Vibert

“ The pony, frightened and mud-bespattered, but not very seriously hurt, as soon as it was released from the harness, scrambled out of the ditch. The light basket-chaise was, without much difficulty, raised to its right position; and Vibert helped to lift up Emmie, who was half covered with mud, and almost in hysterics with fear.
“Come, come, there’s nothing to be terrified at now; the danger is over. You’re not hurt, are you?” asked Vibert, with some anxiety, for he loved his sister next to himself, though, it must be confessed, with a considerable space between. ”

“ Emmie pets and humours him to the top of his bent; and all the world does the same. Vibert is admired, courted, and welcomed wherever he goes, because, forsooth, his face is what girls call handsome, and he can rattle off any amount of nonsense to please them. Vibert does not mind playing the fool, and he plays it to the life!” Bruce paused, and conscience gave a low note of warning to the elder brother. “I am, I fear, harsh in my judgment. Want of charity, that is perhaps my besetting sin. I am too quick to perceive the faults and follies of others. ”

“ Yes, I skim the world like a bicycle, and levity is my worst fault!” Yawning after the unusual effort of even such cursory self-examination, Vibert now set his thoughts free to ramble in any direction, satisfied [58] that nothing of a serious nature could be laid to his charge.
“It is strange that my uncle should imagine that he can penetrate the recesses of the heart of another,” such was the reflection of Bruce, as, candle in hand, he mounted the staircase that night. ”

“ I’ve got off with a few scratches,” answered Vibert, who had regained the road. “But where on earth are you, Emmie? Can’t you manage to get up?”
“No,” gasped Emmie; “the chaise keeps me down. Oh, there is the lightning again!” and she shrieked.
“Never mind the lightning,” cried Vibert impatiently. “How am I to get the pony on his legs? [89] he’s kicking like mad; and, oh! do stop screaming, Emmie, you’re enough to drive any one wild. ”

“ Vibert must have heard the gong sound for breakfast. No; the fact is—you must have seen it from his manner last [121] evening—that Vibert is in a huff because I called him a selfish idiot.”
“I am so very, very sorry that you called him that,” cried Emmie, with a look of distress. “You do not consider, dear Bruce, what real harm your sternness may do to our younger brother. Vibert is so affectionate—”
“He cares for no one on earth but himself,” said Bruce. ”

“ Strangely enough he had temperament, and set to music Heine and Verlaine. A genuine talent, I felt assured, and congratulated myself on my new discovery; I was fond of finding lions, and my Sunday evenings were seldom without some specimen that roared, if somewhat gently, yet audibly enough, for my visitors. When Arthur Vibert was introduced to Ellenora Bishop, I recognized the immediate impact of the girl's brusque personality upon his sensitized nature. ”

“ And very different was the careless, sauntering step of Vibert from the firm, quick tread of Bruce.
Mr. Trevor’s elder son returned alone in the dusk of evening, but this time Vibert was scarcely ten minutes behind him.
“Mr. Blair has a capital method of imparting knowledge; it will be our own fault if we do not make progress under him,” said Bruce to Emmie when he rejoined her in the drawing-room. “My tutor has given me plenty of work to do this evening, but I must spare an hour to refresh myself by hearing you sing. ”

“ Emmie shivered, but that may have been from cold, for the night-air was clamp and chilly, and her clothes were saturated with rain. Vibert now turned the pony into the lane, but the creature limped, and had evidently some difficulty in dragging the chaise.
“The beast is lame,” observed Standish; “he has probably strained a leg in the fall. We gentlemen must walk through the lane, where the ground is so boggy.” The colonel sprang from the chaise, and his example was followed by Vibert. ”

“ He spares himself no indulgence, hires his hunter and follows the hounds, or drives about the country in a curricle and pair, and seems to be rolling in wealth. He is never seen in a place of worship, and, pushing as he is, has not made his way into any respectable circle. The less we have to say to this pseudo-colonel the better; I suspect him to be a charlatan and impostor.”
“There’s charity for you, and gratitude!” exclaimed Vibert, who, entering the room while Bruce was speaking, had heard his concluding sentence. ”

“ Bruce, being once aware that his bosom sin was pride, should have taken every opportunity of mortifying that pride, not only by owning his sins before God, but by frankly acknowledging his own mistakes and errors in the presence of men. Vibert, if not by literal fasting, yet by the practice of self-denial in every sensual indulgence, should have sought to give the spirit the victory over the flesh. Emmie, wrestling down her mistrust by prayer, should have forced her unwilling spirit to “nobly dare the thing which nature shrinks from.” ”

“ If I were master here,” continued Vibert, “I’d make a law that no dirty, ragged creature should come within a mile of the house. If these folk are miserable, I’m sorry for it; but that’s no reason why I should be miserable too. Charity begins at home, and the first thing to be done at Myst Court is to put house and garden into tip-top order,—buy new carpets and a good billiard-table, set up a fountain yonder on the lawn (we’ll consider about statues and vases) , and then invite Alice and a merry party of young people down to the place. ”

“ His fellow—clerks noiselessly retired, and a long train of choristers slowly made their way through the long aisle the others had left vacant. Among them Vibert—tall, dark, hard, and cruel; an angel, possibly; but if so, surely one of the fallen. And a little girl of eighteen, whose blue eyes showed out from under her fluffy blond locks, and whose lips were parted in a radiant, reverent smile, steadied a trembling hand on the back of a pew and looked after him with a fond, open, and intense regard that was a perfect epitome of love. ”

“ Ah, that’s the word, the precise word to describe my besetting sin, if one can call mere levity a sin. I am no man’s enemy but my own; and not my own enemy either, for I spare and indulge myself in every way that I can. Levity may be a fault at sixty, but it’s no fault at all at sixteen. I should decidedly object to be as sober as Bruce. He goes on his way like a steady old coach, while I am like a bicycle,”—Vibert laughed to himself as the simile occurred to his fancy. “A bicycle is quick, light, not made to carry much luggage, and a little given to coming to smash! ”

“ While thus looking upwards, he unawares trod upon a Viper asleep just before his feet. The Viper, turning towards him, stung him; and he, falling into a swoon, said to himself, "Woe is me! that while I proposed to hunt another, am myself fallen unawares into the snares of death." ”

“ Miss Carstyle was beautiful, Vibart was young, and the days were long in his aunt’s spacious and distinguished house; but it was really the desire to know something more of Mr. Carstyle that led the young man to partake so often of that gentleman’s overdone mutton. Vibart’s imagination had been touched by the discovery that this little huddled-up man, instead of travelling with the wind, was persistently facing a domestic gale of considerable velocity. That he should have paid off his brother’s debt at one stroke was to the young man a conceivable feat ”

“ Visconti looked at her.
"Thou art tamed indeed," he said. "I am not ill-avenged."
Valentine stepped down into the room, her tangled hair hanging about her, and grasped him by the arm. "I was waiting—" she whispered. "I feared he would come back before I was dead. Ah! and he did! Count Conrad could not keep him off; the Viper, green and silver; the Viper, he has poisoned me." And she sank onto the floor with a sudden scream, her hands before her eyes.
"Thou art neither poisoned nor dying," said Visconti, roughly. "Call thy women, and—remember." ”

“ He opened the box, where lay coiled, and perfectly still, a spotted viper, an immense black snake, and one very light and silvery like an eel.
"Here's my family," said the old man; and catching the viper round the middle, brought him out, while the others wriggled a little, as if in expectation of being caressed in their turn. "This animal, signor, is not so bad in his temper as you have been told. It is only when he is making love that he is poisonous—to all but his females; but in this, gentlemen, he is scarcely worse than many of yourselves, whom it is not safe then to approach." ”

“ I would have spoken, only I knew that my voice would tremble, and so I sat mum-chance, staring at my pipe with unseeing eyes, and with my brain in a ferment. And presently came her voice, cool and sweet and sane:
"Your tobacco, Peter," and she held the box towards me across the table.
"Ah, thank you!" said I, and began to fill my pipe, while she watched me with her chin propped in her hands.
"Peter!"
"Yes, Charmian?"
"I wonder why so grave a person as Mr. Peter Vibart should seek to marry so impossible a creature as—the Humble Person?" ”

“ Whereas commonly it hath hitherto been believed, that the poyson of Vipers being swallowed, was present death; this Author, after many reiterated Experiments, is said to have observed, that in Vipers there is neither Humour, nor Excrement, nor any part, not the Gall it self; that, being taken into the Body, kills. And he assures, that he hath seen men eat, and hath often made Bruit Animals swallow all that is esteem'd most poysonous in a Viper, yet without the least mischief to them. ”

“ Child, what I felt at that moment I can scarcely say, but it was a sufficient punishment for all the sins I ever committed; and there we two were, I looking up at the viper, and the viper looking down upon me, flickering at me with its tongue. It was only the kindness of God that saved me: all at once there was a loud noise, the report of a gun, for a fowler was shooting at a covey of birds, a little way off in the stubble. Whereupon the viper sunk its head, and immediately made off over the ridge of the hill, down in the direction of the sea. ”

“ Vivyan was able to answer, and then she said:
“When you are older, darling, you will find out that it is not always the people who talk and cry most, who feel things most; and that there is such a thing as saying ‘Thy will be done,’ and of not giving way to all our feelings for the sake of others.”
“Ah, yes; that is what I ought to do,” said Arthur with a deep sigh.
“Arthur, dear,” said Mrs. Vivyan presently, looking straight into the fire, and closing her hands very tightly, “don’t ever think I do not care or feel. ”

“ I answer: Because Peter Vibart is too much engrossed by—Peter Vibart. There! that sounds rather cryptic and very full of Peter Vibart; but that is as it should be," and she laughed.
"And what does it mean, Charmian?"
"Good sir, the sibyl hath spoken! Find her meaning for yourself."
"You have called me, on various occasions, a 'creature,' a 'pedant'—very frequently a 'pedant,' and now, it seems I am an 'egoist,' and all because—"
"Because you think too much, Peter; you never open your lips without having first thought out just what you are going to say ”

“ He had but one thought—Viggo, his chief! Viggo, his idol! Viggo, his general! He must save him or die with him. One end of the rope was hanging on the branch and was within easy reach; but he did not venture to seize it, lest the wrench caused by his motion might detach his hold on Viggo’s raft.
Viggo, who just now was pulling Halvor out of the water, saw in an instant that he had by adding his weight to the raft, increased the chance of both being carried to their death. With quick resolution he plunged the beak of his own boat-hook into Marcus’s raft, and shouted to Halvor to save himself. ”

“ He seems to be ever brooding over the mystery of his own life, and trying—trying to get away from everybody. Oh! how he suffered, how we all suffered just then, knowing him to be innocent."
"You knew he was innocent?" says Miss Vibart. Unfortunately her tone is one of inquiry. She has her hands clasped in her lap and is looking steadily at Dulce, who is watching her intently from the railings of the balcony, where she stands framed in by roses. Miss Vibart's fan has slipped to the ground; she is really interested in this story. May not the hero of it prove an absorbing study? ”

“ I murmured.
"Being a philosopher, Peter, and too much engrossed in your thoughts?"
"I was certainly thinking."
"Of yourself!"
"Yes—"
"You are a great egoist, aren't you, Peter?"
"Am I, Charmian?"
"Who but an egoist could stand with his mind so full of himself and his own concerns as to be oblivious to thunder and lightning, and not know that he is miserably clammy and wet?"
"I thought of others besides myself."
"But only in connection with yourself; everything you have ever read or seen you apply to yourself, to make that self more worthy in Mr. Vibart's eyes. Is this worthy of Peter Vibart? ”

“ He held in his hand an important-looking envelope, which he reached toward Wilbert, saying, "Here's a Christmas gift for you, boy. Work's a mint—work's a mint. Yes, indeed, it's better than a gold mine, for it brings its reward already coined."
Now, you see, Wilbert had never had but one letter before in his life, and that was a little boyish scrawl from Clarence, and no wonder he opened the big envelope timidly. The contents began, "Know all men by these presents," and here Wilbert looked again into the envelope to see where the presents it spoke of were hidden. ”