Crockery

“ In Oregon, which went dry in 1916, the number of women hit by crockery has decreased 4.2 per cent in three years. Of 1,844 women in Oregon hit by crockery in 1915, 1,802 were hit by glasses containing, or destined to contain, alcoholic stimulants. More than 94 per cent of these accidents resulted fatally. The remaining 22 women, hit by tea or coffee cups, are now happy, useful members of society. [Pg 35]
If Amy Lowell Had Been James Whitcomb Riley A DECADE
When you came you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness. ”

“ Take off your coat and warm yourself.” Then, looking over her shoulder, “Faith, I forgot; there’s no fire! We are a bit short of coal, and I can’t stand the smell of that oil stove—though it boils a kettle. Biddy, my heart, will you go and get tea, and make us a bit of toast at the end of the passage? That is, as you know,” to D’Arcy, “our kitchen.”
“Shall I lend a hand?”
“No, no, you stay with me, Denis; you’ll only hinder her. Biddy’s a grand maid-of-all-work, since poor Peggy died.” ”

“ For an active and adventurous man it must have been torment. The foot was improving, very slowly as a neglected infection must in a damp, hot climate. Now and then, when British residents invited us for tea or cocktails, Crocker would get himself into the sedan chair Dr. Hetherington had given him, and be carried ashore. Sitting aloft with four black men lifting the poles, Crocker looked for all the world like a Roman proconsul on his way to a banquet or a temple, or wherever proconsuls went. ”

“ Croker [36] was at the house a great deal but was so quiet and devoted so much time to chat with the father that no one suspected that one of the daughters was the real attraction, but with the quiet persistence that had always characterized him he “won out.”
Great soldiers delight in fighting their battles o’er and no one begrudges them the pleasure. Mr. Croker has been in some desperate fights and won some great victories. Hoping for a story or more about them I one day asked him of what in his life he was most proud. ”

“ Major Rochfort had not much difficulty in persuading his friend to abandon the Dâk Bungalow, and take up his quarters with him; and Geoffrey parted without regret from the mildewed, rat-hunted chamber, and toothless old matey—whose dishes were invariably seasoned with a "dirty cloth" taste! As he beheld his belongings installed in a large comfortably furnished room, containing a cot draped with snowy mosquito curtains, a writing-table, and an almirah, he asked himself the question, "Am I too becoming a sponge?" ”

“ We were the West, we and our absurdly Anglo-Saxon hotel; but all about us were hints and flavors of the eternal East.
Suddenly I realized that Crocker had been for quite a little time twisting restlessly in his armchair. I looked at him now. He was tapping the carpet softly but very rapidly with his right foot, and rubbing his chin with his hand. Crocker's chin is of good size and shape, the sort we usually speak of as “strong.” He is a dark man, inclined to fullness in the face and figure, but still athletic in appearance. His eyes are brown. ”

“ Then ensued darkness blacker than ever, and the thunder shaking the world, as though it had been an ill-builded house-place with skillets and pans clattering on the wall.
We had been thus walking for some while, bearing breast to the brae all the time, and leaning forward even as a horse leans to its collar. We came in time near to the height of the pass. We could not see a yard before us. But suddenly we felt the ground begin to level in front; and lo! in a moment we were in the throat of the defile, with the hills black above us on either side. ”

“ Julia was nothing if not firm; she particularly prided herself on never swerving from any fixed resolution or plan. “We take my bullock tonga, and Mr. Loyd’s peon Abdul, who is a treasure, as you know; he can cook, interpret, forage for provisions, and drive bullocks if the worst comes to the worst.”
“And what about bullocks for three days’ journey—a hundred miles if it’s a yard?” inquired Mrs. Duff, sarcastically.
“Oh, the bazaar master has sent on a chuprassie and five natives, and we shall find a [119] pair every five miles at the usual stages. ”

“ Helen beheld a tall, elderly man, with sharp features and a pair of keen, grey eyes, set close together in his head. He had a coat over his shoulder, a stick in his hand, and a most deceitful-looking lurcher at his heels.
"Yes, Darby, I left a message," replied Dido, quickly recovering herself. "It's only to ask you about selling the store pigs."
"Av they are fit,—and with all the feeding they are getting they bid to be as fat as snails—ye might sell them on the fifteenth; but mind you," shaking his head solemnly, "pigs is down—terribly down! And so this is your cousin, Miss Denis?" ”

“ He laid a newspaper as table-cloth, placed on it two candles in black bottles, and between these, a bunch of zinnias in a mustard tin; a knife and fork and tumbler, produced from Mallender's tiffin basket, gave a business-like air to these preparations; a pat of white butter, and a small bazaar loaf, were added by Anthony, who casually remarked that "he had just done kill one big snake, in Master's bathroom!"
"Very bad that snake, but only coming after water," he explained, as he moved about unpacking, giving directions in Tamil to the hoary Matey, and goading him to frenzied exertions. ”

“ Mahomedans are such fanatics and thieves, and have such an undisguised contempt for our sex. You will require a good khansamah, and cook under him, a bearer, two khitmagars, an ayah—an old woman for choice. Your number of syces depends on your horses.”
“Mr. Raymond has promised me two lovely Arabs for my carriage. I have never ridden, and he says he does not wish me to learn.”
“No? Well, as he is a rich man, you will have to allow your servants to fleece you to a certain extent. You won’t get grain, and meat, and poultry, as cheap as others ”

“ Nevertheless, her attention wandered from Anatole France; every few minutes she raised her head to listen intently, then, as a little silver clock chimed five thin strokes, she rose, went over to a window, and, with an impatient jerk, pulled aside the blind. She was looking down into Mount Street, W., and endeavouring to penetrate the gloom of a raw evening towards the end of March.
It was evident that the lady was expecting some one, for there were two cups and saucers on a well-equipped tea-table, placed between the sofa and a cheerful log fire. ”

“ Crocker's is ruther more than half-way to the pike."
"Oh, I do not want to stop anywhere," I replied quickly. "I am all right."
Nothing was said for some time, and then Uncle Beamish remarked:
"I don't want to stop any more than you do, but it does seem strange that we ain't passed Crocker's yit. We could hardly miss his house, it is so close to the road. This horse is slow, but I tell you one thing, doctor, he's improvin'. He is goin' better than he did. That's the way with this kind. It takes them a good while to get warmed up, but they keep on gettin' fresher instead of tireder." ”

“ It was Crocker,—the irrepressible Crocker. He had been also in the church. The narrator and he had managed to find standing room in a back pew under one of the galleries. Now would he be able to say with perfect truth that he had been at the wedding, and had received a parting salute from the bride; whom he had known through so many years of her infancy. He probably did believe that he was entitled to count the future Duchess of Merioneth among his intimate friends.
CHAPTER XVIII. CROCKER'S TALE.
A thing difficult to get is the thing mostly prized, not the thing that is valuable. ”

“ The loftier the character is of any being, the slower and more dignified his movements are. No true psychologist could have believed—as Sweet-land the blacksmith did, and Mr. Pook the tinman—that this trout could ever be the embodiment of Crocker. For this was the last trout in the universal world to drown himself for love; if truly any trout has done so.
“You may come now, and try to look along my back,” John Pike, with a reverential whisper, said to me. “Now don't be in a hurry, young stupid; kneel down. He is not to be disturbed at his dinner, mind. ”

“ Maccabe more than beef and mutton in her shop? Hasn’t she a pretty niece?”
“Nonsense, Maria! hold your blistering, scurrilous tongue,” said the old lady, [Pg 165] pushing her chair back, with great violence.
“Tongue, or no tongue, I’ve an eye in my head,” returned Maria undauntedly. “Lizzie is one of your still waters, with her sleek hair, and downcast eyes, and ‘yes, Miss Finny,’ and ‘no, Miss Finny’—scarcely above her breath. She is as deep as a draw-well. I saw Denis and her walking together in the bog road last Sunday.” ”

“ Vara's eyes blazed at the sight of the porridge and milk.
"O, gie that to the baby!" she cried, her eyes fairly sparkling fire. "Gie that to wee Gavin. The dog doesna want it!"
The little boy ran back into the house, crying out at the top of his voice, "O, mither, mither, here's a lassie wants to gie our Snap's porridge to a babby!"
A kindly-faced, apple-cheeked country woman came to the door of the cottage. She had been baking cakes, and she dusted the oatmeal off her hands as she stood there.
"Can I get the dog's porridge for the bairns? He doesna want them. 'Deed he doesna!" ”

“ A similar feeling sends the sparrow with a larger crumb than the others into the seclusion of his nest among the ivy.
Nevertheless the bread and jam, the raisins, and the sheep's-head-pie disappeared 'like snow off a dyke.' The wonder of the thimbleful cups, continually replenished, grew more and more surprising; and, winking slyly at each other the Smoutchies passed them in with a touch of their caps to be filled and refilled again and again. Prissy kept the kettle beside her, out of which she poured the water brought by Timothy Tracy as she wanted it. ”

“ Well, they did manage it for a good while; but at last came a bad year, and the little grain of oats was all spoiled, and the chickens died of the pip, and the pig got the measles,—she was sold in Mallow, and brought almost nothing; and poor Mick found that he hadn’t enough to half pay his rent, and two gales were due.
“Why then, Molly,” says he, “what’ll we do?”
“Wisha, then, mavourneen, what would you do but take the cow to the fair of Cork and sell her?” says she; “and Monday is fair day, and so you must go to-morrow, that the poor beast may be rested again the fair.” ”

“ John Pike perceived that to offer such a thing to Crocker's trout would probably consign him—even if his great stamina should over-get the horror—to an uneatable death, through just and natural indignation. On the other hand, while the May-fly lasted, a trout so cultured, so highly refined, so full of light and sweetness, would never demean himself to low bait, or any coarse son of a maggot. ”

“ No doubt, formerly, the nabob who lived here, regaled himself and friends on rich food, mountainous pilaws, and molten curries. Those days are gone; also the times when the very boldest woman dared not enter that chamber of horrors,—her cook-house."
"Why?"
"For fear of what she might discover! I pass over the story of 'master's sock,' and other well-authenticated details. The hand of the butler no longer inscribes a startling menu, and you are spared the alarming promise of 'Cold Roast Lion, and D——d Turkey'!"
"Oh, come, I say!" ejaculated Mallender. ”

“ Goring was moving on when the hag hastily clutched him by the sleeve, and added in a rasping whisper—
“If you see her face—you die!”
“She is mad,” he said to himself, as he hastened to join Mr. Gregson, who had arrived at the great iron-studded gates in a state of crimson fury.
“You say we have land—true!” shouted a haggard, wild-eyed ryot; “but what is land without crops? What is a remission of five per cent. to wretches like us? It is but as a carraway seed [189] in a camel’s mouth! The wild beasts take our cattle and destroy our grain, and yet we must work and pay you, and starve! ”

“ Her one taste was for poultry; her one passion, her dog "Nip," and when she had fed her hens, collected their eggs, given out daily stores, scolded her domestics, she had nothing to occupy her for the remainder of the day. After early breakfast she generally donned her well-known topee, and sallied forth on a tour of inspection; to quote Captain Rodney, who could not endure her, she "turned out" each family at least once daily, and never omitted "visiting rounds." She had by this time pretty well exhausted Ross—and the patience of its inhabitants ”

“ Treu-ellis, i. e. the son-in-law by the wife's town; otherwise, if the word be compounded of Tre-vell-es, it signifies the well or spring of water town; is the dwelling of Michael Crocker, Gent. that married Gwynn, and giveth for his arms, Argent, a chevron engrailed Gules between three crows Proper, originally descended from the Crockers of Ireland. Croker, after the English Saxon, is a crock-maker or seller. [It belonged afterwards to Mr. Joseph Donnithorne, [2] and is now the property of Mr. Chilcot. The mansion is occupied as a farm-house. Lysons.] ”

“ Some people thought Captain Calvert handsome; to others, he unpleasantly recalled a well-bred greyhound with an uncertain temper.
"Well, Nancy darling," Mrs. Ffinch began in her clear high voice, "so here we are at last! We had a smash—ran into a bullock bandy at a corner—the bandy, like the 'Coo,' got the worst of it!"
Her glance travelled to Mayne, and as her eyes rested on him, they brightened,—after the manner of a hunter who sees game afoot!
A tall, well set-up young fellow, with clear-cut features, candid dark eyes, and an air of distinction—quite a find! ”