Woollett

“ He had gone again the next day but one, and the effect of the two visits, the after-sense of the couple of hours spent with her, was almost that of fulness and frequency. The brave intention of frequency, so great with him from the moment of his finding himself unjustly suspected at Woollett, had remained rather theoretic, and one of the things he could muse about under his poplars was the source of the special shyness that had still made him careful. ”

“ Her type sufficiently told of it—they wouldn’t, they couldn’t, want her to go to Woollett. Poor Woollett, and what it might miss!—though brave Chad indeed too, and what it might gain! Brave Chad however had just excellently spoken. “This is a good little friend of mine who knows all about you and has moreover a message for you. And this, my dear”—he had turned to the child herself—“is the best man in the world, who has it in his power to do a great deal for us and whom I want you to like and revere as nearly as possible as much as I do.” ”

“ Thus we have the strong work of that turbulent spirit, Sir Robert Strange, devoted mainly to the translation of paintings by the great masters; and that of William Woollett and his school to landscape, especially after Claude. Woollett is well represented by four plates attributed entirely to him, and by two in which Ellis and Vivares avowedly collaborated. But of the first it must be said that a note in Dance’s ‘Portraits’ expressly states that Thomas Hearne, the water-colour artist, who was apprenticed to Woollett, ‘etched’ [Pg 194] the Roman Edifices in Ruins. ”

“ Woollett, Milrose and their products. We’re abysmal—but may we never be less so! Mr. Newsome,” she continued, “meanwhile takes Miss Pocock—?”
“Precisely—to the Français: to see what you took Waymarsh and me to, a family-bill.”
“Ah then may Mr. Chad enjoy it as I did!” But she saw so much in things. “Do they spend their evenings, your young people, like that, alone together?”
“Well, they’re young people—but they’re old friends.” ”

“ The gentry could not always hold out against such a glittering attraction. Some swell must in time stand in need of Mr Woolet’s peculiar services, and enable him to achieve the much wished-for position. And so it seemed to turn out, as one day a carriage much grander than Mr Woolet’s own, with a coachman nearly a quarter of a ton in weight, and a powdered footman beside him, drove through the street of the little town in which Mr Woolet lived, and pulled up opposite his office. ”

“ When the signatures were being collected for the Jowett appeal, Arthur was hard at work upon them on Sunday when Mr. Jowett came in. Arthur said, ‘You need not mind my being at work to-day, for I can assure you it is quite a Sunday occupation, a work of justice, if not of mercy.’—‘Yes,’ said Jowett, ‘I see how it is: an ass has fallen into a pit, and you think it right to pull him out on the Sabbath-day.’
Arthur Stanley used to see a great deal of Mr. Jowett during this year—far too much, my mother thought when she was staying with him at Oxford ”

“ Braine notes every little detail about her—how the flash from an electric light makes the tiara in her hair sparkle; how white her hands look as they lie buried in the fur of the rug; how the little tendrils of hair cling to her neck. He thinks vehemently: "How I love this woman! How I love this woman!"
They stop in front of the house, and they go silently up the steps. Both are thinking. Woolet opens the door for them, making a vain endeavor to appear dignified and wide awake. But it is sufficiently evident that he has been asleep in the hall. ”

“ They were close to the house, and he had referred to the mouldering shield over the doorway, and she was telling its story when she checked herself and stood still. Edgar Woolley had emerged, and was standing before them with a flush of triumph on his check. The tall gentleman could scarcely be in doubt who he was; nor could Woolley well take Pleasance's involuntary cry for a sign of gladness--though he strove to force the smile which was habitual to him. ”

“ There was menace in the tone, and menace more dreadful in the face and gleaming eyes which he found confronting him. "You fool!" Woolley hissed--passion in the calmness of his voice--and he took a step nearer to the other. "You fool, to come and tell me this!--to come and taunt me! You help me! You pardon me! You will not leave me worse than you found me! Ay, but you will!" His voice rose. A wicked smile nickered on his lips. His eyes still dwelling on the other's face, he drew the pistol slowly from his pocket and levelled it at Walton's head. "You will, for I--am going--to kill you." ”

“ He had ever a warm heart for Woolwich, where he had been born and brought up. He often returned to it, sometimes to carry his mother a share of his week's wages while she lived, and afterwards to refresh himself with a sight of the neighbourhood with which he had been so familiar when a boy. He liked its green common, with the soldiers about it; Shooter's Hill, with its out-look over Kent and down the valley of the Thames; the river busy with shipping, and the royal craft loading and unloading their armaments at the dockyard wharves. ”

“ This morning I met two men at breakfast at Mr. Jowett's. There was nothing to eat but cold mutton and some heavy bread called 'Balliol bricks,' but Mr. Jowett was in his best humour, and though he would not utter a word himself, he assisted us into uttering a good many. He is certainly at once the terror and the admiration of those he wishes to be kind to: as for myself, I love him, though I often feel I would go round three streets any day to avoid him. ”

“ From that point the track mounted between the bracken-covered flanks of the ravine until it emerged on the crown of the moor. In one place both path and glen turned at a sharp angle, and Woolley at this corner happened to lift his eyes. He stopped short with an exclamation. Before him, strolling slowly along in the same direction as himself, with his hands behind him and his eyes on the path, was the tall gentleman--Walton.
"Ah!" Woolley whispered to himself, hating the other the more for falling in his way now, "the devil take you for a mooning lunatic! ”

“ This is no place for a girl like you."
"Say lady!" cried Eliot. "She is a Southern lady, sir!"
"Bah!" said Royce; "you are a fine person to talk of ladies.—Are you going, Miss Dooris?"
Great tears stood in Honor's eyes; she did not stir.
"She will not go, John," said Wainwright, "because that man is her cousin—he is an Eliot."
"He is a murderer!" said Royce, filling up the doorway again, and measuring with his eye the breadth of his opponent's shoulders and muscle. "Now, then, are you with me or against me, Stephen? If against me, by Heaven! I will fight you both." ”

“ He snuggled down in his armchair. "Now, Watson, let us have the facts."
"The man's name was Arthur Cadogan West. He was twenty-seven years of age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal."
"Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!"
"He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night. Was last seen by his fiancee, Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about 7:30 that evening. There was no quarrel between them and she can give no motive for his action. ”

“ The Mosaic law forbade the union of the ox and the ass to draw one plough; and two more uncongenial creatures than Benjamin and Kesiah could hardly have been coupled to draw the matrimonial furrow.
She was a Plymouth Sister, and he, as she repeatedly informed him whenever he indulged in light reading, laughed, smoked, went out shooting, or drank a glass of wine, was of the earth, earthy, and a miserable worldling.
For some years Mr. Woolfield had been made to feel as though he were a moral and religious pariah. ”

“ His adversary stood glaring at the still form for a moment, dazed himself by the sudden outcome, then dashed into the barn, came out with a harness throat-latch and a pitchfork, strapped Woodell's hands together, pulled them over his knees, and between the knees and wrists passed the long ash fork-handle. The man, slowly recovering his senses, was "bucked" in a manner known to any schoolboy; as securely bound as if with handcuffs and with shackles; as helpless as a babe! ”

“ The friends to whom he had lent The Lodge had left it ten days before, as Ruth knew. A man and his wife were always in charge, but when they were alone the front of the house was kept closed. To-day the windows were all open, a rising breeze swayed the curtains to and fro, and there were numerous other signs of Walter's presence; on the veranda were several easy-chairs and a lounge, besides a table with books and papers. And wasn't that the hat he had worn when she saw him talking to the farmer the day before? ”

“ Woolfield. "Two is company, three is none."
"But we are only two here to-night."
"My wife is with me in spirit."
"Which, she that was, or she that is to be?"
Mr. Woolfield looked with timid eyes towards her who sat at the end of the table. She was raising her hands in holy horror, and her face was black with frowns.
His friend said to himself when he left: "Oh, these lovers! They are never themselves so long as the fit lasts." ”

“ Woolfield had a friend to keep him company, a friend to whom he had poured out his heart. To his dismay, he saw seated opposite him the form of his deceased wife.
He tried to be lively; he cracked jokes, but the sight of the grim face and the stony eyes riveted on him damped his spirits, and all his mirth died away.
"You seem to be out of sorts to-night," said his friend.
"I am sorry that I act so bad a host," apologised Mr. Woolfield. "Two is company, three is none."
"But we are only two here to-night." ”

“ They were cavalry, and at their head rode Woolgast.
I burst into a fit of laughter, it must have been rather hysterical, and the next moment his arms were round me and the taste of raw brandy between my lips.
The troops were thunder-struck at sight of me, and I saw some of them feeling their swords, as though they hoped that they would soon be called upon to use them. The brandy worked wonders, and I said to Woolgast:
"General, there is a house a little way in that direction, with a light in the second story. Search the house, you will find a man dead there and one stunned beneath a bed ”

“ Though it had won only a single great race, that, in Jowett’s view, was its master’s fault. As the Arabs say, however, Allah is with the patient; and so it was that on the evening of the day in which Ingolby met disaster, Mr. Tripple informed Jowett that he was willing to sell his rawbone.
He was mounted on the gawky roadster when he met Gabriel Druse making for the bridge. Their greeting was as cordial as hasty. Anxious as was the Ry to learn what was going on in the towns, Jowett’s mount caught his eye. ”

“ What I’m in search of is an attorney who can make a will. I suppose you can do that?”
“Well, General, although I cannot boast of my professional abilities, I think I can manage the making of a will.”
“Enough said; sit down and set about it.”
Considering that he kept a carriage himself, Mr Woolet might have felt a little offended by this brusque behaviour on the part of his new client. It was the first time he had ever been so treated in his own office; but then it was the first time he had ever had a client of such a class, and he knew better than to show feeling under the infliction. ”

“ There are authors whose living voices, if we know them in the flesh, we seem to hear in our ears as we peruse their works. Of such was Mr. Jowett, sometime Master of Balliol College, a good man, now with God. It has ever seemed to me that friends of Walton must thus have heard his voice as they read him, and that it reaches us too, though faintly. Indeed, we have here ‘a kind of picture of his own disposition,’ as he tells us Piscator is the Walton whom honest Nat. and R. Roe and Sir Henry Wotton knew on fishing-days. ”

“ Wolfenden said softly. “What does Dr. Whitlett think of him? Has he seen him lately? I wonder if there is any chance of his getting over it?”
“None at all,” she answered. “Dr. Whitlett is quite frank; he will never recover what he has lost—he will probably lose more. But come, there is the dressing bell. You will see him for yourself at dinner. Whatever you do don’t be late—he hates any one to be a minute behind time.” ”

“ Woolf making preparations for their reception. They placed the king by the fire to warm and dry his clothes, and they gave him such food as could be provided on so sudden an emergency. As the morning was now approaching, it was necessary to adopt some plan of concealment for the day, and Mr. Woolf decided upon concealing his guests in his barn. He said that there were holes and hiding places built in his house, but that they had all been discovered on some previous search, and, in case of any suspicion or alarm, the officers would go directly to them all. ”

“ But to-night the circumstances were strong enough to oust all other scenes; and she looked at the field and the trees with an involuntary intensity as if they had no such associations for her.
“Well, Ralph,” she said, “this is better than Lincoln’s Inn Fields, isn’t it? Look, there’s a bird for you! Oh, you’ve brought glasses, have you? Edward and Christopher mean to make you shoot. Can you shoot? I shouldn’t think so—”
“Look here, you must explain,” said Ralph. “Who are these young men? Where am I staying?” ”

“ Hughling Elliot, Mrs. Hughling Elliot, Miss Allan, Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury—one cricle," Hirst continued. "Miss Warrington, Mr. Arthur Venning, Mr. Perrott, Evelyn M. another circle; then there are a whole lot of natives; finally ourselves."
"Are we all alone in our circle?" asked Hewet.
"Quite alone," said Hirst. "You try to get out, but you can't. You only make a mess of things by trying."
"I'm not a hen in a circle," said Hewet. "I'm a dove on a tree-top."
"I wonder if this is what they call an ingrowing toe-nail?" said Hirst, examining the big toe on his left foot. ”