Cruller

“ But to the drowsy intelligence of Curly they represented only warmth and softness and protection against the cold humidity of the night. After several unlucky efforts, at last he conquered gravity so far as to climb over a wheel and pitch forward upon the best and warmest bed he had fallen upon in many a day. Then he became instinctively a burrowing animal, and dug his way like a prairie-dog down among the sacks and blankets, hiding himself from the cold air as snug and safe as a bear in his den. For three nights sleep had visited Curly only in broken and shivering doses. ”

“ The impish impulse to “devil” him had its way. “You’re a man of experience, Slats. Ever hold up a train?”
The foreman showed plainly his disgust at this foolishness. “Haven’t you sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You’re not a kid any more. In age you’re a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don’t do you any good. You’re in trouble good and deep. Folks have got their eyes on you. Now is the time to show them you have quit all that hell raising you have been so busy at.”
“He sure is going good this mo’ning,” Curly drawled confidentially to the scenery. ”

“ No, it's man and wife quarrelling. Ah! and there they go to blows. There is no real misery there, but what they make for themselves; they've plague enough, but not the plague I seek. Pass we on again. What's here? the bones rattling? Yes, dicing, drinking, and brawl. It's not there. It may come to that, but they don't begin so. There'll be death, perhaps, in the house, but it will be by violence, not disease—to-night, to-morrow, perhaps; who knows? And so Master Dismal passed on from door to door, taking his cue of good or ill from the employment of the inmates of the different houses. ”

“ But if you dwell by choice for her sake in her chosen haunts, your devotion touches her: she will show you life enough—rare life little dreamt of by those who tramp the dead flags of cities, where no beast moves save the draggled cab-horse. For you, the curlew will stalk the boggy hollows; for you, the banded badger will creep stealthily from his earth and disport himself at dusk among his frolicsome cublets; for you, the dappled adder will sun his zigzag spots, and dart his tremulous tongue, all shivering and quivering ”

“ That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an urgent need of action, I tried in vain to conceive some plan of escape; but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider our position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite incapable of discussion; strange terrors had already made him a creature of violent impulses, had robbed him of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to the level of an animal. ”

“ And then an internal grinding shock of terrible power slammed him to the ground.
He was not knocked unconscious, but lay on his face on the rich red dirt, his mind shocked into stupor. At length he shook his head, pushed heavily up with his hands and climbed to shaky feet. He leaned against the logs of the enclosure, gathering strength. ”

“ He falls, and, as he falls, the light from the pit leaps up, catching his bloody hand, and the fatal knife, and the long ears of his fool’s-cap, and gleaming in his despairing eyes; while all the air is filled with chattering and mowing demons, whose eyes and teeth also glitter white and cruel. And the horror of the man’s face is terrible. ”

“ The hurls are admirably calculated for the kind of work they are intended to perform—viz., to puck the ball toward the respective goals. But they would be very formidable weapons should a fight arise between the contending parties. This, ere now, we regret to say, has not unfrequently been the case—leading sometimes to bloodshed, and on, a few occasions to manslaughter, if not to murder. The hurl is invariably made of a piece of well-seasoned ash. ”

“ Pedlar, don't let them fight! Oh! he's going to kill the poor man with the little wooden leg!”
“Do ye hear—do ye hear?” exclaimed the pedlar, “how the bit creature—the cause o' your quarrel—”
“Oh! pray let me run away,” sobbed the child; “and then perhaps they'll be friends;—do let me go!”
“Stay, darling,” quoth Doherty; “rather than frighten the child, I'll consent to apologize:—the heat of the argument made me singe the whiskers of my friend the tinker's honour;—but if the child wasn't where she is, and we were after breakfast, just now, right or wrong, tinker, we'd quarrel.” ”

“ It seemed to advance and to recede as the hail drove before it denser or thinner. At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment, and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that the sky was lightening with the promise of the sun.
"I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? ”

“ Sometimes Mrs. Crull and Pet would meet on the doorsteps of Miss Pillbody's house--the one going in and the other coming out--or on the sidewalk in the neighborhood. Mrs. Crull would catch the child by both hands, smack her heartily on the cheek (no matter how public the kiss) , and then a conversation something like this would follow:
"How bright and pretty you look this mornin', my darlin!" (Mrs. Crull could not remember to pick up the "g's," except under Miss Pillbody's eye, and then not always.)
"Thank you, Mrs. Crull; I am quite well. How are you, marm?"
"Oh! smart as a trap. ”

“ This genius and man of worth, whom an honest mind should love, is Mr Curll. True it is he stood in the pillory, an incident which would lengthen the face of any man though it were ever so comely, therefore is no reflection on the natural beauty of Mr Curll. But as to reflections on any man's face or figure Mr Dennis saith excellently: 'Natural deformity comes not by our fault; 'tis often occasioned by calamities and diseases, which a man can no more help than a monster can his deformity. There is no one misfortune and no one disease but what all the rest of mankind are subject to. ”

“ In the mean time a violent quarrel arises amongst the fishing men about a piece of timber, and they scream, and threaten, and gesticulate, as if they were ready to murder one another, but they do not come to blows, the quarrel evaporates in fierce words and gestures. ”

“ I like very much to have the sticks for lame walking,––what you call––the crutch? Yes. I have for so long time spoken only the Polish that I forget me greatly the English. You must talk to me much, and make me reproof of my mistakes. Do you know for why I like the crutch? It is that I would go each day––many times to see the water fall down. Ah, how that is beautiful! In the sun, or early in the morning, or in the night, always beautiful!”
“You shall have the crutches, Amalia, and until I get them made, I will carry you to the fall each day. ”

“ So saying, he quietly opened the back door, and stole out to join the followers whom he had left in the orchard.
"Shall I call the other men, and make the capture, Master Grasp?" inquired one of his myrmidons in a whisper. "Not to-night, good Giles," said the lawyer. "By no means to-night. There is a precious fellowship within there; and they may capture us! Besides, I have found out a plot—a monstrous plot—a damnable plot—and yet a lovely plot—a most sweet piece of villany!"
"A monstrous plot!" said the constable; "What is't, another conspiracy to murder the Queen?" ”

“ On the crag at the verge of the bluff were groups of young people, strolling about or seated on the ledges of the cliff, the young men dangling their feet over the abysses beneath, such being the accepted fad; now and then, one not emerged from the hobbledehoy chrysalis would, by means of grotesque affectations of falling, elicit small complimentary shrieks, half terror, half mirth, from the extremely young ladies whom he favored with his improving society. ”

“ Some man, all in blood, whose face in the pale light of the moon’s crescent seemed black from the blood, was running around in the street, cursing, and, without paying the least attention to his wounds, was searching for his cap which had been lost in the brawl. ”

“ The ‘Crow-Killer’ talks big; let him open his ears and the ‘Thunder-Cloud’ will speak words that will make him howl like a dog. The ‘Crow-Killer’ will not die like a chief at the torture-stake; he will die here in the wigwam of the Crow—die by the knife of the ‘Thunder-Cloud’ ”

“ The fire leaping and crackling before his eyes was like a powerful medicine. It stirred things that had lain dormant within him. It consumed the heavy dross of four years of stupefying torture and brought back to him vividly the happenings of a yesterday that had dragged itself on like a century. All at once he seemed unburdened of shackles that had weighted him down to the point of madness. Every fiber in his body responded to that glorious roar of the fire ”

“ These dreary wastes, pathless and untrodden, were a kind of fabulous region among the patients for all kind of horrors, peopled, as the fancy of each dictated, by the spirits of departed “Léperos,” by venomous serpents and cobras, or by escaped galley-slaves, who led a life of rapine and murder. The flitting jack-o'-lantern that often skimmed along the surface, the wild cry of the plover, the dreary night wind sighing over miles of plain, aided these superstitions, and convinced many whose stubborn incredulity demanded corroboration from the senses. ”

“ Shortly before leaving the city, I was taking my usual stroll, when, turning the corner of Broadway and Fulton street rather abruptly, I accidentally planted my crutch fairly upon the unfortunate toes of an elderly gentleman. He proved to be one of the irascible sort—and no doubt it did hurt like the deuce—and he turned angrily toward me, brandished a cane, and vociferated:
“****’* fire and ***nation! If you were not a one-legged man I’d knock your head off!” ”

“ But that is not the worst: as each member of our house succeeds to the ancestral rank and honours, he must seek an interview with 'The Curse,' as it has been styled for generations. And, in that interview, it is decided whether the spell is to be broken and the Curse depart from us for ever—or whether it is to continue its blighting influence, and hold yet another life in miserable thraldom.'
'And are you one of its thralls then, papa?' faltered Chlorine. ”

“ Before many months, a street quarrel got to be a perfectly silent battle of ugly faces and terrible gestures. What at first promised to be a bloody murder usually became a noiseless duel, or a quarrel between deaf and dumb folks. ”

“ Man, who was working in the next field, heard him and came running. When Curly heard Mr. Man coming he thought, 'Now he'll take me home and make me a great pig, just as he did the little runt pig.' But Mr. Man didn't. 'Here, you rascal!' he said, what are you doing under my gate? I'll fix you.' Then he picked up a long, scratchy stick and commenced to beat Mr. Curly, first on one side and then on the other, till he squealed and howled so loud that you could hear him almost a mile. ”

“ Then Curly wakened Archie, and when the train slowed up, they dropped from the car.
It was good to feel once more their feet on the ground, to walk and stretch their tired, numb muscles, good to breathe the open air and, more than all, good to see the city looming under its pall of smoke. They joined the throngs of working-men; and they might have passed for working-men themselves, for Curly wore overalls, as he always did on his expeditions, and they were both so black from the smoke and cinders of their journey, that one might easily have mistaken their grime for that of honest toil. ”

“ A little girl, quite a little girl in a blue-hooded cape, and a white apron, was walking with crutches over a plain. With every step she took her crutches grew and raised her like stilts. They soon became higher than the poplars on the river's bank. A woman who saw my surprise said to me: "Don't you know that in the spring crutches grow? But there are times when the size increases with alarming rapidity." ”

“ But Chloris fair my orisons concludes
With fearful frowns, presagers of my pain.
Thus do I spend the weary wand'ring day,
Oppressèd with a chaos of heart's grief;
Thus I consume the obscure night away,
Neglecting sleep which brings all cares relief;
Thus do I pass my ling'ring life in woe ”

“ One by one they crept up, horror being upon them all—a horror which demoralised them and sapped their courage as they touched with their feet or hands, when they stumbled, the stiffening bodies which lay so thickly between them and the aft doors of the saloon. ”

“ Never was man more indifferent to the result than the solitary voyager of the burning trireme. What had life for me? I gazed round me. The element of fire reigned supreme. The shore—mountain, vale, and sand—was bright as day from the blaze of the tents and the floating fragments of the galleys. The heavens were an arch of angry splendor—every stooping cloud swept along reddened with the various dyes of the conflagration below. The sea was a rolling abyss of the fiercest color of slaughter. ”

“ It was placed under the command of Jacobus Van Curlet, or Curlis, as some historians will have it, a doughty soldier, of that stomachful class famous for eating all they kill. He was long in the body and short in the limb, as though a tall man's body had been mounted on a little man's legs. ”

“ I left Mr. Curling still busy with his accounts, but he had told me there was no need for me to stay. I walked home to my lodgings and dined off a chop and half a pint of sherry, and then putting a pipe in my mouth, strolled out in the direction of the green lanes.
I was not much of a moralist in those days, but my mood happening to be a pliant one, certain thoughts seized the opportunity to intrude themselves and beget sundry reflections. I asked myself if I was not carrying my notions of gentility a little too far ”