Corduroy

“ He groped for his sense of humor, of fitness. He, Dean Wolcott, hating this cow-puncher, planning [86] to be revenged upon him— His sense of humor was gone, lost, swallowed up in the dust. Now they were back again in the old monotony; brown, twisting, turning bodies, tossing horns, wild eyes; ceaseless bellowing; the stench of hot and sweating hides; dust; enveloping, smothering dust. Ginger, save for her scarlet neckerchief and her scarlet cheeks, was covered with dust, dust-covered, dust-colored; dust-brown. Corduroy; what was it that plants and animals took on from their surroundings? ”

“ They are very good in that they wear well. Otherwise they are stiff and noisy in the brush. Kersey is excellent where much wading is to be done or much rainy weather encountered—in fact it is the favorite "driving" trousers with rivermen—but like all [44] woven woolen materials it "picks out" in bad brush. Corduroy I would not have as a gift. It is very noisy, and each raindrop that hits it spreads at once to the size of a silver dollar. I verily believe an able pair of corduroys can, when feeling good, soak up ten pounds of water. ”

“ The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the aperture. ”

“ All this time corduroys is still grinning and making faces in his corner. I admire his brass buttons, upon which three or four more [552] children instantly crowd round to look at them. One is a poor little deformed fellow, to whom buttons would be of very little use. He is in quite worn and ragged clothes: he looks as pale and thin almost as that poor girl I first noticed. He has no mother; he and his brother live alone with their father, who is out all day, and the children have to do everything for themselves. The young ones here who have no mothers seem by far the worst off. ”

“ By arriving late at his headquarters—the cabin at Post’s—and leaving early, by passing Slate’s Springs with its lure of a hot and comforting meal, making his own slender supper, and lodging in his sleeping bag on the ground, he was able to manage his seven days hermiting, and he told himself that—with every muscle in play—it was still the most perfect rest he had ever known.
He believed that he now understood Snort perfectly, and that Snort was on the way to understanding him. Rusty, the Ranger’s dog, had a faintly scornful air of understanding him only too well ”

“ It would be half an hour, and perhaps more, before she brought Snort up, and she must make sure of finding her station on the trail, and Pedro. She mentally catalogued an oddly square rock, a grotesquely twisted root, took off her scarlet bandanna and tied it to a low limb, before she made her cautious descent.
Two hours, dark and difficult ones, were to pass before she found her landmarks again. Her little wish to do her lover a service had come largely [262] true: she had toiled in his cause as she had never toiled before in all her vigorous young life. ”

“ It made good imagining, the look on his face when he should see the two of them.
She tied the uninterested Pedro securely and hung her saddle with the canteens and sacks and the packet of sandwiches over a limb, took her little hatchet in hand and climbed carefully down into the cañon. It was too dimly lighted to make out the animal at the bottom, but he was clearly [260] to be heard, and she called to him, soothingly, coaxingly, cajolingly, and he stopped plunging to listen for an instant.
“Good old boy, Snort ... good ... old ... boy!” ”

“ Fustian.—This name is given to designate low grades of cotton fabrics woven with a pile weave, such as Cotton Velvets, Velveteens, Corduroys, Moleskins, Cordings, etc. Fustian is also applied to such fabrics when they are made in a combination of cotton and flax or other vegetable fibre. It is more used as a [38] generic term designating a class of fabrics than to designate one particular kind of fabric. One class of Fustians has a raised "nap" on one or both sides, and includes Cantoons or Diagonals, which have a pronounced weft twill on the face side and are used for riding breeches. ”

“ Cordelia met him in the outer hall. She had not been present at the interview just closed; but she could not let him go without seeing, and speaking with him before he went. She wanted to thank him for the pleasure he had afforded her; she wanted to bless him, and she wanted to kiss him.
“Oh, my dear love!” she murmured, with her hands on his shoulders, and her eyes gazing up into his own. “I can not tell you how happy I am. Will anything ever come to mar the perfect bliss?”
“Let us hope not, my darling. My trust is in heaven, and in your truth. I do not think either can fail me. ”

“ He did not pause at the road and bridge, but went on down the further bank of the Cocahutchie. It was a pretty stream of water, and it spread out wide and shallow, and rippled merrily among stones and bowlders and clumps of willow and alder for nearly half a mile. Gradually, then, it grew narrower, quieter, deeper, and wore a sleepy look which made it seem more in keeping with quiet old Crofield.
"The hay's about ready to cut," said Jack, as he plodded along the path, near the water's edge, through a thriving meadow of clover and timothy. "There's always plenty of work in haying time. ”

“ Cordelia then told him simply that she loved him as she ought to love a father who had bred and reared her; that she should always honor and obey him above all others; but if she had a husband, she should think it her duty to give him half her love and care, and not, like her sisters, give her father all.
On this Lear went into one of his terrible fits of rage. He was so sorely disappointed at Cordelia’s answer that he could not wait to let his reason see how wise it was. He stamped and raved, and without delay divided the large portion he had reserved for Cordelia between her sisters. ”

“ I should be a fool to harm you, seeing that you are my own. Look sharp, Cordelia. Be sure you’re ready when I call for you!”
And with that he had turned away, and had never alluded to the subject since; but our heroine was very sure he thought of it, and it worried and fretted her exceedingly.
74They set forth, a happy, merry trio—Cordelia, Percy, and Mary—the latter being regarded as a dear companion rather than as a servant.
The distance from the castle to the foot of Witch’s Crag was a full mile, perhaps a little more. Two-thirds of the way lay through the park, the remainder being woods. ”

“ Lear having by some chance escaped from the guardians which the good earl of Kent had put over him to take care of him in his lunacy, was found by some of Cordelia's train, wandering about the fields near Dover, in a pitiable condition, stark mad and singing aloud to himself, with a crown upon his head which he had made of straw, and nettles, and other wild weeds that he had picked up in the corn-fields. ”

“ She was lying on the floor again, where she had lain before, with her cheek upon his knee. She talked ... hastily, by fits and starts, without troubling what she said, as long as she could get it all said.
Cordt leant his head on his hand and his thick hair fell over his forehead. He closed his eyes and opened them again, heard what she said and forgot it again, [129] answered from time to time and knew only that it was over.
“There are other men for me besides yourself ... it is true ... it is all true.... Ah, Cordt, may I say it, wicked as it is?... And you will be kind ... ”

“ But Cordelia, disgusted with the flattery of her sisters, whose hearts she knew were far from their lips, and seeing that all their coaxing speeches were only intended to wheedle the old king out of his dominions, that they and their husbands might reign in his lifetime, made no other reply but this,—that she loved his majesty according to her duty, neither more nor less. ”

“ Corradino, agitated, but controlling his agitation, was drawn in an open car. After him came a close litter, hung with black, with no sign to tell who was within. The Duke of Austria and several other illustrious victims followed. The guard that conducted them to the scaffold was headed by Lostendardo; a malicious triumph laughed in his eyes, and he rode near the litter, looking from time to time first at it and then at Corradino, with the dark look of a tormenting fiend. ”

“ Cordelia applies herself to nourish this old despairing soul, dying of inanition in hatred. Cordelia nourishes Lear with love, and his courage revives; she nourishes him with respect, and the smile returns; she nourishes him with hope, and confidence is restored; she nourishes him with wisdom, and reason revives. Lear, convalescent, rises again, and, step by step, returns again to life. The child becomes again an old man; the old man becomes a man again. ”

“ The courtier, Kent, defends Cordelia, and desiring to appease the King, rebukes him for his injustice, and says reasonable things about the evil of flatten . Lear, unmoved by Kent, banishes him under pain of death, and calling I to him Cordelia's two suitors, the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, proposes to them in turn to take Cordelia without dowry. The Duke of Burgundy frankly says that without dowry he will not take Cordelia, but the King of France takes her without dowry and leads her away. ”

“ In King Lear, that tempestuous drama, which is nothing but a sequence of betrayals and horrible torments, goodness is impersonated and takes the name of Cordelia, shining in the midst of the tempest, as when the sky is dark and we look, not upon the darkness, but upon the single star that is scintillating there. ”

“ Let us become more used to our new-found joy. I have no wish to deceive the dear old man, and at a proper time I shall tell him. I expect he will be surprised; perhaps disappointed; but I can not believe he will be angry. At all events no power on earth shall take our love from us nor separate us.”
“Oh, Cordelia!”
“Percy!”
“God grant that our love may prosper! Something whispers to me that I may hope.”
“Yes, dear love, hope, and trust in me. I will forsake you never, never!”
83Just then they heard the footfall of the maid drawing near, and Cordelia turned to speak with her. ”

“ I have therefore been an hourly witness of the great and good qualities of Corradino. The bravery of his spirit makes him rise above the weakness of youth and inexperience; he possesses all the nobility of spirit that belongs to the family of Swabia, and, in addition, a purity and gentleness that attracts the respect and love of the old and wary courtiers of Frederic and Conrad. You are brave, and would be generous, did not the fury of your passions, like a consuming fire, destroy in their violence every generous sentiment: how then can you become the tool of Charles? ”

“ No greater spiritual triumph can be conceived than that of Cordelia, throughout the drama, from the first scene to the last, although she first appears as denied and rejected by her father, and later, when she comes with arms to the aid of the unfortunate Lear against the infernal sisters and the treacherous Edmund, is conquered, thrown into prison and there strangled by the hangman. ”

“ Then Cordelia spoke in a fainting voice.
"There's—somebody else—hanging out clothes—in the vacant lot," she gasped, and clutched at a chair for support.
"Who?" cried Mrs. Townsend, rousing to indignation, for already she had assumed a proprietorship in the vacant lot. "Is it the folks in the next house? I'd like to know what right they have! We are next to that vacant lot."
"I—dunno—who it is," gasped Cordelia. "Why, we've seen that girl next door go to mass every morning," said Mrs. Townsend. "She's got a fiery red head. Seems as if you might know her by this time, Cordelia." ”

“ He became a lord over the free ranges. But more than all else he was a rider. He knew a horse. He was as much horse as Bostil. Cordts rode into this wild free-range country, where he had been heard to say that a horse-thief was meaner than a poisoned coyote. Nevertheless, he became a horse-thief. The passion he had conceived for the Sage King was the passion of a man for an unattainable woman. Cordts swore that he would never rest, that he would not die, till he owned the King. So there was reason for Bostil's great fear. ”

“ I am old; I am shaken. I am not what once I was. Oh, find her! find her!” And he then turned to the servants and instructed them that to Maitland they were to look for direction, and he charged them to obey him in every particular. And so the search commenced, the earl himself going with them. He could not lead, nor could he remain behind.
Meantime where were Cordelia and Mary Seymour?
On that morning Cordelia arose with the sun. Percy had promised her, if the weather should be propitious, that he would have his boat at the Park landing, and take her, with Mary, to sail on the river. ”

“ But Cordeilla, the youngest, though hitherto best beloved, and now before her Eyes the rich and present hire of a little easie soothing, the danger also, and the loss likely to betide plain dealing, yet moves not from the solid purpose of a sincere and vertuous answer. Father, saith she, my love towards you, is as my duty bids; what should a Father seek, what can a Child promise more? they who pretend beyond this, flatter. ”