Ryde

“ We will follow Nancy Corbett for the present. Nancy gained the summit of the cliff, and panting for breath, looked round to ascertain if there was any one in sight, but the coast was clear: she waited a minute to recover herself a little, and then set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the hamlet of Ryde, which then consisted of a few fishermen's huts. It was an hour and a-half before she gained this place, from whence she took a boat, and was safely landed at the Point. ”

“ Ryder braced himself to present a carefree jauntiness—an air somewhat difficult to assume when one is trussed like a spitted bird, in a hot coffin space, with hair falling dankly over a steaming brow, with a collar like a string, and an indescribable pallor beneath the bronze of one's face. ”

“ Father Algarcife, looking at the box across from him, saw Mariana start suddenly and rise with an impulsive welcome as Mrs. Ryder entered. He could see the light on her face, and the frank pleasure of her greeting. Then, as the two women stood together, he saw Ryder glance from one to the other with his pleasant smile and turn to speak to Miss Ramsey. He heard Nevins breathing behind him, and he was conscious of a strange feeling of irritation against him. Why should he, who was at enmity with no man, cherish that curious dislike for one who was his friend? ”

“ His eyes grown used to the dimness he identified the mantle upon the floor in which he had come and which he had extended to Aimée in that brief moment of fatuous triumph, and beyond it, across a chair, was the portière which the black had torn down from the doorway to wrap about Ryder's helpless form as he had carried him down to living death. ”

“ These thoughts all went through him like one thought, in some clear, remote background of his mind, while he was swiftly drawing on the military cloak she gave him and wrapping her in the black mantle. There was a veil on the mantle's hood that she could fling across her face when she wished, but Ryder had no fez to complete the deceptive outline of his masquerade. He must trust to the dark and to the concealment of the high, military collar of the cloak. ”

“ Ryder!” ejaculated Miss Alice, in scornful astonishment.
“Alice,” said Mrs. Rightbody, with a suspicious assumption of sudden defence, “you injure yourself, you injure me, by this exclusive attitude. Mr. Ryder is a friend of your father's, an exceedingly well-informed gentleman. I have not, of course, imparted to him the extent of my suspicions. But he can help me to what I must and will know. You might treat him a little more civilly—or, at least, a little better than you do his servant, your guide. Mr. Ryder is a gentleman, and not a paid courier.” ”

“ He was too much engaged in cursing the weather to pay her any attention.
"This licks me," he said; "in a week we ain't moved—we're stuck. 'Ow long will it last, Bill?"
"It looks as if it might last for ever," replied Ryder. "We've struck a bad streak."
The women had tea and the men drank whisky and water. Although Watchett didn't know it, two of his hands left the boat and were given something to eat in the galley by Mrs. Ryder's orders. It was Bagge who conveyed the invitation, with the connivance of the mate, for whom the word of the captain's wife was law.
"'Ave some marmalade and butter?" ”

“ For a moment Ryder felt wildly that he might meet the fate of the rash youth in his patron story. He had never ridden a horse like this, which, like all high-mettled Arabs, resented the authority of any but his master, and though a good horseman Ryder had all he could do to keep his seat and Aimée in his arms.
Around the corner of the lane the horse went racing, and down the dark, lebbek-lined avenue his flying feet struck back their sparks of fire. Across an open square he plunged, while irate camels screamed at him and a harsh voice shouted back loud curses. ”

“ CHAPTER IX The library was the most important room in the Ryder mansion, for it was there that the Colossus carried through his most important business deals, and its busiest hours were those which most men devote to rest. But John Burkett Ryder never rested. There could be no rest for any man who had a thousand millions of dollars to take care of. Like Macbeth, he could sleep no more. When the hum of business life had ceased down town and he returned home from the tall building in lower Broadway, then his real work began. ”

“ Upon Ryder's helpless body a cold sweat of incredulous horror broke softly out.
At his feet he heard the black beginning to fit his bricks and smooth his mortar.
"You do well to save your breath," said Hamdi Bey at last, as Ryder still stood silent. "You will need it in this chamber I am providing.... But it may be," he said thoughtfully, "that your breath will last your need. Thirst may be the more impatient for her victim; they tell me thirst is an obtrusive visitor. As you were, this evening.... Still, why do you not cry out a little? It will amuse my black." ”

“ Nevins looked up with quick gratitude, and Ryder grew radiant. He smiled on his wife in affectionate admiration.
"Of course I will," he answered, and as they left the box he added: "You are magnificent. There is not a woman in town with your neck and arms." ”

“ At all times in his work one has the feeling of there having lately passed, if ever so fleetly, some bodily shape seeking a solitude of its own. I recall no other landscapes impressed with a more terrific austerity save Greco's incredible "Toledo," to my thinking a finality in landscape creation.
There is quietude, solace, if you will, in Michel, in Courbet, but there is never a rest for the eye or the mind or the spirit in those most awesome of pictures which Ryder has presented to us, few as they are; for the Ryder legend is akin to the legend of Giorgione. ”

“ Ryder leaned eagerly forward as he asked her searchingly: "Now who told you that I had my arm tattooed when I was a boy?"
"Have you?" laughed Shirley nervously. "What a curious coincidence!"
"Let me read you another coincidence," said Ryder meaningly. He turned to another part of the book and read: "the same eternal long black cigar always between his lips..." "General Grant smoked, too," interrupted Shirley. "All men who think deeply along material lines seem to smoke." ”

“ That mantle, he thought, might yet be useful, and he stole forward and recovered it, but, as he straightened, another shadow darted out from the boudoir door and silhouetted for an instant against the lighted, room he saw a figure in a long, swinging military cloak.
Discovery was inevitable and Ryder made a swift plunge to take the cloaked figure by surprise, but even as one hand shot out and gripped the throat while the other held his threatening iron aloft, his clutch relaxed, his arm fell nervelessly at his side. ”

“ Ryder had returned from the play and gone to bed, serenely oblivious of the drama in real life that had been enacted at home, the servants locked the house up for the night and still John Burkett Ryder walked the floor of his sanctum, and late into the small hours of the morning the watchman going his lonely rounds, saw a light in the library and the restless figure of his employer sharply silhouetted against the white blinds.
For the first time in his life John Ryder realized that there was something in the world beyond Self. ”

“ Ryder then laid her down on the bed with her head low, and was just about to leave her on that errand, when hurried steps were heard outside the door; and one of the female servants knocked; and, not waiting to be invited, put her head in, and cried, "O, Dame, the Master is come home. He is in the kitchen."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Mrs. Ryder made an agitated motion with her hand, and gave the girl such a look withal, that she retired precipitately.
But Mrs. Gaunt had caught the words, and they literally transformed her. ”

“ But he dared not risk the scratch, for now he caught the thud of footfalls overhead, heavy footfalls, and there might be stairs unexpectedly close at hand.
He turned to Aimée but the girl shook her head helplessly and hesitant and dashed, for all their young confidence, they wavered a moment hand in hand in the dark, fearful of what a rash move might bring upon them. And in the beating stillness Ryder became conscious that the muffled, monotonous stamping of a horse is a gloomy, disheartening thing in the night, and that footsteps overhead are of all noises the most nervous and unsettling. ”

“ Lord Waldegrave sums up Ryder's character as that of ‘an honest man and a good lawyer, but not considerable in any other capacity.’ Horace Walpole was of much the same opinion, declaring that he ‘talked himself out of all consideration in parliament by laying too great stress on every part of his diffusive knowledge.’ In private life Ryder was amiable but somewhat uxorious. He corresponded daily with his wife, a cultivated woman, who managed all his money matters as well as his household affairs. ”

“ Shirley was silent for a moment. She looked first at Ryder and then at his son, and from them her glance went to the little drawer on the left-hand side of the desk. Then she said quietly:
“As you think best, Mr. Ryder. I am quite willing to do the work here.”
Ryder, Sr., escorted her to the top of the landing and watched her as she passed down the grand staircase, ushered by the gorgeously uniformed flunkies, to the front door and the street. ”

“ Open it swung with so sharp a crack that both glanced at the figure behind them, and then at the shadowy gloom of the stairs. But no alarm sounded. Outside the gate Ryder saw the darkness of fairly wide rippling waters, visited with floating stars, and beyond a low-lying, dun bank.
Escape was there. Freedom. Safety. He felt an exultant longing to plunge in and strike out, but he turned, questioningly, to the mysterious rescuer.
"Aimée?" he asked, under his breath. "Where is she?" He repeated it in the vernacular, distrusting her English, and in the vernacular she answered, "You want her? ”

“ Seeing that his words had made no effect, Ryder thumped his desk with his fist and cried:
“You see my weakness. You see that I want you with me, and now you take advantage—you take advantage—”
“No, father, I don't,” protested Jefferson; “but I want to go away. Although I have my studio and am practically independent, I want to go where I shall be perfectly free—where my every move will not be watched—where I can meet my fellow-man heart to heart on an equal basis, where I shall not be pointed out as the son of Ready Money Ryder. I want to make a reputation of my own as an artist.” ”

“ With this delight is entertained a strong repulsion, very antagonistic. My belly has retched at the sight of the Triple Beam, which all the while my eyes devoured with appetite. Explain that for me, Ryder, an’ you may.”
“Rot me,” said I with a laugh, “but ’tis a cheerful conversation you would pursue. Damn the topsman, and here’s to a merry meeting!”
The Ordinary lifted his glass and drank. “I like you, Ryder,” he said, with enthusiasm. “There is nothing mealy-mouthed about you. You make a rare companion to a bottle. The age of drinkers is gone out ”

“ I haven't had an attack of nerves since that girl has been in the house."
"She is certainly a superior woman," admitted Ryder. "I wish she'd ward that Rossmore girl off. I wish she—" He stopped abruptly as if not venturing to give expression to his thoughts, even to his wife. Then he said: "If she were Kate Roberts she wouldn't let Jeff slip through her fingers."
"I have often wished," went on Mrs. Ryder, "that Kate were more like Shirley Green. ”

“ I was about to reply to this communication, when our arrival at Aston, and the appearance of Miss Ryder, to whom I was introduced by her brother, put a stop to further conversation on the subject for the present. We now entered the house, and while tea was preparing, Mr. Ryder proposed that we should take a turn round the [495] garden. In passing along, my eye caught sight of a beautiful figure of Ceres, resting on a pedestal. I remarked, that it was by a very slow and painstaking process that things of real excellence were brought to perfection. ”

“ Better send a posse along with him, because some first-class angels are going to get considerable riled when they sight him coming. Ha, ha, ha! Sure I'll show you the way. Take the northwest road out of town and go five miles till you see a broken-backed shack lyin' over to the right. That's Mart Ryder's place."
Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red, as every one in the north country knew him. His second horse, staunch cow-pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees and hanging head, but Pierre rode upright, at ease, for his mind was untired. ”

“ I dread what they may do to such as have not your moral sense to restrain them and bring them back, as I pray—I hope ever to pray—it may be with you. Thank you for all your kindness, actual and intended, to my boys.'
Then rising from his chair, while Mr. Ryder remained uncertain how to speak, he signed to him to remain still while he sought in his book-case and returned with a small old copy of Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying;' then sitting down again, wrote the schoolmaster's name in it, above his own 'Under-wode, Under-rode' stamp. 'Keep it, Ryder! ”

“ Ryder was a diligent and versatile actor, seen at his best in low comedy, in which, however, he had in England to sustain formidable rivalry. Two daughters were for a short time on the stage at Covent Garden, appearing respectively, Miss Ryder as Estifania and Miss R. Ryder as Leonora to their father's Leon in ‘Rule a Wife and have a Wife,’ on 16 April 1790. Ryder's son, who was in the army, was killed in 1796 in a duel. Ryder was responsible for two plays: ‘Like Master Like Man,’ a farce, 12mo, Dublin, 1770 ”