Ross

“ Automatically, Ross lifted his glass. The others did likewise. For an instant the four glasses were held aloft, the lights playing on their sparkling depths. Then the elderly man turned to Ross with a rather elaborate low bow and said in a voice that was like gray steel:
“Mr. Waring, allow us to drink to your most excellent good health——for tomorrow you hang!” ”

“ BROKEN SHACKLES AND A MYSTERY
Ross stood spellbound. He could not believe his own eyes.
That he should meet a human being in this vast waste of rock and sand and cactus was possible. That he should find a girl chained to a rock, like a felon of the black ages, was nothing short of incredible.
There was no denying the girl’s existence, however. She was there, and she was in need of help.
His incredulity shattered, Ross was beside the girl in a bound. Even a cursory glance showed her to be undeniably pretty, and it also showed her to be quite as undeniably in a state of total exhaustion. ”

“ The prime boast of Ross is that it had a Man; and this Man is immanent. You cannot raise your eyes in Ross without encountering a reminder of its Manhood, its Manliness; and the uninstructed, as they wander hither and thither, naturally become more and more curious as to his identity: how he obtained the definite article and the capital M so definitely—The Man—and what was his association with the place. ”

“ As his hands, tied behind him, went in, Ross carefully cut one turn of the spun yarn, hauled away, and as his feet disappeared, he cut the bonds on his ankles; then he advised him to shake his hands and feet clear, pulled out the handspike, slammed the breech-door to, and waited.
The protest from within had never ceased; but at last Ross got from the information, interlarded with pleadings for life, that his hands and feet were free. ”

“ Ross took his hat from the counter, and turned to leave the box, in which he had stood while conversing with this man. The pawnbroker eyed him furtively, with a crafty smile on his lips. He was not disheartened, for the anxiety in those deep-set eyes was too apparent for doubt. The man would make any sacrifice rather than lose the articles he sought. ”

“ Colors so bizarre that no artist had dared to give them to canvas had soothed his soul. Grotesqueries of rock and sand and canon had intrigued him.
Ross still believed that the old hurt was still present in his bosom. Actually he had been having a capital time for months, and the girl no longer mattered. However, he had allowed himself gradually to fall into a state of whimsical melancholy. What he needed was adventure. He was bored, but had he known what lay at the end of the thin twisting trail before him his boredom might not have been so acute. ”

“ Ross, Ross, don't you hear, don't you see? Every minute is precious while that man is in command at the Castle. He looks a fool—but he is a clever fool at that. I don't trust him. I'm not a weak woman, Ross, to be afraid of a murderer—pshaw! what is that? If a man has need to do it, and the courage, I can even admire! And I love you! Don't speak now, Ross—just come, and let us slip away together. In this wild country we can soon be lost—slip down the coast and get away on the first steamer to—anywhere! ”

“ This inspired her with new ambition, and she plunged into attempts at harmony and contrast, that fairly set the beholder’s teeth on edge as words of hollow flattery passed through them.
Thus it was that Mr. Ross found his sister and her habitation. Carpets, gorgeously independent of draperies; florid frescoes, statues in deep shadow; flaming vases in the light; mirrors in every available space; and pictures, such pictures! in magnificent frames, surrounded him on every side. But genius is great, and money all potent. ”

“ The other expelled air from his lungs in a grunt of surprise, and Ross whipped over, one hand grasping the hilt of the tribesman's dagger while the other, free of that prisoning wrist-lock, chopped at the fellow's throat.
Dagger out and ready, Ross faced the men in a half crouch as he had been drilled. They stared at him in open-mouthed amazement, then too late the spears went up. Ross placed the point of his looted weapon at the throat of the now quiet man by whom he knelt, and he spoke the language he had learned from Ulffa's people.
"You strike—this one dies." ”

“ Ross, who had lost a saving sense of time and place, leaned after that ship receding in majesty, long after it had curved from view.
The crowd, not a dry-eyed one, women in spite of themselves with lips whitening, men grim with pride and an innermost bleeding, sagged suddenly, thinning and trickling back into the great, impersonal maw of the city. Apart from the rush of the exodus, a youth remained at the rail, gazing out and quivering for the smell of war. ”

“ Ross was a man far advanced in life, who in the early part of it had been accustomed to genteel society, was an excellent classical scholar, and well grounded in English literature of a superior class, as well as what is properly termed the Belles Lettres. He had greatly ameliorated the condition of his parishioners, by introducing industry and neatness in their habitations, yet he had merely tinctured the minds of Ellen and Joanna with a love of reading, justly conceiving that in their station of life much literary knowledge and refinement of taste would be worse than useless to them. ”

“ Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, wasting the money we make. It's all wrong. And if we weren't a herd of tame asses, we wouldn't permit it."
And now he began to feel that he was the superior of this showy idler, that his own garments and dinner pail and used hands were the titles to a nobility which could justly look down upon those who filched from the treasury of the toiler the means to buzz and flit and glitter in dronelike ease. ”

“ The wash of waves covered Ross's advance until he came up against the wall not too far from the spy's perch. Whoever crouched there still leaned forward to watch Karara. And Ross's eyes, having adjusted to the gloom of the cavern, made out the outline of head and shoulders. The next two or three minutes were the critical ones for the Terran. He must emerge on the ledge in the open before he could attack. ”

“ A gentleman, much dejected in his looks, called one day on Ross, when stricken with years, and told him that his father, a wealthy citizen in London, lay at the point of death, and begged that he might see him, or he could not die in peace of mind. ”

“ Ruth, you are growing pale; let me lift you back to the couch. No, sir; it is not needed—one is enough. There, now; don’t be troubled, child. No need of that! You see how weak she is, Mr. Ross; so have some compassion on us all. You will understand me, by-and-by.”
“If compassion could make you happy, there would be no sorrow under this roof,” answered Ross, with a ringing sweetness in his voice, that brought tears to the eyes of Ruth Laurence. ”

“ Till through his en'my's heart his steel,
⁠had forced a mortal wound
Graeme like a tree by wind o'erthrown,
⁠fell breathless on the clay,
And down beside him sunk the Ross,
⁠who faint and dying lay. ”

“ He chatted with the peons, hunted wild mares in the monte, and drank cocktails as to the manner born. Ross had decided for an Argentine style of dress. He wore a beard, and his hands were hard from the strain of the lasso; but his old brown polo boots had been worn at Hurlingham and Ranelagh, and were shapelier than were generally seen in the corral. Ross was still at that enviable stage in life when to sleep out on the ground with one's head on a saddle is found preferable to a spring mattress and sheets. ”

“ Ross silently acquiesced in what he said, and then went into the house to deliver some directions to the servant, and which, he said, Mrs. Ross should go herself in the course of the day to see executed. In the common sitting-room Ross found the maps and books at which Mordaunt and Ellen had been looking the preceding day (his wife had told him the circumstances of her visit) : he was rather surprized at the neatness and even elegance of their binding, though merely what might be called school-books in geography and grammar, and found that the maps were excellent and expensive. ”

“ The cook studied me a moment, as if trying to find an insult in my words. “No,” he replied. “It’s for mine and the young lady’s purposes, and we’ll go only three miles—to Hicksville. Now let me tell you somethin’, Ross.” Suddenly I was confronted with the cook’s chunky back and I heard a low, curt, carrying voice shoot through the room at my host. George had wheeled just as Ross started to speak. “You’re nutty. That’s what’s the matter with you. You can’t stand the snow. You’re getting nervouser, and nuttier every day. ”

“ Ross suddenly realized that he knew what had caused those crumples and crinkles around the periphery of the car.
“Subtle,” the driver yelled. “Indirection. Sneak it in.”
“What?” Ross screamed.
“The commersh,” the driver yelled.
It meant nothing to Ross, and he felt miserable because it meant nothing. He studied the roadside unhappily and almost beamed when he saw a sign coming up. Not advertising, of course, he thought. Perhaps some austere reminder of a whole man’s duty to the race and himself, some noble phrase that summed up the wisdom of a great thinker.... ”

“ Perhaps her gentleness and the sight of those tears mollified Dr. Ross, for when Audrey laid her clasped hands upon his knee he did not again repulse her. Nay, more, when she faltered once in telling her story, he put his hand on her head reassuringly.
'Is that all you have to tell me, my dear?' and now Dr. Ross spoke in his old kind voice.
'Yes, father dear; you have heard everything now, and—and—' beseechingly, 'you will not be hard on us!'
'Hard on him, I suppose you mean,' returned Dr. Ross, with rather a sad smile; 'a man is not likely to be hard to his own flesh and blood. ”

“ Ross-shire, a century ago, was no place for such a man; and as the only road to preferment at this period was the road that led south, George Ross left, when very young, his mother’s cottage for England, where he spent nearly fifty years amongst statesmen and courtiers, and in the enjoyment of the friendship of such men as President Forbes and Lord Mansfield. At length he returned, when an old greyheaded man, to rank amongst the greatest capitalists and proprietors of the county; and purchased, with other lesser properties in the neighbourhood, the whole estate of Cromarty. ”

“ The old man bent his eye to the keyhole and looked in. Directly within the range of his vision stood Mr. Clark’s escritoir wide open, and by it was Ross searching among the papers in an ebony box, which the old man knew as the repository of his master’s most valuable documents. Ross took from this box a voluminous parcel, thrust it in his bosom, and carefully locking the escritoir, held up the light and looked timidly around as if fearful of the very silence. Then, with a quick, noiseless tread, he passed across the room. ”

“ Ross is very proud that so distinguished a person is her particular friend."
"Do you mean the actress?"
"Yes; and makes her the big feature of her parties at present; and society is rather inclined to make a pet of her, too—patronizing high art, don't you know. It's wonderful what you can do in that way. If a duke wants a clown to make fellows laugh after a Derby dinner, he gets him to his house and makes him dance; and if the papers find it out, it is only raising the moral status of the pantomine. Of course it is different with Mrs. Ross's friend: she is all right socially." ”

“ On reaching Ross, after emerging from the tumult, or sublimity, of the lower passage, he will gaze with delight on one of the most quietly beautiful landscapes in England—whose smooth green eminences, gentle groves, orchards and hop plantations (the latter far finer objects than the vineyards of the continent) , white cottages, villages, and village spires, give an endless and yet simple variety to the picture. After passing Hereford, in quest of new excitement, the scene-hunter will pronounce a similar character of landscape tame. ”

“ Ross filled him in, carefully explaining why Bernie and Helena had left him. Doc Jones filled Ross in. He didn’t have much to tell. He had come to in the ship, waited around until he got hungry, fallen into a conversation with a rocket pilot on the field—and that was how his round of parties had begun.
Like Ross, Doc, in his soberer moments, had come to the conclusion that Earth was run by person or persons unseen. He had learned little that Ross hadn’t found out or deduced. ”

“ Lifting her head, he dampened the girl’s lips from the cup and then allowed her to drink her fill. But weakness still held sway over her body, and she sank back on the blankets, exhausted. Her eyes closed again.
“Don’t try to talk,” advised Ross. “You just lie there and rest until I fix something for you. Then you can tell me about this thing.”
For once in his life, Ross was glad that he had taken another man’s advice. When he had started his desert pilgrimage an old prospector had advised him to include a few cans of soup in his outfit. ”

“ His estate was five hundred pounds per annum, and no more, with which he did wonders. He built and endowed a hospital, and built the spire of Ross. When any litigious suits fell out, he would always stop them and prevent people's going to law. They would, when differences happened, say, go to 'the great man of Ross,' or, which they did more often, go to 'the man of Ross,' and he will decide the matter. He left a nephew, a man good for little or nothing. ”