Bryony

“ Bryan detected a sudden eagerness in the winged shapes that hovered beyond. And with the eagerness came the child-like piping.
"Take him, Leeta! He has courage. This time you may succeed."
An answering thought; soft, holding a delicate note. "Patience...."
Then Bryan saw the crystal globe being lifted still higher—toward his face. Behind it the girl's large exotic eyes seemed very intent. Within the globe the pulsing of the pale rose core quickened.
Bryan felt something draw at him. A strange force—like insistent hands. Hands immaterial and yet tangible, that reached into him ... and pulled. ”

“ Now a coal-cellar may seem a most curious place to choose to live in; but then a Brownie is a curious creature—a fairy, and yet not one of that sort of fairies who fly about on gossamer wings, and dance in the moonlight, and so on. He never dances; and as to wings, what use would they be to him in a coal-cellar? He is a sober, stay-at-home, household elf—nothing much to look at, even if you did see him, which you are not likely to do—only a little old man, about a foot high, all dressed in brown, with a brown face and hands, and a brown peaked cap, just the color of a brown mouse. ”

“ Bryan is one of those flexible, trusting spirits, equal to any emergency in the struggles of life, which sorrows, however deep, may bend for a time, but, like the flower too much freighted with rain-drops, only bows its head until the sunshine comes with its welcome beams to kiss away the moisture, when its bright petals open, and again it looks heavenward. A presence diffuses itself in all her writings sweet as the perfume by which she was surrounded in her own lovely home, pure as the heavenly-lustered orbs that overshadowed her pathway. ”

“ In short, Sir Bryan found himself forced to base his regard for his new acquaintances upon such qualities as good breeding, intelligence, and a cordial yet discriminating hospitality,—qualities which he was perfectly familiar with at home.
He sometimes wondered whether the taint of civilization might not already have attached itself to the grizzly bear and the mountain lion, for whose inspiring acquaintance he had ardently pined since boyhood. ”

“ Bryan is a good specimen of an American. He is, for example, neat in his dress, but his apparel is the least obtrusive part of him. He is frank, companionable, courteous without subserviency, aggressive without boorish insistence, well poised, witty and yet cleanly minded, learned without conceit. And he loves his family above all else on earth. ”

“ He unwrapped the tarpaulin and the sightless eyes stared accusingly up into his.
Using his knife, Brion cut away the loose, blood-soaked clothing. Strapped under the clothes, around the man's waist, was the familiar collection of Disan artifacts. This could have significance either way. Human or humanoid, the creature would still have to live on Dis. Brion threw it aside, along with the clothing. ”

“ He made up his mind to punish him, and, to spare the trouble and time of descending, dropped from the tree, and rushed upon the boar, which met him at once, and, notwithstanding Bruin's great strength, he proved to him that a ten years' old wild boar, with seven-inch tusks, was a very formidable antagonist. Bruin soon felt the tusks of the boar ripping him up; ten or twelve streams of blood were rushing from his sides, yet he did not give way; on the contrary, he grew fiercer and fiercer, and at last the boar was almost smothered under the huge paws of his adversary. ”

“ What's the world a-coming to? Of course a Brownie is a funny little thing, half man, half goblin, with pointed ears and hairy hide. When you bury a treasure, you scatter over it blood drops of a newly slain kid or lamb, or, better still, bury the animal with the treasure, and a Brownie will watch over it for you, and frighten everybody else away. ”

“ By this time Bryce, who had kept the old musket by his side since Crow Wing’s warning, and slept in the loft, was aroused by the disturbance, and he pushed up the corner of the bark roof and blazed away at the beast just as it scrambled through the wreck of the hog fence. The bear had continued to cling to the squealing and kicking shote, for bruin is a strangely perverse and obstinate creature, unwilling to give up what he has once set his mind upon. ”

“ Now there were two ways which he might have taken, but as luck would have it, he chose the wrong one, and blundered up the gallery towards Brownie's nursery. It was shaped like a bottle with a long winding neck, and in the narrowest part he met Brownie.
As a rule a doe rabbit is the gentlest of wild things; but motherhood will nerve the most timid, and Brownie's whiskers twitched as she faced the foe who was stealing towards her in the darkness. The rat cried out, and was answered by three or four of his comrades, who crowded after him. ”

“ Had some of the qualities above named been less in him, or more, he might have been a broader statesman; but he would not have been so mighty and formidable a leader of men.
Other men are admired or feared, or can spend money, or swing a machine; but Bryan is personally trusted as no other man is, and as he deserves to be. “Bryan is a man standing plumb on his own feet, other candidates have been propped on their feet by other persons. ”

“ The very next day, at the same hour, Brion returned to the glen, and climbed the hill to the hidden bower. Somehow he believed that he would find his lady ensconced there: and there he found her. She essayed only a brief pretence of surprise—and she was looking prettier than ever. He admired all the points in her which a man would have admired; but with better than a man’s eyes. The pink and white, the little tapering fingers and shapely arms, the cup of her throat, the soft provocation of her lips and rounded chin—they moved him not to the beatitude of passion but of reverence. ”

“ And rapturously, reverently, while the birds sang about, and the chiming of the water came up to them in their warm high covert, he set the signature of his fealty on that lovely tablet.
It was the ecstatic moment of Brion’s life, never forgotten and never surpassed—innocence fulfilling beauty and beauty innocence, trustfully, confidingly. So to such sexless kisses angels love—the flowers that ask no fruit. ”

“ There are those—the fortunate ones, perhaps—who, looking like wizened age in youth, in age come to look youthful. What Brion saw before him was a little undersized creature, with a sharp unhealthy face and ferrety eyelashes. She was all hung and sown with gems, after the fashion of a royal model. Her head-dress was as monstrous as was her farthingale, over which a jewelled stomacher came down so deep as to give to her already short lower limbs an aspect of quite grotesque stubbiness. ”

“ Bryant. The first is the fidelity with which it paints natural scenery, and the second, the pensive and profound, yet Christian philosophy which pervades its spirit. As we have remarked in another place, no man ever lived whose sensibility was more susceptible than Mr. Bryant’s. Not only is his eye open to Nature, but every fibre of his being seems to be tremblingly alive to its presence. ”

“ The boys set to work with great satisfaction—boys do so enjoy hunting something. They coaxed them—they shouted at them—they threw little sticks at them; but as soon as they wanted them to go one way the fleet of ducklings immediately turned round and sailed another way, doing it so deliberately and majestically, that the children could not help laughing. As for little Brownie, he sat on a branch of the willow-tree, with his legs dangling down to the surface of the pond, kicking at the water-spiders, and grinning with all his might. ”

“ There was a malicious fairy once in the Isle of Man, very winsome to look at, who worked a sorry Kelpie-trick, on the young men of the town, and inveigled them into the sea, where they perished. At last the inhabitants rose in vengeance, and suspecting her of causing their loss and sorrow, gave her chase so hard and fast by land, that to save herself, she changed her shape into that of an innocent brown wren. ”

“ Bruno, and as Oberon figures in the traditions of Kensington it is possible that the Bryanstone Square in that district, into which leads Brawn Street, marks the site of another Brownie or Rialobran stone. This Bryanstone district was the home of the Byron family, and the surname Brinsmead implies the existence here or elsewhere a Brin’s mead or meadow.
The Brownies are occasionally known as “knockers,” whence the “knocking stone” which still stands in Brahan Wood, Dingwall, might no doubt be rightly entitled a Brahan, Bryan, or Brownie Stone. ”

“ Would have said, "There are still some gods to please,
And houses are built without hands, we're told."
There are the pillars, and all gone gray.
Briony's hair went white. You may see
Where the garden was if you come this way.
That sun-dial scared him, he said to me;
"Sooner or later they strike," said he,
And he never got that from the books he read.
Others are flourishing, worse than he,
But he knew too much for the life he led. ”

“ Dr. Bruce Brainard was followed by two men and three women. In the flickering firelight Brown was obliged to come close to each, as in smiling silence they approached him, before he could make sure whom the furs and scarfs enshrouded. "Sue!" he exclaimed, discovering his sister. "And Hugh Breckenridge! This is great, brother-in-law! Mrs. Brainard—can it be Mrs. Brainard? How kind of you! You must have known how I've been wanting to see you. Webb Atchison, is that you, looming behind there? How are you, old fellow? ”

“ The Tailor lived to see his boy-Brownies become men, with all the cares of a prosperous farm on their hands, and his girl-Brownie carry her fairy talents into another home. For these Brownies—young ladies!—are much desired as wives, whereas a man might as well marry an old witch as a young Boggartess. ”

“ With no humor, with somewhat restricted sympathies, with little flexibility or openness to new impressions, but gifted with a high, austere imagination, Bryant became the meditative poet of nature. His best poems are those in which he draws lessons from nature, or sings of its calming, purifying, and bracing influences upon the human soul. ”

“ Bryant stands alone. His range is not great, nor his genius fertile. But his poetry is purely the language of his inmost nature, and the simple lovely garb in which his thoughts are arranged, a direct gift from the Muse. He has written nothing that is not excellent, and the atmosphere of his verse refreshes and composes the mind, like leaving the highway to enter some green, lovely, fragrant wood. ”

“ His eyes were as useful in the dark as in the light—like a pussy-cat's; but there was nothing to be seen—not even a potato paring, or a dry crust, or a well-gnawed bone, such as Tiny the terrier sometimes brought into the coal-cellar and left on the floor—nothing, in short, but heaps of coals and coal-dust; and even a Brownie cannot eat that, you know. ”

“ Bryany, ceremoniously attired, was received by a sort of jolly king who happened to be trimming his beard in the royal bathroom, but who was too good-natured to keep Mr. Bryany waiting. It is remarkable how the habit of royalty, having once taken root, will flourish in the minds of quite unmonarchical persons. Edward Henry first enquired after the health of Mr. Seven Sachs, and then obtained from Mr. Bryany all remaining papers and trifles of information concerning the affair of the option. ”

“ And to his great surprise and joy there were his feet sticking out of his trousers, just as they ought to stick out!
Brownie untied the stones. He had not supposed his legs would stretch so quickly as that. And he told himself that Mr. Frog was a good tailor. He certainly knew his business. Now, as a matter of fact, Mr. Frog was a very careless person. ”

“ And when a discontented Dr. Stirling had made his excuses and adieux to Mr. Bryany, and Robert Brindley had decided that he could not leave his crony to travel by tram-car alone, and the two men had gone, then Edward Henry turned to Mr. Bryany:
"That's how I get rid of the doctor, you see."
"But has your child been bitten by a dog?" asked Mr. Bryany, acutely perplexed.
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" Edward Henry replied, carefully non-committal. "What price going to the Turk's Head now?" ”

“ It was only on her near approach that Brion perceived these to be a sort of fantastic clogs, half a yard in height, which she wore to the soles of her embroidered slippers, over which they were strapped; but so little gravity did they afford to the poor body that she needed the prop of a walking cane on the one side, and on the other of a sweet ape of fashion in a French doublet, who was her cicisbeo, to hold her up; in despite of which buttresses, she had a hard ado to keep her equilibrium as she passed, smirking and ogling. ”

“ Long hair fell to his shoulders, and startlingly blue eyes stared back at Brion from deepset sockets. The heavy kilt around his loins was the only garment he wore. Once more the vaede rested over his shoulder, still stirring unhappily. Around his waist was the same collection of leather, stone and brass objects that had been in the solido. Two of them now had meaning to Brion: the tube-and-mouthpiece, a blowgun of some kind; and the specially shaped hook for opening the vaede. He wondered if the other strangely formed things had equally practical functions. ”