Dewlap

“ Horrid creature! to take all my nonsense for real earnest, and to go away and leave me to be persecuted to death!" exclaimed the lady Dewbell, with an uncontrollable burst of tears, as she threw herself, her toilet half finished, and her hair all strewn over her face and shoulders, upon her little praying cushion. "What will become of poor Bell!"
"What ails my daughter?" said the sweet, soft voice of the queen mother, as she knelt tenderly over her child, and pressed her head to her bosom. "Tell your sorrows to your mother."
"Oh, mother, I am the most wretched fairy that ever existed. ”

“ So the Lark plunged down to the stream among the alders to bathe his wings and refresh himself. After the lustrations were duly completed, up again he rose like an arrow into the bright, blue sky. Says he to himself, [Pg 52] "I shall certainly be on the sharp out-look for that ascent of the Dewdrop. I can at all events be a silent spectator, if my services cannot otherwise be of use." ”

“ He just took breath, after the exhaustion and excitement, alike of both body and mind, which his aerial adventure had entailed; and then hastened straight to the home of the Nightingale and Thrush, to tell of the glorious ascent (what the old and learned creatures of the earth would have called [Pg 58] the apotheosis) of the Dewdrop on the rose-leaf; its severance into a million fragments; and how these, in the shape of a great army, had marched right within
The Sun's Golden Gates! ”

“ Why, the Nightingale, on his way from the rose-leaf, had, perhaps somewhat inconsiderately, tapped at his door, to inform him that all he could get out of the Dewdrop was (a very incomprehensible sentiment to a sleepy bird) , that he was a tear wept by the Sky when it lost the Sun; and he was bound in all sincerity to add, [Pg 28] that it seemed rather a dull and uninteresting tear to boot.
"I know better," growled the Thrush. (I have used the word "growl," because I can find no better to describe the reality.) ”

“ I argued, believing we were about to hold an ordinary séance.
"Because he's a live one, he hasn't passed over yet," replied Dewdrop, "and live ones always make my medium feel sick. But it's no use. I can't keep him out. He may as well come. But don't let him stay long."
"Who is he, Dewdrop?" I demanded curiously.
"I don't know! Guess you will! He's an old friend of yours, and his name is George." Whereupon Bessie Fitzgerald laid back on the sofa cushions, and Dewdrop ceased to speak. ”

“ Mate Hare’s cotton tail went flying over rock and brier, followed by Nip, with his short, inadequate legs. Soon, however, he tired of this fun, and, trotting back, cocked his ears at the brier patch, sniffed about it, and crept in. Bob White, with an anxious call, flew into a tree.
“He’s got a nest somewhere about there,” said one of the reapers. “I bet it’s full of eggs,” he added. “Yes, but the boss [Pg 66] has give orders that they ain’t to be tetched,” said another. Then there came from the thicket a growl and a yelp, and Mrs. Bob, with a loud whirr, flew to her mate. “Nip’s got ’em!” ”

“ Keep quiet. I can't cut your hair while you're wriggling like a cat in a bathtub. You're not a cat; you're a dog."
Devlin finally ceased his profane comment and wriggling, sitting quiet until the clipping was done; then Andrus, after a walk to the rail and a look at the growing squall to the westward, came back, saying that there was time for a shave—which Devlin needed as badly as a haircut.
"Quiet, you dog!" he said jokingly. "You're a Skye terrier now, and I'll soon make you a fox terrier—just as soon as I get that fur off your face." ”

“ When Dunlap crossed to the right again, he found the same clear profile awaiting him, the same curves of twining, silken hair. "What courage," he thought, "what magnificent courage!" His heart ached at the injustice of it; that her very beauty, the alert, girlish figure, the firm, smooth throat and chin, even her delicate hands, should, through an inch or two of seared flesh, seem tainted and false. He felt that in a plain woman it would have been so much less horrible. ”

“ That being done, Devlin cut this customer's hair close, and then used his brushes; and as his hands moved about the man's head there was, if I may so describe it, a feline, insinuating expression in them which aroused my curiosity. I thought of the singular dream I have described, and it appeared to me that all the while Devlin was employed over his customer the brains of the man sitting so quietly in the chair were figuratively exposed to his view, and that he was reading the thoughts which stirred therein. ”

“ The night of Lord Twemlow's first visit, when my lord Duke (then my lord Marquis) had been at Dunstanwolde, the occasion upon which Twemlow had so fretted at his fair kinswoman and told the story of the falling of her hair in the hunting-field, he had been disturbed indeed, fearing that his countenance would betray him.
"I was afraid, Gerald; afraid," he said, "thinking it unseemly that a man of my years should be so shaken with love—while your strong youth had gone unscathed. ”

“ The Devon men never close with a Cornish adversary, if they find he possesses any science; because they have no underplay, and cannot prevent the risk of being heaved: they therefore stand off, with only one hand in the collar, and kick; the Cornishman then attempts to get in, and the Devonman tries to confine one of his opponent’s arms by holding him at the wrist, and keeping him from coming in either over or under, and at every move of his leg kicking it. ”

“ While Deverell sat thus, returning thanks on an empty stomach, at the northern edge of the ridge, a man tramped into the pines from the south, The heavy sand muffled his steps; but he stopped long before he came near Deverell, and threw down his swag with an emancipated air. The man was old, but he held himself more erect than does the typical swagman. The march through life with a cylinder of blankets on one's shoulders, with all one's worldly goods packed in that cylinder, causes a certain stoop of a very palpable kind ”

“ And yourself, I hope that your knee is better, and that you will soon have your regiment given you."
"I am well enough," answered the major; "but they will never give me a place unless there is war, and there will be no more war in my time."
"Oh, you think that!" said de Lapp with a smile. "Well, nous verrons! We shall see, my friend!"
He whisked off his hat, and turning briskly he walked off in the direction of West Inch. The major stood looking after him with thoughtful eyes, and then asked me what it was that had made me think that he was a spy. ”

“ Away, away, little bird," stammered out the Dewdrop, with some nervous twitchings presently to be accounted for; "I must prepare to meet this Queen Aurora. But," it added in a kind of after [Pg 33] thought, "the procession will soon be over; come back shortly and see me, if you please." The keen diamond eye twinkled with a humorous, comical expression when these last words were uttered; as much as to say, "I shall manage to cheat you, old fellow, wont I?"
The Thrush had some small quantum of poetry in his nature ”

“ As Delafield spoke, West interrupted:
"I'd rather Mr, Delafield would go," he said quickly, "if—if he would. Maybe she'd listen to you."
"I will do nothing of the sort," Delafield returned angrily. "As if anything I could say could compare with Miss Delafield's words! You are an ungrateful little beast, West. A woman, like Pippa herself, is the best person to understand the matter."
"All right," the boy assented wearily, "only she isn't like Pippa, not a bit. Pippa's different."
Anne coloured deeply, and Delafield cursed the day he met the boy. His niece he did not pretend to understand. ”

“ A black sow and pigs haunt many cross roads in Devonshire.
The Dewerstone is a lofty mass of rock rising above the bed of the Plym, on the southern edge of Dartmoor. During a deep snow, the traces of a naked human foot and of a cloven hoof were found ascending to the highest point. The valley below is haunted by a black headless dog. Query, is it Dewerstone, Tiwes-tun, or Tiwes-stan?— (Kemble's Saxons, vol. i. p. 351.)
The great Cromlech at Drewsteignton is said to have been erected by three spinsters (meaning spinners) ; another legend says by three young men. ”

“ Dunlap had come from a country where women are hardly used. He had grown up on a farm in the remote mountains of West Virginia, and his mother had died of pneumonia contracted from taking her place at the wash-tub too soon after the birth of a child. When a boy, he had been apprenticed to his grandfather, a country cobbler, who, in his drunken rages, used to beat his wife with odd strips of shoe-leather. The painter's hands still bore the mark of that apprenticeship, and the suffering of the mountain women he had seen about him in his childhood, had left him almost morbidly sensitive. ”

“ The looks of Devonshire and Cornish lasses are proverbial. This is not due to complexion alone, which is cream and roses, but to the well-proportioned limbs, the litheness of form, uprightness of carriage, and to the good moulding of the features. The mouth and chin are always well shaped, and the nose is straight; in shape the faces are a long oval.
I am not sure that West Country women ever forget that they were once comely. ”

“ How could Delapine marry her when she was without a sou? How could she earn her living except as a despised and pitied governess? He thought of his old comrade Duval—the brave old man in spite of his vanity and eccentricities—now lying cold in the grave. He thought of his son Pierre, a parricide and an outcast like Ishmael of old, a wild man, whose hand was against every man and every man's hand against him, and he trembled at the awful vista it awoke in his mind. ”

“ Where had been the Nightingale's eyes? It was something at all events very like a bright, unmistakable, beautiful diamond on which the Thrush looked. How it glistened and sparkled; and that too with all the prismatic colours! The spectator could only (what was an effort to any member of the Thrush family) gaze in mute wonder.
"What in all the world can you be, [Pg 31] you lovely, silent sleeper on the rose-leaf, with your round crystal cheeks? Dewdrop we thought you were; teardrop you say you are: I cannot think you are either. ”

“ Unhappy lady Dewbell! She had so many hundred times been told, what she herself believed full well, that she was absolutely the most beautiful creature in existence, that the tale had lost its interest. The champagne of flattery, its creaming foam long ago melted into the brain, stood untasted before her, dull and flat as the subsided fountain poured by the last rain-shower into the tulip's cup. And so the fairy princess stood listless and apart from the joyous revel, her little form swaying lightly to and fro, with the undulations of the lily-stem against which she more perceptibly rested. ”

“ Besides the Flying Mare, there was the Cross-buttock fall in shoulder play, the Back-heave, and others. In the leg play there were the Fore-lock, the Back-lock, Heaving-toe, Back-heel, and others. The Cornish player would, when he had secured his hitch, endeavour to drag his man in for the hug and the fling; whereas the Devonshire man would play for his hitch to keep him off, till he had disabled him. ”

“ And when the froth was stiff enough to stand alone, the Deev took his steel-wing arm for a ladle, and he began to spread the froth upon the earth. And he spread and spread until221 the whole earth was like an enormous chocolate cake, thick with white frosting—one layer, two layers, three layers, disgustingly extravagant, so that the little Deevs, if there had been any, would never have got the dish scraped. ”

“ But, my dear Jack, if you were not blinded, you might see that the world holds other girls than Mary." And he looked wistfully at his friend, as if wishing him to know something he hesitated to put into words.
"Do you mean that you are in love with some one, Hugh?" asked Jack, laying his hand on the other's broad shoulder.
Hugh's blue eyes lowered as bashfully as those of a girl, and Jack, now smiling at him, said, "Who is it—Polly Chine, over at the Fountain Inn?"
"Polly Chine!" Hugh answered disgustedly. "A great strapping red-cheeked clatter-tongue, who can do naught but laugh?" ”

“ Then the Deev’s will ran round and round in his own head like a fly trying to escape from a dark hole—that is the way of the will of all Deevs—and pretty soon his will got out and went buzzle-buzzle-buzzle, which is no proper sound for anybody’s will to make. And when it did that, the Deev went off and got a river, and he climbed up on top of Rhumbthumberland and he swung the river about his head like a ribbon and then let it fall from the heights like a lady’s scarf, and then he held down one end with his great boot and the other end he emptied into the horizon. ”

“ Dunlap regretted her words. The terror in the girl's eyes transformed her face; and the low cry she gave was almost like that of a wounded animal! But she rallied rapidly and said with eagerness: "Oh, you are mistaken! It is some other person whose name you have mistaken for his. He would not—why, Rufus could not do such a thing!"
"My dear child, I am not mistaken." The very quietness of the woman's voice and manner carried conviction. ”

“ Gillon told me, that one of the Lords Mulcaster had been—er—perhaps—no better than he ought to have been."
"To put it mildly," said Delavoye, with smiling face and shrieking eyes. "You may paint the bad old hat as black as mine, Miss Brabazon, and still turn him out a saint compared with the villain of the case I've been reading up to-day. So you really needn't worry about anybody's susceptibilities. Lay on the local colour inches deep! You won't make the place as red as the old gentleman painted it in blood and wine!"
"Really, Mr. Delavoye!" cried Miss Julia, jocosely shocked. ”