Chaperon

“ The chaperons of the present day are very easy-going people—or, perhaps I ought to say, that the young ladies of the present day have a certain Yankee go-a-headishness which very much lightens the chaperon's responsibility. In point of fact, the London chaperon has dwindled into a formula, and no doubt she will soon be improved off the face of society. ”

“ It seems that if she could have driven up and taken a groom it would have been good form, but there was some complication about the horses, and to go by rail unchaperoned, even though surrounded by a earful of people, was not to be thought of. I pointed to the asters that must be set out and covered before the sun was high, but she couldn't understand, and went off in a huff.
What a disagreeable word chaperon is at best, and what a thankless vocation the unlisted, active, and very irregular verb 'to chaperon' implies. ”

“ From that moment, in fact, whoever saw the Baroness de Thaller would also see Mlle. Cesarine following in her wake.
A girl of fifteen, discreet and well-trained, is a convenient chaperon; a chaperon which enables a woman to show herself boldly where she might not have dared to venture alone. ”

“ I came out of it barely alive, and very nearly maimed.’
‘Yes—I don’t think Katherine would make a very excellent chaperon,’ says Mrs. Prior, who likes Crosby, but cordially detests his sister.
‘What a slander!’ cries Lady Forster; ‘easy to see you don’t understand me! I’m a splendid chaperon—a born one. Always half a mile ahead—or else in the rear. One should always be ahead if possible, as it gives the poor creatures a chance of getting up to you in an honourable way, if the enemy should come in sight. Whereas the turning and running back business always looks so bad. ”

“ An unmarried lady, unless she be a maiden-lady of a recognised age and standing, cannot act as an orthodox chaperon; but, on the other hand, a young married lady could do so with the greatest propriety, as could a brother from the age of eighteen; of other relatives it is not necessary to speak.
Young ladies are now frequently asked to dinner-parties without a chaperon, a hostess constituting herself chaperon for the occasion. ”

“ Because of these prejudices current concerning the idea of chaperonage, because of this mode of considering the subject, characteristically American, it is all the more necessary that the line should be sharply drawn as to the occasions where the consensus of usage and good sense declares a chaperon to be indispensable. The sense of the best American conventionalities, broadly speaking, is that a young woman may have greater liberty in her father’s house than elsewhere. ”

“ Young girls for whose sole benefit and protection the chaperon exists (she does not exist for her own pleasure, youthful opinion to the contrary notwithstanding) , have infinitely greater freedom from her surveillance than had those of other days, and the typical chaperon is seldom seen with any but very young girls, too young to have married friends. ”

“ If a chaperon is bright and cheery, sympathizing in the enjoyment of the young people, and avoiding making her presence a bar upon innocent gayety, she need be no drawback to the pleasure of the expedition. On the contrary, most young men and302 women will feel a security and sense of comfort from having some one along to take the responsibility of the conduct of the party that they could never know were there no chaperon present. ”

“ Chichester Barnard’s “business engagement” had not prevented his dancing attendance upon another girl—and she, Marjorie Langdon, was to be that girl’s official chaperon.
[Pg 37]
CHAPTER V
GIVE AND TAKE “Does everything look in order in the dining-room, Duncan?” inquired Mrs. Fordyce anxiously, on her son’s entrance, laying down the magazine she was reading.
“Of course it is, dear mother,” he replied, sitting down on the lounge beside her. “You can always trust Perkins to arrange the table decorations to the Queen’s taste. Why so anxious tonight?” ”

“ Car si . . . . acez ce que vous y avez commencez, nous tendriens la guerre par le fait dentre vous finée, et tote la terre D'Escoce gaignee. Si vous prioms derrechief tant come nous pooms, que si comme la Chape est bien faite, veueillez faire le Chaperon. ”

“ However numerous they may be, the price of everything is known to them; and such is their idea of probity, that pilfering is quite unknown amongst them. They are entirely trusted by their parents from their earliest years; even when they blossom into young women, chaperons are never a necessity ”

“ Our canal flowed many feet above the level of the surrounding land, so that we looked down upon men tilling, upon white-sailed boats cutting through miniature waterways as if they navigated meadows, and upon cows grazing knee-deep in mist, which rose like blowing silver spray, over the pale-green waves of grass. ”

“ I have sometimes had five or six valets-de-chambre at once, without having a single servant in livery, except my chaplain Poussatin.” “How!” said the queen, bursting out laughing, “a chaplain in your livery! he surely was not a priest?” “Pardon me, madam,” said he, “and the first priest in the world for dancing the Biscayan jig.” “Chevalier,” said the king, “pray tell us the history of your chaplain Poussatin.” ”

“ I hearing the fear they were in, cried to them not to be frighted, for was not the devil, but a poor chapman, who could not get quarters the last night; a foul fa’ thy carcase, Sir, for our jock is through the midden dib, dirt and a’ thegither; he who went last came back again, the other ran into the house and told what he had seen. The goodman and his wife came running, he with the grape in his hand, and she with the Bible, the one crying out, Sandy, is’t true that the deil was in the barn? na, na, said she, it's but a chapman, but poor Jock has gotten a fright wi' him. ”

“ The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain, it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning, with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books.... ”

“ Biorn cast a look of displeasure on the priest, and answered, “Sir chaplain, you have more share in the history than either you or I could desire. Excuse me, if I am unwilling to trouble these light- hearted warriors with so rueful a tale.”
But the chaplain approached nearer to the knight, and said, in a firm yet very mild tone, “Dear lord, hitherto it rested with you alone to relate, or not to relate it; but now that you have so strangely hinted at the share which I have had in your son’s calamity, I must positively demand that you will repeat word for word how everything came to pass. ”

“ May I first speak of the courage of our chaplains? Not every one expects a "parson" to be brave. The pulpit has been spoken of by the ill-informed as "The Coward's Castle," but hundreds of these parsons have been transferred to the forefront of the fight. As I write this, many of them are already fighting in the ranks, and many more will soon be there.
But the chaplain is not a fighting man. Not a shot does he fire, not a bayonet thrust does he give. He sees the shot and shell bursting round him, but he has not the stimulus of the fight. ”

“ I made myself a chapman when very young, in great hopes of being rich when I became old but fortune was fickle and so was I; for I had not been a chapman above two days, until I began to consider the danger of deep ditches, midden dubs, biting dogs and bogles in barns, bangster wives and wiet sacks; And what comfort is it, to ly in a cows ouxter, the length of a cold winter night ”

“ If for one instant the strangers paused to study a beautiful, carved door, or to peer into the window of an antiquary's at blue and white jars, or to gaze up at the ferocious head of a Turk over a chemist's shop, or to laugh at a house with window-blinds painted in red and white diamonds, a crowd of flaxen heads collected round us, little hands fluttered over the dog's wrinkled head as butterflies flit about a clover blossom, baby laughter tinkled, and tiny shrieks cut the stillness of the sleepy, summer afternoon. ”

“ Now, since the Duchess had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one, that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple. ”

“ The young fool's heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there, sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the chaplain's skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there's a door leads from the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out being through the Duchess's tribune. ”

“ No, said I, you lousie dog, I'll sell you none, if there's any on the ground, seek them up and stap them in a beast's arse: but if ye were a man, I would burn you in the fire, tho' it be in your own house, but as you are a poor taylor and neither man nor boy, I'll do nothing but expose you for what you are. O dear honest chapman, cried his wife, ye maunna do that and I'se gie you cheese and bread. No, no, you thieves, I'm for nothing but vengeance; no bribes for such. So as I was lifting my pack, there was a pretty black cat which I spread my napkin over ”

“ The simple chaplain of Countess Carlotta lived alone in the convent, like a priest of silence, content with his meagre prebend, content to preach with might and main in the little church, to be called during the day to bless the beans, and at night to assist the dying, to cultivate the vine with his own hands ”

“ No work is grander than a chaplain's; but I must lay it [154] down as a general axiom, that no man should undertake this particular kind of work unless he knows that he is charged with a message from God.
In the Neuve Chapelle dispatch, Sir John French writes: 'I have once more to remark upon the devotion to duty, courage and contempt of danger which has characterized the work of the chaplains throughout this campaign.' The padré's work is not to fight ”

“ The chaplain on a large modern ironclad or frigate has as many men in his charge, as regards spiritual matters, as the vicar of a country town or large village, whilst he has many more opportunities of reaching them directly. Many of our naval chaplains are noble fellows; and to them come the sailors in any distress of mind, for the soothing advice so readily given. He may not dare to interfere with the powers that be when they are in danger of punishment, except in very rare cases; but he can point them out their path of duty, and how to walk in it, making them better sailors and happier men. ”

“ For the chapmen have awakened and have striven, the two young ones together, and then the two young with the old because of his bitter mocks. But now they be got to the road again, and though we be most like to prevent them at a place of refuge, yet wise will it be to leave as little as may be to chance-hap. ”

“ But the chaplain was fond of quoting:
“Between the stirrup and the ground He mercy sought and mercy found——”
and sometimes the scene was irreverently called a “love feast” when some hard-riding, hard-swearing, hard-fighting, unthinking sinner went joyfully out of this world from the fatherly arms of the chaplain into the paternal embrace of an eternal and merciful Father, as the man of God firmly believed. ”

“ The chaplain knelt beneath the altar; and the Prince knelt down at the faldstool, the Duke beside him on the floor. And just as the old bell of the castle tolled the hour, and died away in a soft hum of sound, as sweet as honey, the chaplain said an ancient prayer, the purport of which was that the Christian must watch and pray; that only the pure heart might see God ”

“ Knights and gentlemen of less means, or less love of goodly singing men, were content with a single priest as chaplain. [246] Even wealthy yeomen and tradesmen had their domestic chaplain. Sir Thomas More says, [247] there was “such a rabel [of priests] , that every mean man must have a priest in his house to wait upon his wife, which no man almost lacketh now.” The chapels of the great lords were often sumptuous buildings, erected within the precincts, of which St. George’s, Windsor, and the chapel within the Tower of London may supply examples. ”

“ I've often heard that chappies, after some great shock or loss, have a habit, after they've been on the floor for a while wondering what hit them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves together, and sort of taking a whirl at beginning a new life. ”

“ Next morning when I came in, the goodwife began to pray for herself and all that she had, saying, It's Wednesday through a'the warld and good be between me and you chapman, for ye're either a witch or a warlock, or something that's no canny, for ye witcht our sowens last night, were very good when I left them, tho I did not prie them, and I wish'd them as for they gaed mad, rag'd out the pot, belling and bizzing like barm, I thought they wad run out to the barn to you ”