Lambrequin

“ The vulture thought this reasonable, and let Lambikin pass.
And by and by he met a tiger, and then a wolf, and a dog, and an eagle; and all these, when they saw the tender little morsel, said: “Lambikin! Lambikin! I’ll EAT YOU!”
But to all of them Lambikin replied, with a little frisk:
“To granny’s house I go,
Where I shall fatter grow,
Then you can eat me so.” 272At last he reached his granny’s house, and said, all in a hurry: “Granny dear, I’ve promised to get very fat; so, as people ought to keep their promises, please put me into the corn-bin at once.” ”

“ During the entr'acte, when the lights went up, he perceived Daubrecq's profile. The lady remained at the back of the box, invisible. The two were speaking in a low voice; and, when the curtain rose again, they went on speaking, but in such a way that Lupin could not distinguish a word.
Ten minutes passed. Some one tapped at their door. It was one of the men from the box-office.
"Are you M. le Depute Daubrecq, sir?" he asked.
"Yes," said Daubrecq, in a voice of surprise. "But how do you know my name?"
"There's a gentleman asking for you on the telephone. ”

“ But cunning little Lambikin said that would never do, for some animal would be sure to eat him on the way back, he was so plump and tender.
"I'll tell you what you must do," said Master Lambikin; "you must make a little drumikin out of the skin of my little brother who died, and then I can sit inside and trundle along nicely, for I'm as tight as a drum myself." ”

“ Without asking more, thus proving that she knew the way, she rushed to the bedroom.
“As I thought,” muttered Lupin. “The youngish woman with the gray hair: Daubrecq’s friend and enemy.”
He walked to the window and looked through the curtains. Two men were striding up and down the opposite pavement: the Growler and the Masher.
“And they’re not even hiding themselves,” he said to himself. “That’s a good sign. They consider that they can’t do without me any longer and that they’ve got to obey the governor. There remains the pretty lady with the gray hair. That will be more difficult. ”

“ Drumikin!
Have you seen Lambikin?”
Lambikin answered sweetly as he rolled along,
“Fallen into the fire, and so will you!
On, little Drumikin! Tum-pa, tum-too!”
[45]
“Oh, ho, little Lambikin, curled up snug in your little drumikin,” said the wolf, “you can’t fool me. I know your voice. So you have become too fat to hop and to skip, to hump and to jump. You can only roll along like a ball.”
And the wolf’s mouth watered as he thought of the sweet, fat morsel of a Lambikin.
Little Lambikin’s heart went pit-a-pat, but he cried out gayly,
“Hark, hark! ”

“ Lambkin cools down to a quiet supper, a melancholy reverie, and a warm bath at the Hummums.—The morning sun shines upon him at Epsom, where, with the assistance of his friends and Champagne, he arrives at such a pitch of excitement, that he determines to live and die a Bachelor. ”

“ Here are a carp, two pike, and I know not what fish beside, but I have seen no lamprey to day.”
“What?” said he. “Do you think I am drunk?”
“Yes,” replied the curé and the other guests, “we think no less. You are too niggardly to buy such a lamprey.”
“By God,” said his wife, “he is either making fun of you or he is dreaming—for certainly I have never seen this lamprey.”
Her husband grew angry, and cried,
“You lie, you whore! Either you have eaten it, or you have hidden it somewhere. I promise you it will be the dearest lamprey you ever had.” ”

“ Daubrecq dined and went out.
At eleven o'clock, after the portress had gone to bed, the cook cautiously opened the garden-gate. A man came up.
"Is that you?" she asked.
"Yes, it's I, Lupin."
She took him to her bedroom on the third floor, overlooking the garden, and at once burst into lamentations:
"More of your tricks and nothing but tricks! Why can't you leave me alone, instead of sending me to do your dirty work?"
"How can I help it, you dear old Victoire? [1] When I want a person of respectable appearance and incorruptible morals, I think of you. You ought to be flattered." ”

“ On one occasion the nervous susceptible lad found it necessary to lay before him a description of the treatment to which he had been subjected by a younger and smaller, but much stronger boy; the pedagogue’s only reply was to flog Lambkin heartily with a light cane, “inflicting,” as he himself once told me, “such exquisite [Pg 5] agony as would ever linger in his memory.” Doubtless this teacher of the old school thought he was (to use a phrase then common) “making a man of him,” but the object was not easily to be attained by brutal means. ”

“ Then, when the Worm comes to the Rock at dawn of day, try thy prowess on him, and God gi'e thee a good deliverance."
"This I will do," said Childe Lambton.
"But one thing more," said the Wise Woman, going back to her cell. "If thou slay the Worm, swear that thou wilt put to death the first thing that meets thee as thou crossest again the threshold of Lambton Hall. Do this, and all will be well with thee and thine. Fulfil not thou vow, and none of the Lambtons, for generations three times three, shall die in his bed. Swear, and fail not." ”

“ The weavers are Flemish, and I see no cause why they should not weave as good cloth here as they [217] did at home. They had English wool there, and they will have it here. There is a Spaniard among them, and I do not know what he will do when the chilly rains come, poor imp. He does not like anything in England, as it is.”
“Poor imp!” the Queen repeated. “How do these weavers come here, so far from any town?”
“Well, they came like most folk, because they had to come,” smiled the Paduan. ”

“ Apart from this, he applied himself to the question of Daubrecq and nothing else.
He refused even to trouble his head about the problems set before him: the treachery of the Growler and the Masher; their connection with the gray-haired lady; the spying of which he himself was the object.
"Steady, Lupin," he said. "One only argues falsely in a fever. So hold your tongue. ”

“ This terrible visitation brought young Lambton, of Lambton Hall, to his senses. He took upon himself the vows of the Cross, and departed for the Holy Land, in the hope that the scourge he had brought upon his district would disappear. But the grisly Worm took no heed, except that it crossed the river and came right up to Lambton Hall itself where the old lord lived on all alone, his only son having gone to the Holy Land. What to do? The Worm was coming closer and closer to the Hall; women were shrieking, men were gathering weapons, dogs were barking and horses neighing with terror. ”

“ Then the Dog appeared with his spear and his hoe.
[Pg 146] “Is any one here?” asked the Dog.
“The Cat is here. He is already at work,” said the Hyrax.
“He will make a good dinner for me,” said the Dog, and he grabbed the Cat and ate him up, and went to work.
The Hyena came next, and he ate the Dog. The Leopard came next, and he ate the Hyena. Last of all came the Elephant with his spear and his hoe.
“Is any one here?” asked the Elephant.
“The Leopard is here and is at work yonder,” said the Hyrax.
“Did any one come before the Leopard?” inquired the Elephant. ”

“ Such public emotion could not fail to reach Lambkin. I remember his coming to me one night into my rooms and saying “George (for my name is George) , I had to-day a letter from Mr. Solomon’s paper—The Sunday Englishman. They want me to go and report on this infamous matter, and I will go. Do not attempt to dissuade me. I shall return—if God spares my life—before the end of the vacation. The offer is most advantageous in every way: I mean to England, to the cause of justice, and to that freedom of thought without which there is no true religion. ”

“ The troubadour bent over the just-begun carving. “This is no boy’s play; this is good work,” he said. “You have the right notion; the eye and the hand work together like two good comrades.”
“My lord shall see this when he comes. I like the work.” She touched the cheek of the apricot with a dainty finger. “Where did you get the pattern?”
Quentin looked down, rather shyly; he did not feel sure that he would be believed. “I had no pattern,” he said. “I remembered one that Master Gerard made for a great house a month since—”
“And so do I!” laughed the lady. ”

“ My knick-knacks?... Never mind about all that.... You be off. See you presently.”
Lupin quietly pushed away the telephone. Then, taking Daubrecq by the arm, he made him sit in a chair by his side and said:
“And now listen to me, Daubrecq.”
“Oho!” grinned the deputy. “Calling each other by our surnames, are we?”
“Yes,” said Lupin, “I allowed you to.” And, when Daubrecq released his arm with a certain misgiving, he said, “No, don’t be afraid. We sha’n’t come to blows. Neither of us has anything to gain by doing away with the other. A stab with a knife? What’s the good? No, sir! ”

“ The john-dory is finest on the western coast of England, and is best plain boiled. Quin, the actor, a great gourmand, was remarkably fond of this fish and red mullet, and used to go down to Exeter for the purpose of eating them. One morning after his arrival in the west, his valet came in to call him as usual. “Well, John, any dory in the market?” “No, sir.”
“Very well; I’ll lay a-bed to-day. You may call me this time to-morrow.”
There are two kinds of lampreys—the marine lamprey, found at Worcester and Gloucester, where it is dressed and preserved, to be heated up with a wine. ”

“ Lambkin. On the contrary, I am filled with a sense that my labour is one to which the clearest interests of the whole English people call me, and I have found myself, as the work grew under my hands, fulfilling, if I may say so with due modesty, a high and noble duty. I remember Lambkin himself, in one of the last conversations I had with him, saying with the acuteness that characterised him, “The world knows nothing of its greatest men.” [Pg 2] This pregnant commentary upon human affairs was, I admit, produced by an accident in the Oxford Herald which concerned myself. ”

“ Battlements rocked, pavements cracked, blocks of stone leaped into the air like a fountain of masonry. When fire encounters high explosives in a tunnel the results are remarkable. Torches dropped or were blown out, and stumbling, cursing men ran right and left—anywhere to escape the pelting stones. Padraig, holding to his master's arm, guided him out of the gate and toward the sound of trampling hoofs upon a little hillock. There they found Edrupt, Guy and Alan struggling with their frantic horses. Swart came up with two more horses, and soon the party was beyond all danger of pursuit. ”

“ Lambkin being quite recovered, with the aid of new milk and Sea Breezes, he determines to reform his habits, but feels buried alive in the Grand Mausoleum Club; and, contemplating an old bachelor member who sits pouring over the newspapers all day, he feels horrorstruck at the probability of such va fate becoming his own, and determines to seek a reconciliation with the Lady of his Affections. ”

“ A woman in a ragged dress is standing on the market-place. She has sold her last lamb; baby's lambkin must change owner, that money might be procured. Even baby cannot live on her love for her sweet lambkin ”

“ Mr. Lambercier never reproached us on this account, nor was his countenance clouded with a frown; we even heard him mention the circumstance to his sister with loud bursts of laughter. The laugh of Mr. Lambercier might be heard to a considerable distance. But what is still more surprising after the first transport of sorrow had subsided, we did not find ourselves violently afflicted; we planted a tree in another spot, and frequently recollected the catastrophe of the former, repeating with a significant emphasis, an aqueduct! an aqueduct! ”

“ When these have been absorbed by the chaff above, the gold will be found beneath. The possibilities of this priceless formula are not as yet altogether known. We do not know what may come to light. You may be astounded—”
The chaff in the crucible caught fire from a wisp that thrust up into it from the brazier, flared up of a sudden and lighted every corner of the old cellar. It revealed the craning neck and slack jaw of Gregory, the covetous glittering eyes and incredulous smile of Prince John, the scared faces of the huddling peasants. Then there was a crash that shook the earth. ”

“ Three lambkins went larking there out in the west,—
Out in the west at the dawn of day;
At pulling of knockers they all did their best,
And the bobbies looked on in a bobbylike way.
For boys will be boys, and bobbies will bob,
And when you get cotched you get one on the nob,
If you’re out on the spree of a morning.
Three lambkins got lagged and were shut up in quod,
Twenty-six knockers the bobbies they found.
Mr. Woolrych, he said that such conduct was odd,
And he mulct each poor lambkin of twenty-one pound;
For beaks will be beaks, though boys may be boys. ”

“ For we know that these pious women had been veritable beggars; and beggars should they again become. With surprising swiftness the new order spread through the Netherlands and into France and Germany. ... Lambert may have lived to see a beguinage in every great town within his ken; but we hear no more of him. The Beguines are no longer for Liege, but for all the world. Each city possessed its quiet congregation; and at any sick-bed you might meet a woman clad in a simple smock and a great veil-like mantle, who lived only to pray and do deeds of mercy. ”

“ Truly it may be said that the Green Wood of Lambkin’s early years as an Undergraduate was worthily followed by the Dry Wood of his later life as a fellow and even tutor, nay, as a Bursar of his college.
It is not my purpose to add much to the reader’s own impressions of this tour de force, or to insist too strongly upon the skill and breadth of treatment which will at once make their mark upon any intelligent man, and even upon the great mass of the public. ”