Rockhampton

“ Up to this moment Rockford was the largest town I had ever seen, and the mere thought of a million people stunned my imagination. "How can so many people find a living in one place?" Naturally I believed most of them to be robbers. "If the city is miles across, how am I to get from the railway station to my hotel without being assaulted?" ”

“ Harry, this whole long year I have looked for her, night and day. There is not a corner of the town we have not scoured, old Chitterley and myself. Aye, that was the mystery you fretted not to share!”
[364]
Harry looked at his father speechlessly, with fierce dry eyes.
“Alas!” Rockhurst went on stonily, “she must even be dead, stricken by the contagion—fallen at the street corner perchance, swept into the common pit as so many others! And yet, if she were not dead—There is not a burning house I pass but I fear she may be in the flames. Food is as ashes, drink as gall upon my tongue. ”

“ Rockhurst’s countenance at sight of Master Smelter, with the black fists, as the proposed evening comrade!... He could see the dilation of the nostrils, the haughty lips, barely apart upon a smile. What a tale would not Rockhurst’s tongue make of it for royal ears!—As for the inn, were he to find there some chance gentlefolk, how could he hope to induce them to come forth again on such a night, when, in truth, no coach was like to find a passage through the snow? ”

“ Major Jimmy Bass would exclaim; "don't we all know Little Compton like a book? And ain't he got a right to wear his own duds?"
Rockville, like every other railroad town in the South at that period, had become the site of a Confederate hospital; and sometimes the hangers-on and convalescents paid brief visits of inspection to the neighboring villages. On one occasion a little squad of them made their appearance on the streets of Hillsborough, and made a good-natured attempt to fraternize with [91] the honest citizens who gathered daily at Perdue's Corner. ”

“ Sir Edward, her brother ... Sir Edward, in truth, is a poor fool, my lord—And Mr. Ratcliffe, her cousin, who rides with them, him I mightily mistrust. You have given me your blood, father—will you blame me now because it will not run obediently when I think of danger to my lady?”
[174]
“Nay, if thy body kept pace with thy spirit,” mocked Rockhurst, “what a beard wouldst soon have, my callow son!” Yet, though he mocked, anger had fled from his glance to be replaced by fatherly pride.
The tears rose to Harry’s eyes. The young can endure severity better than irony. ”

“ Almost as far as the eye could reach, the land and all that stood on it—timber, meadow, homestead, hamlet—belonged to Rockhurst, fit appanage to those massy castle walls that rose clear-cut against the blue air, in all the majesty of ancient power. And as he gazed, Lionel Ratcliffe’s heart grew sombre even as his glance. A keen-faced man, old-looking for his thirty years, somewhat below the middle height, with marked features, cold blue eyes and thin lips that betrayed the working of an intellect as sharp as the steel that hung by his side. ”

“ As William watched, his small nose flattened against a corner of the window, Nero and Dante arrived, having shared a taxi from the station. Miss Gregoria Mush, tall and gaunt and angular, presided in the robes of Mary, Queen of Scots, which was her favourite previous existence. Then Mr. Gregorius Lambkin arrived. He looked as unhappy as it is possible for man to look. He was dressed in a toga and a laurel wreath. Heat and nervousness had caused his small waxed moustache to droop. His toga was too long and his laurel wreath was crooked. Miss Gregoria Mush received him effusively. ”

“ Why, there is not a kinsman can afford to show countenance to such a falling house, not a lady in Europe who has heart enough to risk her fate with my hopes. Nay, there’s not even a fat tallow merchant of Flanders who thinks it worth his while to risk a present guilder for future favour. You would do better, my lord, to go seek your peace with the powers that be—and for this you have recent high precedent—rather than remain to share the last ruin of our line.”
“Sire,” exclaimed Rockhurst then, “how shall my house stand if yours fall? How shall my body [11] keep health if yours ail? ”

“ Tell him I am dull, que je m’ennuie, Vidame, et qu’il vienne s’ennuyer avec moi, for I am persuaded he is as dull as I am. ’Tis the fate of good wit in a weary world. How now—not gone?”
“Sire,” said the lad, in a toneless voice, “Lord Rockhurst is at Whitehall. I saw him at his writing [230] but just now, as I passed the Window of his apartment.”
“All the better fortune! Haste, then,” said the King. “But hark ye, Little Satan: Rockhurst alone! God forbid there should be a flounce near our presence to-night! Bid the Lord Constable come and crack a bottle with us as in the old days of Flanders.” ”

“ The Capitan Ramon has met with a slight misadventure, and needs but your smile, a bandage, and a tass of brandwein to restore him.”
“Ah, heavens!” answered she, and the door was flung wide open. A woman, evidently of the rich burgher class, young, and very fair of colouring, stood in the passage, a small lamp in her hand. Her face blanched as the half-fainting man was assisted across the threshold, and she caught her free hand to her lips as if to stifle a rising scream. It was evident, thought Rockhurst, that there were those in the house whom she feared to disturb. ”

“ Rockhurst had not used him to such wearisome moods. Yet he loved the man.
“Nay, nay,” he explained at length; “I’d have you remember, my lord, that it is my cousin of France who is responsible for our Little Satan yonder. Nay, Rockhurst,” he went on, in his easy kindness and his sense of royal prerogative, unable to grasp the fact that any one could be in earnest in refusing the favour of his personal interest; “I’ll have the lad with my own sons. We’d keep our eye upon him, man.”
Rockhurst’s glance rested on the King’s countenance now with an unwonted tenderness. ”

“ Tush, man,” proceeded he, flinging himself into the leathern chair and shaking out the Flemish napkin, “things are better with us, and things are worse with us; let us drink and remember—and drink and forget! Ha, my lord, we oft had neither pasty nor capon in those days—but I’ll say that for thee, Harry, you were master cellarer, and you never let me lack decent wine—”
“My liege,” said Rockhurst, a note of tenderness creeping in through his grave tones, “we had to pledge a great cause, and the wine had to be worthy of the cup!” ”

“ My Lord Viscount Rockhurst—” He was feverishly stripping his glove from his left hand as he spoke; but the Lord Constable, with a single gesture, swept him and his argument from the path with no more emotion than that of a man who rids himself of an importunate fly. With the same measured step he then resumed his course up the garden alley.
For a second the Vidame stood, staring after him, paralysed with rage. A faint snigger—of mingled relief and amusement—from the watcher on the bench started him to fresh action, as the prick of the spur starts the mettled horse. ”

“ Lionel Ratcliffe had taken no pains to fulfil his grandmother’s behest; and already she seemed to have forgotten it; but he had soothed Edward Hare after his own fashion—by a bumper of wine and a whispered promise to provide the travel money himself. Now in the lull he took a seat behind Madame de Mantes and, his eyes on Rockhurst and Diana, began in a fierce undertone:—
“Do you not see how it is with them? Why, in this evening’s folly everything conspires to give them to each other. You wait the ripe moment, say you? Gad! ”

“ Out, little phial! It lay in the hollow of his palm, no larger than a lady’s thimble. Break, silken thread! His moment had come: the lover would kiss his dark mistress on the lips! There was buzzing as of a thousand angry bees in his ears.... He never noted how still the room had grown. Now his hand hovered over the rim of the full beaker—a strange gesture, as of the priest blessing the cup...!
“Little Satan....” said the King.
Though neither loud nor sharp, there was something so singular in Charles’s voice that Rockhurst started from his wonted abstraction. ”

“ This young man, at the Stunt Election of 19—, although not taking quite so kindly to the Coupon as he might have done, had yet been returned for Blackhampton by a solid majority of four thousand odd.
“Well,” ruminated the prime minister, “Blackhampton is the metropolis of the midland counties and in those parts they are a shrewd, hard-headed folk. They have a knack of going pretty straight to the root of most matters. And they appear to have a good opinion of John Endor. ”

“ Rockhurst started as if he had been struck. A masterful man, who all his life had dominated others, he bent his brows with a terrible resentment on her who dared thwart him at this supreme hour of his [327] will; dared lift against him the one weapon that could pierce his armour.
“You took the trust, my lord, even as I yielded my troth....”
His anger broke forth, the more ruthlessly that he was, for the first time in his life, perhaps, abandoning himself to an unworthy part, a part of weakness. Broken phrases escaped his lips, contradictions lost in the irresistible logic of passion. ”

“ That evening William heard his father say to his mother:
"She came down to meet him at the station to-night. I'm afraid his doom is sealed. He's no power of resistance, and she's got her eye on him."
"Who's got her eye on him?" said William with interest.
"Be quiet!" said his father with the brusqueness of the male parent.
But William began to see how things stood. And William liked Mr. Lambkin.
One evening he saw from his window Mr. Gregorius Lambkin walking with Miss Gregoria Mush in Miss Gregoria Mush's garden. Mr. Gregorius Lambkin did not look happy. ”

“ The hard brilliancy of the Cavalier’s eye softened: here was a remark which betrayed the logic of a perfectly childish mind.
“The poor Capitan Ramon,” she went on, “has so little money and gets such poor fare. I think it but right to help him.”
“Madam,” said Rockhurst, “you have described my own case. I bless the hour when I was inspired to pass beneath the window of so tender-hearted a lady!”
“Indeed,” she said, and her creamy skin flushed to the roots of her hair, “if you will share the supper, too, I shall be glad of it.”
Again the Spaniard rolled his glare of sullen doubt. ”

“ Lilt and step fell into sudden silence at the corner of the house. The newcomer had halted, apparently struck by the sight of the two figures, shadowed as they were through the vapours at the garden gate by the lantern light. Rockhurst’s head as he bent over the lock was lit up fantastically. The bold features, the thin, upturned mustache, quivering now with a mischievous smile, the peaked beard, black as raven’s wing, and the hat with its challenging tilt and its incredible plume, all seemed to proclaim in him one of Don John’s own rakish soldiers of fortune. ”

“ The elder by some fifteen years, he had none of the genial gleam in his eye, none of the something almost fatherly with which the mature man of kindly mettle regards youth.—Lord Rockhurst’s gaze was colder than the wind that whistled in the leaves, bleaker than the moorland waste. ”

“ William crept across the field to the stile that led to the main road. Here his progress was barred by a group of three who stood talking by the stile. There was a tall pompous-looking man with a beard, a small woman and an elderly man.
“Oh, yes, we’ve quite settled in now,” the tall, pompous-looking man was saying. “We’ve got a resident patient with us—a Miss Polliter who is a chronic nervous case. We are rather uneasy at having to leave her all to-day with only the cook and house-boy. Unfortunately our housemaid left us suddenly yesterday but we trust that things will have gone all right. ”

“ Just as Robert was taking up a plate of sandwiches to hand them with a courteous gesture to Miss Cannon, his eyes fell upon the long, white road leading from the village to the riverside and remained fixed there, his face frozen with horror. The hand that held the plate dropped lifelessly back again on to the table-cloth. Their eyes followed his. A curious figure was cycling along the road—a figure with blackened face and a few drooping feathers on its head, and a door-mat flying in the wind. A crowd of small children ran behind cheering. ”

“ The man on the window-sill gave a fierce laugh.
“Art as simple, Diana, as thou wouldst fain make out? Dost really believe thy protector—’tis a fine name, in sooth—will find thee that coach?”
“Not a word more!” broke in the other. She had as strong a spirit as his own. “Who should know Lord Rockhurst better than I? Ah, who has better reason to know him? If all the world were to believe evil of him, yet would I still trust him with my life.”
“And is there naught you value more than life?” ”

“ A subtle change swept over Rockhurst’s countenance. The air of grave severity, the shadow of regretful tenderness, passed from him, to be replaced by the mocking glance, the expression at [53] once reckless and cynical which, before the world’s eyes, characterised the man who had won for himself—among a company of reprobates—that second if scarcely more appropriate nickname of his, “Rakehell Rockhurst.”
“Nay, but you’re a promising lad!” said he, gibing. “And you’ll make your way, my son, I doubt me not. Time advances, old types die out, and manners change. ”

“ To-night Frank would be sleeping safely in a soft bed. He would have abundance of good food. He would be laughing and talking with others of his kind. And his mother, the woman with the golden hair, would print a good-night kiss upon his lips.
But Bomba had no mother near him to kiss him good-night. He had no friends to talk to, to clap on the shoulder in jovial fashion, as Gillis had done to Dorn. Monkeys and parrots were his only intimates, except poor demented Casson and the squaw, Pipina. ”