Conveyancer

“ He was quite worth looking at. George Coventry has been pronounced by a high authority to be the handsomest man in England. Oddly enough, he was not only handsome, but he looked good and honest too; and he was without an atom of conceit. In the eyes of some people it was an extra recommendation that he was not exactly wise.
When Mrs Murphy had looked at the young gentleman quite two minutes, she moved up to his end of the carriage.
"Mr Coventry, here is your property. You are fortunate in having such a friend."
Without a word Mr Coventry placed the cheque and the notes within his pocket-book. ”

“ He had sat thrilled and fascinated under the magic of the burning words which had swept men by the hundreds to enlist. It was Captain Conwell's speeches that had stirred the boy and moved him with such fiery ardor to go to war. No greater joy could be given him, since he could not fight, than to be in his Captain's very tent to look after his belongings, to minister in small ways to his comfort. A hero worshipper the lad was, and at an age when ideals take hold of a pure, high-minded boy with a force that will carry him to any height of self-sacrifice, to any depth of suffering. ”

“ Conway smiled indulgently.
‘It’s all a question of point of view,’ he said. ‘I like you, Colonel, and I will be quite frank with you. Let me ask you a plain question. Aren't some people fair game?’
‘Not for a British officer and gentleman.’
‘That’s a damned good answer, Colonel; but it doesn’t go. I’m not an officer—I suppose I was cashiered months ago—and I have long perceived from your manner towards me that you don’t consider me a gentleman. So that’s that! Anyhow, can you blame me for trying to make a bit when I get the chance?’
Tom Winter was genuinely interested—and attracted. ”

“ You have always been treated like a gentleman; but should you find yourself treated otherwise, you have too good blood in your veins not to speak—I am sure of that. I've seen officers insulted and irritated, till no angel could put up with the treatment—and then for an unguarded word, which they would have been swabs not to have made use of, sent out of the service to the devil."
"But you forget, Swinburne, that the articles of war are made for the captain as well as for everybody else in the ship." ”

“ Captain Price was officer of the day. It was necessary for him to inspect the guard after midnight, and, fearful of the influenza, he sought prevention in hot toddy. Fate decreed that he should be reported drunk on duty. Now, the men in the troop thought much of their genial Captain. They petitioned McSweeny, orderly to the troop commander, to go to the court-martial and swear to anything, but to be sure to clear the [68] Captain. So it came to pass that McSweeny appeared as a witness. The Judge Advocate said he must swear to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ”

“ He got up in the progress of the wars to be a colonel, and to be concerned in the Excise. And at the Restoration he was found to be so useful in managing the Excise, that he was. put in a good place. He was the roughest and boldest speaker in the House, and talked in the language and phrases of a carrier, but with a beauty and eloquence that was always acceptable. I heard Coventry say, he was the best speaker to carry a popular assembly before him that he had ever known. He spoke always with much life and heat, but judgment was not his talent. ”

“ The captain was looking at the guineas, and then at the belt, and then at the gentleman’s face; and I thought he seemed excited.
“Half of it,” he cried, “and I’m your man!”
The other swept back the guineas into the belt, and put it on again under his waistcoat. “I have told ye, sir,” said he, “that not one doit of it belongs to me. It belongs to my chieftain,” and here he touched his hat—“and while I would be but a silly messenger to grudge some of it that the rest might come safe, I should show myself a hound indeed if I bought my own carcass any too dear. ”

“ W. Coventry, the former in his passion saying that the other should have helped things if they were so bad; and the other answered, so he would, and things should have been better had he been Treasurer of the Navy. I was mightily troubled at this heat, and it will breed ill blood, I fear; but things are in that bad condition that I do daily expect when we shall all fly in one another's faces, when we shall be reduced, every one, to answer for himself. We broke up; and I soon after to Sir G. Carteret's chamber, where I find the poor man telling his lady privately, and she weeping. ”

“ No man could succor his brother. It was all he could do to drag himself through the mire that sucked him down like some terrible, silent monster of the black, slimy depths. But Captain Conwell would not desert a man. He could not see his comrades left to die before his very eyes, those men who came right from his own mountain town, his own boy friends, the ones who had enlisted under him, marched and drilled with him. Rather would he perish in the swamp with them. He worked like a Hercules, encouraging, helping, carrying some of the more exhausted. A wet, straggling remnant reached Newberne. ”

“ If Savinien is made happy and rich by another, I have just enough to pay my dowry to the convent which I shall enter at once. There should no more be two loves in a woman’s heart than there are two Masters in Heaven. A religious life would have attractions for me.”
“He could not let his mother go alone to Le Rouvre,” said the good priest gently. ”

“ There were frequent consultations in the chapter-house, and on Sundays, before Prime or Tierce, the abbot sat in the cloisters to hear the monks' confessions, and appointed to each the penance due for his fault. Now and then the coming of an important stranger—a royal guest, perhaps, such as William the Conqueror, who passed, it is supposed, through Coventry on his way from Warwick to Nottingham in 1068—would furnish the brethren with a topic for many weeks' conversation.
Sometimes the brethren were suffered to have a glimpse of the great world without the convent with their own eyes. ”

“ Lady Coventry, meanwhile, distinguished herself by her silliness as well as by her beauty. She had a perfect genius for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. When the King (George II.) asked her if she were not sorry that there were no more masquerades, she answered, "No, she was tired of them, but there was one thing she did want to see—a coronation!" ”

“ None of the prophets are individualized in the plays that have come down to us, except Isaiah, who appears as prologue to the tailors' and sheremen's play of the Nativity; others appear as rather "defuce" commentators—to use their own word—further on in the action, and again as prologue to the weavers' play of the Purification. [686] It is impossible to construct the whole series of the Coventry plays, for, save two pageants—that of the sheremen and tailors, and that of the weavers—all are missing, and in some cases the very titles of the plays cannot be recovered. ”

“ Brisk, we’ll go see Sapho, though my lord won’t.
CYNT. I’ll wait upon your ladyship.
BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho?
LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can sing a tune already. My lord, won’t you go? Won’t you? What! not to see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not stay.
SCENE XII. CYNTHIA alone.
CYNT. ’Tis not so hard to counterfeit joy in the depth of affliction, as to dissemble mirth in company of fools. Why should I call ’em fools? The world thinks better of ’em ”

“ The man is a leader among the people, and beloved.
He stood aside and looked out on the vast throng, and she, following his eye, grew a little pale.
The man hath provocation, Etienne continued; his daughter was laid hands on roughly by the King's tax-gatherer, not many days past.
Let 's begone! said the Queen hastily. Christ, Mary, keep us safe! Give me my beads, Godiyeva, and do ye all say a rosary, and be silent!
So they rode away to London, with Stephen standing on the step on one side, and Long Will and John Horn riding on the other on the alderman's horse. ”

“ The king did not appear to be in the least perturbed; he gave the prince a fatherly pat on his shoulder and winked at the Emperor of Zabonia.
“He’s only twenty-three and a few days,” explained the king, “so naturally he takes it a bit hard. I did myself—thought of entering a monastery—yes, really.”
His Zabonian Serenity chuckled deep in his cavern of chest.
“Ernie,” said the king, turning to his son, and speaking in his most kindly manner, “you’ve discovered what all kings discover sooner or later. You’ve found yourself out. Now your job will be to keep the people from finding you out. ”

“ Mr Coventry shivered. Was this woman making love?
"I married my first husband, Mr Coventry, to please my mother. When I marry again I mean to please myself."
"What--what time is this train due in Brighton?"
"Never mind what time the train is due in Brighton." She smiled.
Some men, who are about to pop the question, delight in the shyness of the maiden. Was it possible that she delighted in the shyness of the youth? ”

“ The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air of a man who fulfills a duty.
"Monsieur," he said, "I am grateful for the feeling which leads you to make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here, in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should otherwise feel in cultivating your society. ”

“ The doubter burst into an explosion of derisive laughter and walked away. A few paces, and he came back; walking up to Colonel Conwell he seized the axe and said, 'See here, Preacher, this is not the kind of work for a parson or a lawyer. If you are determined to tear this old building down, hire some one to do it. ”

“ The forethought of Coventry, who had attended him with the solicitude and kindness of a brother, and had pleaded for him unavailingly before the court, had caused a canvas screen to be provided, which enclosed two of the guns, and allowed him to pass his hours undisturbed by the curious gaze of the English seamen. An armed marine stood always as sentry before the screen.
Captain Pearson, a gallant officer, had been kindness itself in all his arrangements, but his orders, which were peremptory, left him no discretion whatever. ”

“ I had need of good counsel in this case, which toucheth me so near; and for any counsel or friendship that I can find in England, [they] are nothing to my purpose or profit. Think you, I pray you, my lords, will any Englishmen counsel or be friendly unto me against the king’s pleasure, they being his subjects? Nay forsooth, my lords! and for my counsel in whom I do intend to put my trust be not here; they be in Spain, in my native country. Alas, my lords! I am a poor woman lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to answer such approved wise men as ye be both, in so weighty a matter. ”

“ Fortunately he sought refuge in the house of an honest artist, Van Zwaanenberg, who was acquainted with his father.
'Tell me, Paul,' asked his friend, 'what do you mean to do with yourself, if you will not be either a priest or a miller? They are both honourable professions: one gives food to the soul, the other prepares it for the body.'
'Very likely,' replied the boy; 'but I don't fancy either; for in order to be a priest, one must learn Latin; and to be a miller, one must bear to be beaten. ”

“ The squire leaned against the wall at Richard's side:—
Yea, my lord, said he.
Did I not love Etienne, the child continued, and 't would grieve him, I 'd take thee for mine own. Thou art most wonderful fair.
O Prince! cried Calote, there be a many maids as fair as I, and fairer; but they go bent neath heavy burdens; they eat seldom; the winter cometh and they are as a flower that is blighted. These are thy people. Are not all we thine own, we English? ”

“ Râjavâhana also stood ready, and the performance began. Thus, under the disguise of a piece of acting, the conjurer, being a brahman, was able to complete the marriage with all proper rites and ceremonies without any suspicion on the part of the king that it was his own daughter whom he saw before him; and the others, also unsuspecting, only admired the skill of the conjurer in making the actress so like the lady whom she represented. When the performance was ended, the conjurer, having been liberally rewarded by the king, dismissed his hired attendants and departed. ”

“ Now what the commandant meant and what he would have said, if he'd put it in more words, was: 'I want the Savannah to have the use of that condemned hose, but I suppose there are certain formalities to be observed, and your business is to know what these formalities are. Here, you attend [pg 25] to these formalities, but see that the Savannah gets the use of the hose.' That's about how he would have put it aboard ship, but he hadn't quite savvied this shore-going chief clerk at his elbow. Toward him he didn't have that same sea-going feeling that he'd have toward one of his old ship's crew. ”

“ Coventry is old and queer, with narrow streets and curious houses, famed for the ancient legend of Godiva, one of those beautiful myths that grow, like the mistletoe, on the bare branches of history, and which, if they never were true in the letter, have been a thousand times true in the spirit. ”