to deny a prisoner a little water."
"By my sword, villain, I will cleave your brain for you, if you open that rebel mouth of yours again!"
"Pshaw, pshaw! Captain Habershaw, this will never do," said Peppercorn; "men are men, and must have food and drink. Here, Gideon Blake, give me your flask of liquor and bring me some water from the river. It is my duty, captain, to look after the prisoners." ”

“ Robinson, though a realist in the sense that his preoccupation is with motive, turns down the light in the presence of his protagonist that in the gloom he may take on the air of something larger and more mysterious than the garishly actual. ”

“ Like all her race, observant, intuitive, having a horror of ridicule, consequently quick at acquirement and teachable in mental and social habits, she had developed from absolute pagan indifference into a sweet, elderly Christian woman, whose broken English, quiet manner, and still handsome copper-colored face, were the joy of old Robinson's declining years. ”

“ If I did not know you, Robinson, to be a man of truth, as well as courage, I should scarce believe this tale. If any one, hereafter, should tell your story, he will be accounted a fiction-monger."
"I do not boast, Major Butler; and, as to my story, I care very little who tells it. Every trick is good in war. I can change my face and voice both, so that my best friends shouldn't know me: and, in these times, I am willing to change every thing but my coat, and even that, if I have a witness to my heart, and it will serve a turn to help the country. ”

“ Did Robinson, though the edition was sold out the day after? Did I, though you had just called me a modern Buddhist with the soul of an ancient Greek and the radiant fragrance of a Cingalese tea-planter? I know these phrases take the public and I try to be patient."
"Owen is right," Harry Robinson put in emphatically. "When you said I was a cross between a Scandinavian skald and a Dutch painter, I bore my cross in silence." ”

“ The character of Robinson is so artfully generalized or universalized, and sympathy for him is so powerfully aroused and maintained, that the reader, especially the child reader, inevitably identifies himself with him, and feels his emotions and struggles as his own. ”

“ Then the lawless habits of the people who had possession of him, gave rise to the most anxious distrust as to his future fate: he might be murdered in a fit of passion, or tortured with harsh treatment to gratify some concealed malice. His position in the army was, it seemed, known too; and, for aught that he could tell, his mission might be no secret to his captors. Robinson's sagacity entered fully into these misgivings. ”

“ Ah! and here is Mr. Horse Shoe Robinson; Major Butler, where is he, sir?" she exclaimed, turning to the sergeant, who had now approached the back of her chair to offer his hand.
"Blessings on you for a wise and a brave girl!" said Robinson. "But it wouldn't do; we were ambushed, and the Major is still a prisoner."
"I feared it," said Mary, "and therefore I stole away. They are bloody-minded and wicked, father; and uncle Adair's house has been the place where mischief and murder has been talked of. Oh, I am very sick! I have had such a ride!" ”

“ Seats were hard to find, but in the end they obtained them on a stand back of third base. Mr. Robinson settled his stick between his knees and looked about him. The triangle of stands was crowded with excited men and women; men in straw hats and all sorts of vivid shirts, women in cool cotton dresses, with here and there a touch of crimson ribbon. The field stretched away green and level as a carpeted floor to the river and the boathouse. Princeton was at the bat. Mr. Robinson turned to his new acquaintance. ”

“ This sight made Robinson greatly afraid. He wanted to rush to the rescue of the rabbit, but what could he do against such a foe? He resolved in the future to [Pg 126] keep a more careful watch and always to sleep in his bower.
Robinson had enough of exploring for some time. He was contented to remain at home. He made many things he needed. He had saved all the skins of the goats he had killed for meat and all that had died from any cause. These he made into rugs for his bed. He kept at his loom too, for he was anxious to weave enough of his coarse cloth to make him a suit of clothes. ”

“ Never a frightened rabbit ran to his hiding place with more terror than Robinson ran to his cave. He did not sleep that night for fear and remained in his shelter for three days, never venturing out. But his food was growing short and his goats needed to be milked. He finally with a thousand wild fancies forced himself to go about his duties.
But he could not get the footprint out of his mind. He spent many sad and fearful days thinking about it. "How could it have gotten there? Whose was it? Was the owner savage or not? What did he want on the island?" ”

“ Robinson got up and with great effort walked to the spring. There he cooled his burning feet, and gathered some large leaves, which he bound on them. He decided to remain in his cave a few days, for he had enough food stored up to last him some length of time. He planned how he might make himself a pair of shoes. As soon as his feet were wel [Pg 52] l, he sought out some thick bark and put fastenings of tough, strong fiber on it. These served very well to protect his feet. ”

“ The whole history is a romance—is not that the name, father, that is given to works of the imagination?”
“It is,” said I; “but we must not call Robinson Crusoe a romance; though Robinson himself, and all the circumstances of his history are probably fictitious, the details are all founded on truth—on the adventures and descriptions of voyagers who may be depended on, and unfortunate individuals who have actually been wrecked on unknown shores. ”

“ A high leathern collar a quarter of an inch thick squeezed his throat in its iron grasp. His hair and his clothes were drenched with water which had been thrown in bucketsful over him, and now dripped from him on the floor. His face was white, his lips livid, his eyes were nearly glazed, and his teeth chattered with cold and pain.
A more unprincipled man than Robinson did not exist; but burglary and larceny do not extinguish humanity in a thinking rascal as resigning the soul to system can extinguish it in a dull dog. ”

“ At this Robinson, with a wild and furious gesture, waved him to the door and turned his face to the wall; then this refined gentleman bowed his head, as much as to say you shall be master of this apartment and dismiss any one you do not like, and went gently away with a little sigh. And the last that he saw was Robinson trembling with averted face and eyes bent down.
Outside he met Evans, who said to him half bluntly half respectfully, “I don't like to see you going into that cell, sir; the man is not to be trusted. He is very strange.” ”

“ With many cheering and kind expressions of encouragement from the sergeant, the young officer prepared to comply with the demands of his captors, and was soon in readiness to attend them. Robinson lifted him into his saddle with a grasp as light as if he was dealing with a boy, and then bound him by a surcingle to the horse's back, whilst he offered a good-humored apology for the rigor of this treatment.
"It is not the most comfortable way of riding, Mr. Ensign," he said, with a chuckle; "but fast bind, fast find, is a'most an excellent good rule for a traveller in the dark. ”

“ For more than two-and-twenty years Robinson had now been in the island, and he had grown quite used to it, and to his manner of living. If he could only have been sure that no savages would come near him, he felt almost that he would be content to spend all the rest of his days there, to die at last, as the goat he found in the cave had died, of old age. ”

“ And now Robinson was confined for five months in a wooden prison with the scum of our jails. No cell to take refuge in from evil society. And in that wretched five months this perpetual contact with criminals, many of them all but incurable, took the gloss off him. His good resolutions were unshaken, but his repugnance to evil associates became gradually worn away. ”

“ But after all the opinions of our friends are not what we love them for—so I don’t see why they should be a ground of aversion. Robinson’s nature is singularly generous and his intelligence very fine, though there are things he muddles up. ”

“ Robinson, the most celebrated bareback rider in the world, is employed, making his summersets over star-spangled flags and ribbons, backwards and forwards, with the agility of a cat. Bands of volunteer musicians from other cities, and Tyrolese minstrels, find themselves here, who make the rounds, and whose notes are heard from morn until late in the night, and who adopt this method of picking up the crumbs. ”

“ I stand in need, sergeant, of a friend with a discreet head and a strong arm. I could not have picked out of the army a better man than Sergeant Galbraith Robinson. Besides, Horse Shoe," he added, putting his hand gently upon the sergeant's shoulder, "old acquaintance has bred an affection between us."
"I am a man that can eat my allowance, major," said Robinson, with an awkward diffidence at hearing the encomium just passed upon him, "and that's a matter that doesn't turn to much profit in an empty country. ”

“ Not so fast; you run yourself out of breath," said Robinson mildly, interrupting this flood of objurgation. "Why, you are as spiteful as a hen with a fresh brood! Remember, Wat and me are old friends. Wat has been at my house both before the war and since, and I have been here—all in friendship you know. And many's the buck I have helped Wat to fetch down. What's the use of tantrums? If we had been thieves, Mrs. Adair, you couldn't have sarved us worse. Why, it's unreasonable in you to fly in a man's face so."
"I'll vouch for Horse Shoe Robinson, Mrs. Peggy Adair," said Lynch. ”

“ Robinson—Her story of Florizel and Perdita—Her after-career—Coming of age of the Prince of Wales—His new establishment—His first visit to Brighton—His and Colonel Hanger's adventure.
WHO was this Mrs. Robinson? She was of Irish extraction, and was born in Bristol in 1758. In 1774 she married an attorney's clerk, named Robinson; and, owing to pecuniary difficulties, she went on the stage, appearing at Drury Lane as Juliet on December 10, 1770, a part for which her fascinating beauty well fitted her. ”

“ The moon shone clear in the heavens. As Robinson sat before the goat's bed he looked down on his new possession as lovingly as a mother on her child.
The next morning Robinson's first thought was, "I am no longer alone. I have a companion, my goat." He sprang up and looked for it. There she lay on her side, still sleeping.
As he stood and considered, the thought came to him that perhaps the goat had escaped from its keeper. There must then be some one living on the land. He quickly put on his shoes and his hat, took his parasol, and ran to the rock where he had found the goat. ”

“ In 1551 Robinson completed the first rendering into English of Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia.' In the dedication to his former schoolfellow, Cecil, he expressed regret for More's obstinate adherence to discredited religious opinions, modestly apologised for the shortcomings of his translation, and reminded his patron of their youthful intimacy. ”

“ Robinson began at once to write down the date for each day and the main thing he did or that happened on it. He called this his diary. He had now a better way of keeping time than on his tree calendar. He did not need it any more.
You have no doubt wondered how Robinson could work in his cave, especially at night without a light. The truth is, it was a great source of discomfort to him. At sunset he was in total darkness in his cave. During the day light enough streamed in from the open doorway. To be alone in total darkness is not pleasant. "If I only had fire!" ”