Bezique

“ He always is led with a dog and a bell: A seely old man, God knoweth, is he, Yet he is the father of pretty Bessee." "Nay then," quoth the merchant, "thou art not for me:" "Nor," quoth the innholder, "my wife thou shalt be:" "I loathe," said the gentle, "a beggar's degree, And therefore adieu, my pretty Bessee!" "Why then," quoth the knight, "hap better or worse, I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse, And beauty is beauty in every degree; Then welcome unto me, my pretty Bessee: "With thee to thy father forthwith I will go." ”

“ Who swore he would die for pretty Bessee.
And, if thou wilt marry with me, quoth the knight,
I'll make thee a lady with joy and delight;
My heart's so enthralled by thy beautie,
That soon I shall die for pretty Bessee.
The gentleman said, Come, marry with me,
As fine as a lady my Bessy shall be:
My life is distressed: O hear me, quoth he;
And grant me thy love, my pretty Bessee.
Let me be thy husband; the merchant did say,
Thou shalt live in London both gallant and gay;
My ships shall bring home rich jewels for thee,
And I will for ever love pretty Bessee. ”

“ Bessie was enjoying her ride. She exclaimed over the beauty of the foliage, where some of autumn’s tints were still left clinging to the branches. She drank in the beauty of cloud and distant river, and her cheeks took on that delicate flush of delight that he had noticed in her long ago. He marvelled that a human cheek could vary in its coloring so exquisitely. He had unconsciously come to feel that such alive-looking flesh could only be on the face of a child. Every woman he knew wore her coloring stationary, like a mask, that never varied, no matter what emotion might cross her countenance. ”

“ I had seen Bessy in her beauty and her bravery as the hop queen; but she was calling on me to protect her—for she was struggling to free herself from the embraces and the blandishments of a handsome and blasé-looking man, whose costume and bearing were alike fashionable and distinguished. Close by them, looking on evidently with amusement, was his friend, a hook-nosed, grim, and sombre-looking fellow, with a black moustache, and malevolent eyes, who held me back as with a grasp of iron, while uttering a strange, chuckling laugh, the sound of which awoke me. ”

“ Perhaps the custom of giving presents at this time arose from the gifts which the wise men of the East brought to the infant Saviour; perhaps it was only intended to remind us of the greatest and most precious of all gifts which we received on this day. My Bessie can tell what that was; can she not?"
"God's Jesus, who came to save us, so his [Pg 365] Father could take us to heaven," said the little girl.
"Right, my darling; and can Maggie tell what was the song the angels sang on this happy morning?"
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," said Maggie. ”

“ It was a long time before she found one at all to her mind, but finally she was accosted by a little girl, who looked wretched enough, to be sure,—tattered, and sickly, and starved. She was not quite up to the mark as to prettiness, though she had soft, sorrowful eyes and a delicate mouth. Hunger, cold, and ill-treatment are not very favorable to beauty. Then the name she gave was decidedly unromantic,—Molly Magee. But the poor child told a piteous story, which soon brought tears to Bessie's gentle eyes,—how her father was dead of fever, and her mother a suffering invalid ”

“ The walk back to the Posada on the day of their startling encounter and the hours spent in Bessie's society since then—strolling and chatting in the garden, or going for long rides over the plains together, had convinced him it was not intended that man should live alone. He had taken good care that she should learn nothing of the existence of the hacienda or of his wealth, and as little as possible concerning himself, except that he was an agreeable young man with fair prospects; and thus far, thanks to the Captain's silence and her ignorance of Spanish, he had succeeded admirably. ”

“ BESSIE’S STORY. By Frank H. Converse.
WHAT my own—my true own name may be or may have been, I do not know. I have a fancy like a dream, that perhaps it has been Adélê. And yet I cannot say why. My father, the captain, whose daughter I am by adoption, gave to me the name of Bessie, for his wife, and Luna, for the moon. Thus within the log-book it is written Bessie Luna Wray.
Girls that have upon the shore their home can tell to an exactness what age they have and when their birthdays shall be. ”

“ He was no prince in disguise as it would have been so pleasant to discover him to be—this short, thickly-made, middle-aged man, with the prominent, bright, dark eyes, the large dark head, the knobbly red forehead, whose parents had kept a small draper's shop in a small market-town in the county.
What could a man so born and nurtured have to give Bessie in return for the stories of the high life to which she had been accustomed? ”

“ Grey, who, without being in the least a prig, was something of a connoisseur in the details of dress, had delighted to adorn his bride with everything which could enhance her beauty, and Bessie wore her plumage well, and there was a most striking contrast between the girl of fifteen, who, in her washed linen gown and faded ribbons, had once stood up in the park waving her handkerchief to Neil, and the young matron of twenty, who, clad in a faultless dinner dress, with diamonds in her ears and on her fingers, went forward to meet her cousin. ”

“ It will be Bessie, the maniac. Do you know Bessie, that you loved once? You can’t get away now, for the maniac has come to take you down to the dark, cold grave, where all the souls of mad women are calling your name. ”

“ And Thaddeus, after thinking it all over, was inclined to believe that Bessie was in the right.
“Yes, Bess, she was perfect—perfect in the way she did her work, perfect in the way she smashed things, and nowhere did she more successfully show the thoroughness with which she did everything than when it came to removing the buttons from my vest. Isn’t it too bad that the only perfect servant that ever lived should turn out to be a hopeless maniac? ”

“ And then Bessie began the experiment of trying to make somebody happy every day; and the butcher's boy of whom she bought the meat, and the girl who brought the milk, and the man of whom she bought their bread, and the beggar woman who came to the door for cinders and cold bits, found an added graciousness of manner in the young girl who smiled so sweetly upon them and interested herself so kindly in their welfare, and who, in her limited sphere, was imitating Grey Jerrold, and trying to make a few people happier, even though she could never hope, like him, to number twenty thousand! ”

“ And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after their successful fellow as he went upon his glorious career.
For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things of this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, coveting a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, as furies and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, rejoicing in the body they have won. For Mr Bessel was not the only human soul in that place. ”

“ Faces of thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity. Faces like those faces that glare with intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak of trailing darkness. ”

“ In short, you’ll arrange in a general way For a sort of sublunary heaven; For home, dear Bessie, say what we may, Is the highest sphere to a woman given.”
The lark sang out to the bending sky, The bobolink piped in the nodding rushes, And out of the tossing clover-blooms Came the sweet, clear song of the meadow-thrushes. And Bessie, listening, paused a while, Then said, with a sly glance at her neighbor, “But John—do you mean—that is to say, What shall I get for all this labor? ”

“ So you see I know there are no ugly people in heaven, because, mamsie, I’ve been there.”
“But in your philosophy, Bess,” I answered, “what happens to poor people, sick people, old people, all the people who have worked for God and done the work of His kingdom here?”
“Oh, God,” said Bess, softly, “God gives them all prizes. When you give children prizes at the school, they don’t get nothing more, but when God gives one prize they get everything.” ”

“ Bessie was not a promising scholar; she liked to do any thing in the world but study. She would look longingly out of the window a dozen times in the course of a single lesson, and when her mother reproved her by rapping her rather smartly on the head with her thimble, Bessie would only laugh, and say she guessed her skull must be thick, for the lesson would not get through, and the thimble did not hurt a bit! ”

“ For Black Bess is a real country doctor's horse. She will stand at a loaning foot with the reins hitched over a post—that is, if you give her a yard or so of head liberty, so that she may solace herself with the grass and clover tufts on the bank. Even without any grass at all, she will stand by a peat-stack in as profound a meditation as if she were responsible for the diagnosis of the case within. ”

“ Maggie is a real heroine, and so is Bessie. Why, there isn't a boy at Quam, however big he is, that would dare to fight Joe Sands; and to think of our mite of a Bess standing out against him, and holding fast to the pocket-book, and Maggie running to the rescue! ”

“ I didn't want to hurt him, and I knew that an attempt to overpower a man of such prodigious strength as was his, and especially as it might prove when fanned by madness, meant that I might have to wound him. So I ran back up past the post, and called for Bessie. She came toddling toward me, and I picked her up in my arms, and ran almost blindly, in haste, back to where I had seen her father. ”

“ I am tempting Bessie with the promise of a place at Old Drury, where, as you know, I am not without influence. Stab me! with her eyes and rosy red cheeks she would need neither paint nor powder to make her an ornament to the boards. Like most clever women, she has ambitions of a histrionic nature. She will come to London, Brooking, and once there!--once there--she is mine, dear lad, she is mine. ”

“ In answer to this I caught a defiant laugh from Bess, and then Célestine banged down her window above.
Photo by Frith.
THE ABBEY FARMERY.
I sat down and worked in silence. Bess is an only child—and will come to no harm under old Burbidge’s care, I said to myself. In fact, she will learn under his tutorship many of the delightful things that make life worth having afterwards. She will so acquire the knowledge of the things that are seen, and not learnt by book; she will get to know the different notes of the birds, and to distinguish their eggs. ”

“ The angels love to come to Bessie, because she is a very lovable child, and they would rather visit her and sing their songs to make her slumber sweet than to enter the luxurious homes of wealth and gaze upon all the beautiful objects they contain. ”

“ But I tell her not to grieve too much, for ‘the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin;’ and little Bessie is where the angels rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, and where the broken and contrite heart is not despised. I think God is giving her this broken heart, and perhaps little Bessie is now, with those other bright spirits, rejoicing over her.
“The dear little school is prospering; Jane Hardy is a great help, and, next to Polly, the best monitress we have. They often go to read to Mrs. Grey, and she takes kindly to them for the love they bore [79] to little Bessie. ”

“ As I stood and watched the last row of geraniums being put in the soil, I was joined by Bess and Mouse.
“Oh, mum!” Bess told me, “Mouse has been growling and growling at something behind the ivy. If it had been at night, I should say she had met a devil or ogre. Every minute she was with Nana and me, she got crosser and crosser; and see, her nose is quite red and bleeding, just like Hals’ when he tumbled downstairs. Could it be a real robber?” and Bess’s eyes opened wide. ”

“ Harry read it,—
"For our Maggie and Bessie, the dear little workers in the garden of the Lord, who tended the Christian plants of patience, kindness, and forbearance, till their lovely blossoms overran [Pg 347] the evil weeds of malice and ill-will, and sowed the seeds of that which brought forth fruit for the glory of God."
"I don't understand it," said Maggie. "Does it mean the canary is for Bessie and me?"
"Of course," said Harry.
"But I am sure we ought not to have any credit about the marigolds," said Maggie, still wondering. "If there is any, it is Dolly's or Lem's." ”

“ Bessel. He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be an illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of dreams upon even the bravest men. ”