Cay

“ Cay died at his house in Essex Street, Strand, on 11 April 1757 (Gent. Mag. xxvii. 189; Will reg. in P. C. C. 114, Herring) . By his wife Sarah, daughter of Henry Boult of Gray's Inn and Reading, he left a son, Henry, and two daughters. The year following his death there appeared ‘The Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the 30th Geo. ”

“ He brought his eyes back from the sky suddenly. 'Miss Cayley,' he said, 'this is cruel. I was in earnest. You are playing with me.'
'I believe the chief characteristic of the English girl is supposed to be common sense,' I answered, calmly, 'and I trust I possess it.' But indeed, as he spoke, my heart was beginning to make its beat felt; for he was a charming young man; he had a soft voice and lustrous eyes; it was a summer's day; and alone in the woods with one other person, where the sunlight falls mellow in spots like a leopard's skin, one is apt to remember that we are all human. ”

“ A few small caymen, from two to twelve feet long, may be observed now and then in passing up and down the river; they just keep their heads above the water, and a stranger would not know them from a rotten stump. ”

“ Antony went on with his breakfast. Perhaps it was true that inspectors liked dragging ponds, but the question was, did Cayleys like having them dragged? Was Cayley anxious about it, or quite indifferent? He certainly did not seem to be anxious, but he could hide his feelings very easily beneath that heavy, solid face, and it was not often that the real Cayley peeped out. Just a little too eager once or twice, perhaps, but there was nothing to be learnt from it this morning. Perhaps he knew that the pond had no secrets to give up. After all, inspectors were always dragging ponds. ”

“ He watched in vain, for upwards of two months, but at the end of that time he came and told me that the monster had seized [217] a horse, and had dragged it into the river to devour at leisure. I immediately repaired to the spot, accompanied by my guards, and by my priest, who positively would see a cayman hunt, and by an American friend of mine, Mr. Russell,2 who was then staying with me. I had the nets spread at intervals, so that the cayman could not escape back into the lake. ”

“ Why not steal some Indian cayuses and get even? There was a stage line running through the reservation them days, and I knew the stock tender at the stage ranch, fifteen miles from Fort Custer, at the Fort Custer battle-ground. So waiting till dark I went there, and getting something to eat and leaving the two hosses, I started back to Crazy Head's camp. It was a bright, moonlight night and I found the Injuns' cayuses grazing in the same place. Looking around cautiously I discovered two fine-looking, coal black cayuses grazing by themselves about two hundred yards from the main bunch. ”

“ The cayman has no grinders; his teeth are entirely made for snatch and swallow: there are thirty-two in each jaw. Perhaps no animal in existence bears more decided marks in his countenance of cruelty and malice than the cayman. He is the scourge and terror of all the large rivers in South America near the line.
One Sunday evening, some years ago, as I was walking with Don Felipe de Ynciarte, Governor of Angustura, on the bank of the Oroonoque, "Stop here a minute or two, Don Carlos," said he to me, "while I recount a sad accident. ”

“ At a minute or two before eleven I turned up at the Schiller Platz in my short serge dress and cycling jacket. The great square was thronged with spectators to see us start; the police made a lane through their midst for the riders. My backer had advised me to come to the post as late as possible, 'For I have entered your name,' he said, 'simply as Lois Cayley. These Deutschers don't think but what you're a man and a brother. But I am apprehensive of con-tingencies. When you put in a show they'll try to raise objections to you on account of your being a female. ”

“ To Cayley the clothes seemed an enormously important clue. I didn't quite see why, but I did realize that to a man in Cayley's position the smallest clue would have an entirely disproportionate value. For some reason, then, Cayley attached this exaggerated importance to the clothes which Mark was wearing on that Tuesday morning; all the clothes, the inside ones as well as the outside ones. I didn't know why, but I did feel certain that, in that case, the absence of the collar was unintentional. In collecting the clothes he had overlooked the collar. Why? ”

“ There was another window beyond Cayley’s, and there was no light in it. The declaration of war was postponed.
Antony lay there, watching Cayley into bed. After all it was only polite to return Cayley’s own solicitude earlier in the night. Politeness demanded that one should not disport oneself on the pond until one’s friends were comfortably tucked up.
Meanwhile Bill was getting tired of waiting. His chief fear was that he might spoil everything by forgetting the number “six.” It was the sixth post. Six. He broke off a twig and divided it into six pieces. ”

“ Let's peek in that there hut,” he suggested.
“Huh; yore ideas of cayuses are mighty peculiar. Why don't you look for 'em up on those cactuses or behind that mesquite? I wouldn't be a heap surprised if they was roostin' on th' roof. They are mighty knowing animals, cayuses. I once saw one that could figger like a schoolmarm,” remarked Mr. Travennes, beginning sarcastically and toning it down as he proceeded, out of respect for his companion's gun.
“Well, they might be in th' shack,” replied Mr. Cassidy. “Cayuses know so much that it takes a month to unlearn them. ”

“ The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry. ”

“ Believing that I have sufficiently described the Indians and their habits, I will now introduce to my readers two species of monsters that I have often bad occasion to observe, mid even to combat—the one a denizen of forests, the boa constrictor; [214] the other of lakes and rivers, the cayman or alligator. At the period at which I first occupied my habitation, and began to colonise the village of Jala-Jala, caymans abounded on that side of the lake. From my windows I daily saw them sporting in the water, and waylaying and snapping at the dogs that ventured too near the brink. ”

“ There was never a missing man yet but a dozen people come forward who swear to have seen him at a dozen different places at the same time.”
Cayley smiled.
“Yes. That’s true. Anyhow, he wants to drag the pond first.” He added dryly, “From what I’ve read of detective stories, inspectors always do want to drag the pond first.”
“Is it deep?”
“Quite deep enough,” said Cayley as he got up. On his way to the door he stopped, and looked at Antony. “I’m so sorry that we’re keeping you here like this, but it will only be until to-morrow. The inquest is to-morrow afternoon. ”

“ I was riding hard to get to her before it was too late when my cayuse stepped into a hole just the other side of Grant—you know what happened. I shot the animal, stripped off my saddle an' hoofed it to town, an' dropped into that gospel dealer's layout to see if he could make me feel any better—which he could not. I just couldn't stand his palaver about death an' slipped out. I was going to lay for you an' lick you for the way you acted about this scarf—had to do something or go loco. But when I got outside there was yore cayuse, all saddled an' ready to go. ”

“ His ears had caught a slight splash at no great distance shorewards.
"Nowt to make 'ee uneasy, sir," replied Turnpenny. "'Twas without doubt a cayman slipping off into deep water; and by the token, 'tis a guide for us, for the reptile haunts the banks of rivers, and sure the very creek we be looking for will be somewheres anigh here." ”

“ CAYLEY, ARTHUR (1821–1895) , English mathematician, was born at Richmond, in Surrey, on the 16th of August 1821, the second son of Henry Cayley, a Russian merchant, and Maria Antonia Doughty. His father, Henry Cayley, retired from business in 1829 and settled in Blackheath, where Arthur was sent to a private school kept by the Rev. ”

“ For after Casey fanned that day the citizens all left,
And one by one they sought new lands, heartbroken and bereft;
The joyous shout no more rang out of children at their play;
The village blacksmith closed his shop; the druggist moved away.
Alas for Mudville’s vanished pomp when mighty Casey reigned!
Her grandeur has departed now; her glory’s long since waned.
Her place upon the map is lost, and no one seems to care
A whit about the old town now since Casey biffed the air. ”

“ He was Casey—Casey who had let all the gang run for shelter from the Sioux while he had remained for one last and final drive at a railroad spike. But the cool, devil-may-care indifference, common to all his comrades as well as to himself, was not the strongest factor in the Casey of to-day. Up out of the rugged and dormant soul had burst the spirit of a race embodied in one man. ”

“ Cai and 'Bias—the long day over—sat in Cai's summer-house, overlooking the placid harbour. Loyal candles yet burned in every window on the far shore and scintillated their little time on the ripple of the tide. Above shone and wheeled in their courses the steady stars, to whom our royalties are less than a pinch of dust in the meanest unseen planet that spins within their range. ”

“ They all come, early in the morning, from different villages on the Bosphorus, rowed by men who stand to the heavy-handled [121] oars and drop with them to their backs. There are also caïques with sails, undecked boats built on the lines of a fishing caïque, that bring fruit and vegetables from the villages of the Marmora. They are prettier to look at than to navigate, for they have no keel and their mainsail is a balloon, to be pulled from one side to the other of a fearsome stick, boom and gaff in one, that spears the heavens. The human part of the caïque has its picturesque points as well. ”

“ Sir J. B. Ragouts! Pshaw!
Mrs. Casey. D'ye hear, George, carry that big piece of roast beef up to the Lion.
Sir J. B. [Goes to her.] Ay, and carry me up to the Lion, I like to dine in good company:—Who are you madam?
Mrs. Casey. I'm Mrs. Casey, at your service, sir; and I keep this house, the Lion of England.
Sir J. B. And are you English?
Mrs. Casey. Yes, that I am, born in Dublin; an honest Irish woman, upon my honour.
AIR.—MRS. CASEY.
The British Lion is my sign,
A roaring trade I drive on,
Right English usage, neat French wine,
A landlady must thrive on. ”

“ Not many years ago (O best of patrons) a man most advised in every branch of life; one who has deserved well of the company of the learned; bound by the ties of family to yourself; a most shining light of the University of Cambridge; its jewel and glory, John Caius, wrote not without elegance to Conrad Gesner, a man exceedingly skilled and sagacious in the investigation of recondite matters; a man armed with everything that relates to natural history; the same man wrote an epitome concerning British dogs, not so concise as elegant and useful ”

“ Bearded men with the flat tone of age in their voices will suck pipes and cackle reminiscently while they tell you of Casey's tumultuous youth—time when he drove the fastest six horses in Colorado to the stage line out from Cripple Creek, and whooped past would-be holdups with a grin of derision on his lips and bullets whining after him, and his passengers praying and clinging white-knuckled to the seats. ”

“ When the Irishman emerged he found waiting for him a curious crowd. His friends crowded around asking eager questions. Casey answered with vague but bloodthirsty generalities: he wasn't a man to be trifled with, and egad some people had to find that out! blackmailing was not a healthy occupation when it was aimed at a gentleman! He left the impression that King had recanted, had apologized, had even begged—there would be no more trouble. Uttering brags of this sort, Casey led the way to the Bank Exchange, a fashionable bar near at hand. Here he set up the drinks, and was treated in turn. ”

“ At last Casey got the old age pension and his latter years were the best. His home, a dugout in the bank of a wash near Tecopa. With no rent, with books and magazines and the solitude he loved, he lived happily. “When I croak,” he often said, “just put me in my dugout. Toss a stick of dynamite in after me. Shut the door and cave in the goddam’ hill.”
One night he went to Tecopa. Friends were doing a spot of drinking and far behind in his score with the years, Casey joined them. There was nothing out of line. Just yarns and memories and Casey had a lot of these. Tonopah. Goldfield. Rawhide. ”

“ With a grunt of consternation he hastily replaced the tarp, his heart flopping in his chest like a fresh-landed fish.
The stranger was kneeling beside a faintly crackling little pile of twigs, his face turned inquiringly toward Casey. Casey, glancing guiltily over his shoulder, felt the chill hand of discovery reaching for his very soul. It was as if a dead man were hidden away beneath that tarp. It seemed to him that the eyes of the stranger were sharp, suspicious eyes, and that they dwelt upon him altogether too attentively for a perfectly justifiable interest even in the box of grub. ”

“ Wherefore, Casey Ryan once more came larruping down the grade to Camp Cajon and turned in there with a dogged purpose in his eyes and with his jaw set stubbornly. History has it that whenever Casey Ryan gets that look in his face, the man underneath might just as well holler and crawl out; because holler he must, before Casey would ever let him up.
Behind him, stowed under the bedding, grub and camp dishes, rode his eight cases of bootlegger's bait, packed convincingly in the sawdust, straw and cardboard of the wet old days when Uncle Sam himself O. K.'d the job. ”