Lazarette

“ For the lassie made me marvel with the aptness of her speech, and ashamed with her plain saying of things that I had hardly named within myself.
'Ah,' she said gently and wisely, 'the thoughts of a lass when a lad comes courting her, are more than she tells with her mouth. For many a kiss is honey-sweet on the lips, but bitter as gall in the heart. ”

“ Because, even though he took care of me and treated me all right and fixed me up, I saw that he had really enjoyed his dirty trick. He used wine to wash the places where the pieces of the jug had cut me, and he smiled and said, "How about that, Lazaro? The very thing that hurt you is helping to cure you." ”

“ So the lassie was so frightened and scared, she didn't know what to do.
"Come hither to me, lassie, do you hear," said the Apple-tree, "I'll help you; get under my branches and hide, for if they catch you they'll tear you to death, and take the casket from you."
Yes; she did so, and she had hardly hidden herself before up came the old witch and her daughter.
"Have you seen any lassie pass this way, you apple-tree?" said the old hag.
"Yes, yes," said the Apple-tree; "one ran by here an hour ago; but now she's got so far ahead you'll never catch her up." ”

“ The lassie taking tent unto the door she went,
⁠And she open'd and lat him in.
And are ye come at last! and do I hold you fast!
⁠And is my Johnny true?
I have nae time to tell, but sae lang's I like mysel',
⁠Sae lang sall I like you.
Flee up, flee up, my bonnie grey cock,
⁠And craw when it is day,
And your neck shall be like the bonnie beaten gold,
⁠And your wings of the silver grey.
The cock proved false, and untrue he was,
⁠For he crew an hour owre soon:
The lassie thought it day when she sent her love away,
⁠And it was but a blink of the moon. ”

“ And who would believe that that gracious man got by all day yesterday on a piece of bread that his servant Lazaro had carried all day and night inside his shirt for safekeeping—not really the most sanitary place in the world—and that today when he washed his hands and face, he dried them on his shirttail because we didn't have any towels? Nobody would suspect it, of course. Oh Lord, how many of these people do You have scattered around the world who suffer for the filth that they call honor what they would never suffer for You! ”

“ For many years I had cared little for the face of a woman. As I lay in my hammock upstairs, however, I heard the old woman, as she chafed the warmth back into her, crooning a chorus of "Eh, the puir lassie! Eh, the bonnie lassie!" from which I gathered that this piece of jetsam was both young and comely.
The morning after the gale was peaceful and sunny. As I walked along the long sweep of sand I could hear the panting of the sea. It was heaving and swirling about the reef, but along the shore it rippled in gently enough. ”

“ And who think ye should this lassie be, but Nanse Cromie, afterwards, in the course of a kind providence, the honoured wife of my bosom, and the mother of bonny Benjie.
In going up and down the stairs,—it being a common entry, ye observe—me maybe going down with my every day hat on to my dinner, and she coming up, carrying a stoup of wa'er, or half a-pound of powdered butter on a plate, with a piece of paper thrown over it,— we frequently met half-way, and, had to stand still to let one another pass. ”

“ I’m no so old yet, but I mind weel how a young lassie feels for the lad she’s after. Ay, my bairn, it’s all yin, gentle or simple, lord’s daughter or beggar’s wench, when the love of a lad has got the grip o’ them. And there was yin with her—the foreign lady with the lang name. For all that she mocks and fleers as if there was nothing in the wide world but play-actin’ and gagin’ about. Faith, she’s an artist, but she might be more help than Miss Una herself if it came to a pinch. She’s a cunning one, that. ”

“ Thus encouraged we said, sympathetically: “We’re very sorry to trouble you, but I suppose we could manage to get a drink and a bit to eat?” “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing to eat in the house, and I’ve only got rum and milk. You can have that if you like.” One of the pilgrims broke out here.
“Well of all the pubs,” he began, “that I’ve ever—”
“Hush-sh-sh!” said the publican.
The pilgrim scowled and retired to the rear. You can’t express your feelings freely when there’s a woman dying close handy.
“Well, who says rum and milk?” asked the joker, in a low voice. ”

“ Lazaretto or Lazar-House is a hospital for the reception of poor persons suffering from the plague, leprosy or other infectious or contagious diseases. A peculiar use of “lazaretto” is found in the application of the term, now obsolete, to a place in the after-part of a merchant vessel for the storage of provisions, &c. Lazzarone, a name now often applied generally to beggars, is an Italian term, particularly used of the poorest class of Neapolitans, who, without any fixed abode, live by odd jobs and fishing, but chiefly by begging. ”

“ My lassie wears upon her breast
No knot of ribbon gay,
Forget-me-nots she loves the best,
Plucked at the dawn of day.
My lassie’s feet like two white mice
Go slipping through the grass,
And all the dew-drops think them nice,
And kiss them as they pass.
The satin shoe with buckle drest
Is richer, it may be,
But if the truth must be confest,
Not half so good to see.
My lassie’s face is fair to see,
My lassie’s eyes are blue,
And always do they tell to me
Her heart is fond and true. ”

“ You gave that lassie one of the jelly-cans!"
The Glasgow waiter brings up tea, and presently my sister is able to rise, and after a sharp fight I am expelled from the kitchen. The last thing I do as maid of all work is to lug upstairs the clothes-basket which has just arrived with the mangling. Now there is delicious linen for my mother to finger; there was always rapture on her face when the clothes-basket came in; it never failed to make her once more the active genius of the house. ”

“ Well, it is altogether a very mysterious and unpleasant thing to have happened in this old house, and my pretty lassie, I see, does not forget it. She seems to mope, and to get a bit melancholy now and then. I fancy her eyes are not so bright as they used to be; she doesn't talk so much, or sing so much about the house. ”

“ The fumes of the roast mingle with the perfume of the flowers; the purple of the wine vies in gorgeousness with the red of the roses. The waiter who serves us has the air of folly and we have the air of gluttons, it is all the same to us! We stuff down roast after roast, we pour down bordeaux upon burgundy, chartreuse upon cognac. To the devil with your weak wines and your thirty-sixes, [12] which we have been drinking since our departure from Paris! ”

“ After I had finished the second course, the waitress made her appearance again and wanted to know what further would be wanted. I told her, nothing, whereupon she began to gather up the dishes and her manner proclaimed that the cabinet might be wanted for the next customer. I took the hint and withdrew and the lassie followed me out. Outside of the restaurant the lassie gave me a gentle hint that she knew of a snug place where we could have "a little smile" together, but I [Pg 188] wasn't drinking just then and told her so. ”

“ So after they had lived together a while, the lassie was to have a child, and when the child came to be born the Prince set a strong watch round her; but at the birth one and all fell into a deep sleep, and her foster-mother came, cut the babe on its little finger, and smeared the queen's mouth with the blood ”

“ When, that night, at locking-up-time, Octave had not appeared, and Paula went to the room the sisters shared in common, hoping to find the wild-cap safe in bed, although the sheets had been turned down and then shaken, as if the well-grown lassie could by any possibility be hiding within them, there was great consternation in the household.
“She is always up to pranks, but she does not generally treat us unkindly,” said the aggrieved elder girl, feeling somehow that the house was not a “Snuggery” without the sharpest of the “pickles.” ”

“ I arranged with the landlady to have a good cup of coffee made, as she knows how to make it, ready to hand in round the edge of the door when I should be in the bath. There’s nothing in that. I’ve been with her for years, and on account of the canvas it would be just the same as if I were in bed. On second thought I asked her to hand in some toast—or bread and butter and bloater paste—at the same time. I fed the fire with judgment, and the copper boiled just as the last blaze died down. I got a pail and carried the water to the bath, pouring it in through the opening at the head. ”

“ Lassie lifted up her head. "How do you mean?"
"There are two Lassies to me, dear,—the pretty, sweet-looking girl, and the Lassie who loves me. Most people confuse the two, and think them one and the same; I don't. No matter what happened to you, the Lassie whom I love could never alter—she is unchangeable. She is not subject to change; she doesn't belong to this world; she cannot die. And just as I feel about you, I feel about everybody. What I can see and touch in those I love is what I love least in them."
"Oh, Alva!" it was like a little moan—the girl's voice. ”

“ At last the king and queen took into their palace a stranger lassie to rear up, that they might have her always with them, to love her if she did well, and scold her if she did wrong, like their own child.
So one day the little lassie whom they had taken as their own, ran down into the palace yard, and was playing with a gold apple. Just then an old beggar wife came by, who had a little girl with her, and it wasn’t long before the little lassie and the beggar’s bairn were great friends, and began to play together, and to toss the gold apple about between them. ”

“ I tell you, without a word of a lie, that we must have drunk about a dozen cups each. We made her fill the teapot twice, and kept her waitin' nearly an hour, but we couldn't make her say a word. She never said a single word to us from the time we came in till the time we went out, nor before nor after. She'd made up her mind from the first not to speak to us.
We had to get up and leave our cups half full at last. We went out and sat down on our swags in the shade against the wall, and smoked and gave that tea time to settle; and then we got on to the track again. ”

“ He’d get the sugar first, and then, if it looked good enough, the flour-bag would come out, then the tea-bag. And before he left he’d remark casually that he and his mate hadn’t had a smoke for two days. They never missed a chance. And when they’d cadged more tucker than they could comfortably carry, they’d camp for a day or two and eat it down. Sometimes they’d have as much as a pound of tobacco, all in little “borrowed” bits, cut from the sticks or cakes of honest travellers. They never missed a chance. ”

“ Then the dirty blind man made up jokes about it, saying things like: "The truth of the matter is I use more wine washing this boy in one year than I drink in two." And: "At least, Lazaro, you owe more to wine than you do to your father—he only gave you life once, but wine has brought you to life a thousand times."
Then he told about all the times he'd beaten me and scratched my face and then doctored me up with wine.
"I tell you," he said, "if there's one man in the world who will be blessed by wine, it's you." ”

“ But Lisle was wiser. There is no perfume for a young ladies' school like a whiff of cigar-smoke. To that prim, half convent-like seclusion, where manners are being formed and the proprieties are strictly observed, it comes as a pleasant suggestion of something worldly and masculine, just a little wicked and altogether delightful. ”

“ The girls get ruddy with the exertion; they pant, they strain, they duck their heads when their lovers creep behind to steal a kiss, or they run after the shameless robber and slap his naughty cheeks with their sticky palms. Under the rapid kneading the dark syrup becomes glossier, then it reddens, next it grows a golden hue, till finally it gets whiter and whiter, thinner and thinner, and the taffy is finished. ”

“ My love she's but a lassie.
[James Hogg.—For the original song of "My love she's but a lassie yet," see page 512.]
My love she's but a lassie yet,
A lightsome lovely lassie yet;
⁠It scarce wad do
⁠To sit an' woo
Down by the stream sae glassy yet,
But there's a braw time coming yet,
When we may pang a-roaming yet;
⁠An' hint wi' glee
⁠O' joys to be,
When fa's the modest gloaming yet.
She's neither proud nor saucy yet,
She's neither plump nor gaucy yet ”

“ Next morning when she awoke, there lay all the flax spun on the table, and that so clean and fine, no one had ever seen such even and pretty yarn. The queen was very glad to get such nice yarn, and she set greater store by the lassie than ever. But the rest were still more envious, and agreed to tell the queen how the lassie had said she was good to weave the yarn she had spun in four-and-twenty hours. So the queen said again, as she had said it she must do it ”

“ Lasette to herself.
"Annette," said Mrs. Lasette, "this has been a fearful trial, but it must not be in vain; let it bring you more than happiness; let it bring you peace and blessedness. There is only one place for us to bring our sins and our sorrows, and that is the mercy seat. Let us both kneel there to-night and ask for grace to help in this your time of need. We are taught to cast our care upon Him for he careth for us. ”

“ He uncorked the bottle, poured some of the Spirit of Wine on the sponge and rubbed the animal’s brown flank. The dark colour came away, the sorrel hide and the white splotch began to appear, and before you could say Jack 141 Robinson, the major and Lady Mary had their arms about the animal’s neck and were blubbing like a couple of children.
“Oh, my bully girl! Oh, my spiffing girl! Oh, Mary, isn’t it clinking, dear? The Lassie—the Highland Lassie—her own bonny self.” ”