Sandgate

“ Lord John, in spite of this however, pumped up a tone. “I don’t see why you should speak as if I were urging some abomination.”
“Then I’ll tell you why!”—and Lord Theign was upon him again for the purpose. “Because I had rather give the cursed thing away outright and for good and all than that it should hang out there another day in the interest of such equivocations!”
Lady Sandgate’s dismay yielded to her wonder, and her wonder apparently in turn to her amusement. “‘Give it away,’ my dear friend, to a man who only longs to smother you in gold?” ”

“ Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression—!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host.
He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. ”

“ Such was the setting confirmed by generous time, but the handsome woman of considerably more than forty whose entrance had all but coincided with that of Lord John either belonged, for the eye, to no such complacent company or enjoyed a relation to it in which the odd twists and turns of history must have been more frequent than any dull avenue or easy sequence. Lady Sandgate was shiningly modern, and perhaps at no point more so than by the effect of her express repudiation of a mundane future certain to be more and more offensive to women of real quality and of formed taste. ”

“ After holding another consultation, we came to the conclusion that Sandgate would certainly avoid the open sea, and keep along the French coast, and we thought it probable would make for Jersey or Guernsey. At all events, thither we determined to run. Again we were under sail, and by the time we got clear of the harbour the wind had shifted round to the westward of north, and as the ebb had then made, we suspected Sandgate would take advantage of the tide, and run through the Race of Alderney. ”

“ It is a costly one, and a heartbreaking for those folks who have semi-basement breakfast-rooms and ever and again experience the necessity of excavating their furniture out of the shingle-filled rooms, like so many Layards digging out the Assyrian relics of Nimroud and Baalbec. When such things can be, the desire of adjoining Folkestone for Sandgate and the determination of Sandgate not to be included within the municipal boundaries of its great neighbour are not readily to be understood. ”

“ Takes place before the next day morning.—
Gomorrah ne’er could fuller be
Than Sandgate with impiety,
So cramm’d with immorality
Is every one, that if there be
A place on earth resembling hell,
That lot on Sandgate surely fell:—
Each soul’s as bad as —— I’ll prove it.
This is Sandgate,—can you love it?
[53]
THE CROW’S NEST, Built on the Top of the Exchange Steeple [7] ; with a Prophecy, by One of the Crows, of what is to happen the Nation, and particularly the Town of Newcastle. ”

“ He had several plans of the sort though, I believe; but at last we stood for the Rock of Gibraltar, and ran through the Straits into the Mediterranean. We could not make out what Mr Sandgate was about. We touched at two or three places on the African coast, and he had some communication with the Moors. To my mind, he scarcely knew himself what he would be at. He spoke and acted very often like a person out of his wits. Sometimes we would be steering for a place, and our course would be suddenly altered, and we would go back to the port from whence we came. ”

“ If that tuppeny rot is an attempt at an outcry I simply nip it in the bud.”
Lord John rejoicingly approved. “Absolutely the only way—with the least self-respect—to treat it!”
Lady Sandgate, on the other hand, sounded a sceptical note. “But are you sure it’s so easy, Theign, to hush up a real noise?”
“It ain’t what I’d call a real one, Lady Sandgate,” Mr. Bender said; “you can generally distinguish a real one from the squeak of two or three mice! But granted mice do affect you, Lord Theign, it will interest me to hear what sort of a trap—by what you say—you propose to set for them.” ”

“ Lady Sand-gate pursued with a strong emphasis on her adverb, “by working up our friend’s confidence in your listening to him—if you are to listen?”
“I haven’t in the least engaged to listen,” said Lady Grace—“it will depend on the music he makes!” But she added with light cynicism: “Perhaps she’s to gain a commission!”
“On his fairly getting you?” And then as the girl assented by silence: “Is he in a position to pay her one?” Lady Sandgate asked.
“I dare say the Duchess is!”
“But do you see the Duchess producing money—with all that Kitty, as we’re not ignorant, owes her? ”

“ He sees nothing of that traffic. He sees the little sea garden at Sandgate and that little group of people very small and bright and something—something hanging over them. "It isn't fair on them—or me—or anybody!"
Then you know, quite suddenly, I imagine him swearing.
I imagine him at his luncheon, a meal he usually treats with a becoming gravity. I imagine the waiter marking the kindly self-indulgence of his clean-shaven face, and advancing with that air of intimate participation the good waiter shows to such as he esteems. ”

“ Not so much from what Moore might here or there have said, as from what he always was. To be under the man was in itself an inspiration.
Soon after Jack's departure for Sandgate, Admiral Peirce was called away on duty, and then the Bryces decided to flit eastward. Mrs. Bryce, who loved sensation, talked of a visit to Folkestone, a very tiny watering-place in those days, but within easy reach of Sandgate, and of Moore's Camp at Shorncliffe.
As a next move she offered to take Polly with her. Mrs. Fairbank demurred, and Mrs. Bryce insisted. ”

“ I do not think it is probable that people so thoroughly acquainted with these seas should not have been forewarned in time to guard against even the most sudden squall. There are always some indications; only those who do not regard them are the sufferers. Just as likely after he had rifled the brig, Sandgate (for I doubt not that he is the culprit) may have put the passengers on shore somewhere or other, and made some plausible excuse for having taken them on board his vessel. ”

“ Some fellows have all the luck. Mine, of course, is to be reduced, if not hoofed out of the Force.”
“Bosh! Not a bit of it. Buck up, old chap! You’re far too useful to the Force for that. Why, man, you did a splendid service. If I had been in your place I expect I’d have given away the whole show.”
But Sandgate refused to be comforted. He had been found wanting when engaged upon service of vital importance. There was no getting behind that.
A few days later he was sent for by the Commandant. It happened that he and Dick were chatting together at the time. ”

“ There is no spot where every one knows everybody else's business and discusses it that is quite equal in this way to a small country town, and Sandgate was no exception. The first visit of Frank Nason to the Page home, his sleigh-rides with Alice, and his appearance at church had caused no end of comment. It was known that he had been a classmate of Albert's and came from Boston, and later Aunt Susan vouch-safed the information that she "guessed he came from one o' the first families and that he appeared right well behaved." ”

“ The words had no note of irony, but Lady Grace, in her great seriousness, glanced with deprecation at the possibility. “Well, we haven’t had false notes. We’ve scarcely even had bad moments.”
“Yes, you’ve been beatific!”—Lady Sandgate enviously, quite ruefully, felt it. But any further treatment of the question was checked by the re-entrance of the footman—a demonstration explained by the concomitant appearance of a young man in eyeglasses and with the ends of his trousers clipped together as for cycling. “This must be your friend,” she had only time to say to the daughter of the house ”

“ We advised a visit to Sandy. Sandy was the hot bath merchant. He lurked in a dark barn at the end of the village, and could be found there at anytime of any day, brooding over the black cauldrons in which the baths were brewed, his Tam-o'-shanter drooped over one eye, steam condensing on his blue nose. Theoretically the hot baths were free, but in practice a franc pressed into Sandy's forepaw was found to have a strong calorific effect on the water.
So down the village on all fours, groaning like a Dutch brig in a cross-sea, went our Albert Edward. ”

“ Miss Mary. Certainly: compose yourself,—my cousin's son, Alexander Morton. Listen, Sandy, you promised ME, you know, you said for MY sake you would not touch a drop. (Enter cautiously toward schoolhouse the DUCHESS, stops on observing SANDY, and hides behind rock.)
Sandy (still bewildered and incoherent) . I reckon. Harkin, miss, is that thar thing (pointing towards rock where DUCHESS is concealed) —is that a tree, or—or—a woman? Is it sorter movin' this way?
Miss Mary (laying her hand on SANDY'S) . Recover your senses, for Heaven's sake, Sandy,—for MY sake! It is only a tree. ”

“ Sandford was confidentially informed that I was only waiting in London to receive between four and five thousand pounds—part of Uncle Passgrove’s legacy—and then intended to immediately hasten back to canny Yorkshire. To have seen the villain’s eyes as I incidentally, as it were, announced my errand and intention! They fairly flashed with infernal glee! Ah, Sandford, Sandford! you were, with all your cunning, but a sand-blind idiot to believe the man you had wronged and ruined could so easily forget the debt he owed you! ”

“ But the sound of her trumpet was changed one morning after she had taken to herself a certain Mr Alexander Dewar to be lord of her, her establishment, and the crowing bantam. Sandy, who was himself a great thief, had thus risen in the sliding scale. It is not often that thieves rise to be the head of an establishment with a dozen of beds, though without even a fir table by way of ordinary; but so true is the title of my book, that Sandy’s slide upwards was just the cause of a return downwards with accelerated velocity. ”

“ Exit HOP SING, pushed off by CONCHO.
Concho. The pagan dolt! But he is important. Ah, if he were wiser, I should not rid myself of him so quickly! And now for the schoolmistress,—the sweetheart of Sandy. If these men have not lied, he is in love with her; and, if he is, he has told her his secret before now; and she will be swift to urge him to his rights. If he has not told her—umph! (laughing) it will not be a DAY—an HOUR—before she will find out if her lover is Alexander Morton, the rich man's son, or "Sandy," the unknown vagabond. Eh, friend Sandy! ”

“ And it was the woman who expressed surprise when Sandy advised her, with many apologies, to "go a leetle mite slow on that water." The half-empty canteen came away from her lips as she said, "Is that all we have?"
"Oh, we got plenty," came the cheerful reply, "if we only go slow. Jest a leetle slow."
To show his freedom from worry Sandy chirped up a tune, but somehow it was a failure, as his lips were too parched for artistic success.
Two days more! Two days more! And she and the pony must have it all, though men died thirst-stricken in a day in this terrible heat. ”

“ There still exists a gate named after Lord Sandwich. “When at Lisbon my Lord sent over presents of mellons and rare grapes to his Countess in London; the grapes so fine that Mistress Pepys packed some up in a basket to send to the King’s Majesty.” Lady Sandwich also received a civet cat, parrot, apes, and many other eccentric proofs of her Lord’s remembrance, which she showed to Mr. Pepys when he dined with her at the Wardrobe. ”

“ But Sandford, who never felt resentment but against those in whom he saw some virtue, calmly replied,
“My Lord, the Duke of Avon was a gentleman, a man of elegance and breeding; and what have you to offer in recompense for your defects in qualities like these?”
“My wealth,” replied he, “opposed to her indigence.” Sandford smiled, and answered,
“Do you suppose that wealth can be esteemed, which has not been able to make you respectable? What is it makes wealth valuable? Is it the pleasures of the table? the pleasure of living in a fine house? ”

“ This is a miracle," said Bosambo profoundly but cautiously, "which I have heard but which I have not seen. Now this I ask you who see all things, and here is the puzzle which I will set to your honour. If Sandi is so great and so wise, and is so loved by the greater King, how comes it that he stays for ever in one place, having no beautiful stars about his neck nor wonderful ribbons around his stomach such as the great Frenchiman—and the great Allamandi men, and even the Portuguesi men wear who are honoured by their kings?" ”

“ And more than one manly voice responds, “Amen!”
The strain upon both Sandie’s mind and Willie’s, particularly during the last hour, had been very great; and now that the reaction had come, strangely enough, Sandie, at all events, felt that he would have given a five-pound note for a five minutes’ cry.
{283}
. . . . . .
Our heroes were Crusoes now with a vengeance, but Crusoes after a somewhat strange fashion.
In looking back to all their adventures since they left Sandy Point, they could not but marvel at the wondrous way they had been preserved. ”