Swindler

“ But when I had the night watch with Swinburne, he came up to me, and said, “Well, Mr Simple, so we have a new captain, I sailed with him for two years in a brig.”
“And pray, Swinburne, what sort of a person is he?”
“Why, I’ll tell you, Mr Simple; he’s a good-tempered, kind fellow enough, but—”
“But what?”
“Such a bouncer!!”
“How do you mean? He’s not a very stout man.”
“Bless you, Mr Simple, why, you don’t understand English. I mean that he’s the greatest liar that ever walked a deck. Now, Mr Simple, you know I can spin a yarn occasionally.” ”

“ Finnerty overshot a noose that was pegged out on the path, but Swinton's foot went into it, tipping free a green bamboo, four inches thick, that swept the path waist-high, catching Finnerty before it had gained momentum, his retarding bulk saving the captain from a broken spine. As it was, he, too, was swept off his feet.
Picking himself up, the major said: "If I had put my foot in that noose I'd been cut in two. It's the old hillman's tiger trap—only there's no spear fastened to the bamboo. We can go back now; the thief is pretty well on his way to Nepal." ”

“ Swinton announced, "and he's coming to. I fancy the man that left the knife sticking in the first thief is thief number two; must be a kind of religious quid pro quo, this exchange of a jade-handled knife for the sapphire."
Baboo Dass now sat up; and, returning consciousness picturing the forms of Swinton and Finnerty, remembrance brought back the assault, and he yelled in terror, crying: "Spare me—spare my life! Take the sapphire!"
"Don't be frightened, baboo," Swinton soothed. "The man who struck you is gone." ”

“ Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!’—‘Oh yes, to be sure—yes, I did,’ says Mr Swiveller with a smile.—‘Have the goodness to banish a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the place in which you stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful that it’s only that place) ,’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a nod of the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller’s legitimate sphere of action; ‘and attend to me. You were waiting about here, yesterday, in expectation that this trial was coming on. You dined over the way. You treated somebody. ”

“ I have no doubt but that such would have been the fate of Swanevelt or of me, had the brute got hold of us,” said the Major; “I never saw such a malignant, diabolical expression in any animal’s countenance as there was upon that buffalo’s. A lion is, I should say, a gentleman and man of honour compared to such an evil-disposed ruffian.”
“Well, Major, you have only to let them alone; recollect, you were the aggressor,” said Swinton, laughing. ”

“ The grey stallion leaped from the rake of a spur, his thundering gallop all but drowning the blasphemous reproach that issued from Swinton's lips, as, in a fury of sudden passion, he took a deliberate swing at the young nobleman's nose.
"THE GRAY STALLION'S THUNDERING GALLOP ALL BUT DROWNING THE BLASPHEMOUS REPROACH THAT ISSUED FROM SWINTON'S LIPS."
Finnerty unostentatiously crowded his bulk between the two, saying, with an inward laugh: "You're a dangerous man; you've winded the captain, and you've frightened that horse into a runaway. He may break the girl's neck." ”

“ Why had the German drawn Finnerty into wrestling the Punjabi? Why had some one stolen the uncut sapphire? What was behind the prince's pose in religion? Who was the woman behind the lattice—yes, it was a woman——Then Swinton drowsed off.
It is soul racking to awaken in a strange room, startled from sleep by unplaceable sounds, to experience that hopeless lostness, to mentally grope for a door or a window in the way of a familiar mark to assist one's location. When Captain Swinton was thrust out of deep slumber by a demoniac tumult he came into consciousness in just such an environment. ”

“ So saying, Swinburne hitched up his trowsers, and went down below. I may here observe, that Swinburne kept to his round jacket until our arrival in England, when the “old woman,” his wife, who thought her dignity at stake, soon made him ship the swallow-tail; and after it was once on, Swinburne took a fancy to it himself, and always wore it, except when he was at sea.
The same evening, as I was coming with O’Brien from the governor’s house, where I had dined, we passed a building, lighted up. “What can that be?” observed O’Brien: “not a dignity ball—there is no music.” ”

“ And so much for my uncle and my father, both worthy of the name of Whitefeather.
CHAPTER II
CAPTAIN WHITEFEATHER TAKES AN ENLARGED VIEW OF SWINDLING. SOCIAL EVILS AND THEIR REMEDY No—the theme is too pregnant with circumstance; too vast—too voluminous. Let me then subdue the vain, though laudable, ambition—let me repress the fond, the wild desire of such distinction. Is it for a single pen to write the History of Swindling? Is it for one man to chronicle, with scrupulous fidelity, the rise and progress of the exquisite art (for I must call it so) ? ”

“ My mind ran for a time on Swindells, on the imbecile pushfulness of that extinct creature, dealing in rubbish, covering the countryside with lies in order to get--what had he sought?--a silly, ugly, great house, a temper-destroying motor-car, a number of disrespectful, abject servants; thwarted intrigues for a party-fund baronetcy as the crest of his life, perhaps. You cannot imagine the littleness of those former times; their naïve, queer absurdities! ”

“ The boats were in sight, about a quarter of a mile astern, when Swinburne said, "There's a cat's-paw flying along the water, Mr Simple; if we could only have a little wind, how we would laugh at them; but I'm afraid there's no such luck. Shall we let them know that we are ready?"
"Let every one of us take two muskets," said I: "when the first boat is under the counter, take good aim, and discharge into one of the boats; then seize the other musket, and discharge it at the other boat. After that we must trust to our cutlasses and pistols ”

“ The exotic grace, the honeyed charm of Swinburne, came from Greek and French poets. No wonder the perfection of Swinburne made would-be poets take to new verse. It was hopeless to contend with him. When you reach the top of the hill there is nothing to do but go down. Swinburne reached the top of the mountain.
The long winged dapple swallows, (Aristophanes) , is a Swinburnian phrase. From the choruses of Euripides, he learned music, swift-swinging resonant movement. That breathless on-rushing, which no poet of today has, came from here. They are astonishingly alike in sound-quality. ”

“ When Swinburne’s ‘Atalanta in Calydon’ appeared, another third-rate writer, James Russell Lowell, assured the world that its author was no poet, because there was no thought in the verse. Four years ago, at a provincial town in Italy, when one of the Italian ministers, at the opening of some public p. 305building, said that united Italy owed to the great English poet Swinburne a debt which it could never forget, the inhabitants cheered vociferously. This was no idle compliment; every one in Italy knows who Swinburne was. ”

“ Swinburne said to me in a low voice, “This will be a hard blow for the captain, Mr Simple. I’ve always been told, that a young captain losing his men without bringing any dollars to his admiral, is not very well received.”
“I am more sorry for him than I can well express, Swinburne,” replied I; “but—what is that a-head—a vessel under weigh?”
Swinburne stood up in the stern of the cutter, and looked for a few seconds. “Yes, a large ship standing in under royals—she must be a Frenchman. Now’s our time, sir; so long as we don’t go out empty-handed, all will be well. Oars all of you. ”

“ It is forty-four years since the publication of Swinburne's first volume, and it is scarcely to the credit of the English public that we should have had to wait so long for a collected edition of the poems of one of the greatest poets of this or any country. 'It is nothing to me,' Swinburne tells us, with a delicate precision in his pride, 'that what I write should find immediate or general acceptance.' And indeed 'immediate' it can scarcely be said to have been; 'general' it is hardly likely ever to be. ”

“ As they went back to the bungalow, Finnerty, as if switched from the machinations of Prince Ananda by the touch of nature's sweet handicraft in the nest, fell into a mood so poetically gentle that Swinton could hardly subdue a sense of incongruity in its association with the huge-framed speaker. There was no doubt whatever about the pleasing thrill of sincerity in his Irish voice as he said, "One of my enjoyments is the study of bird nidification. They run true to breeding—which is more than we do. ”

“ The water was so smooth, and the silence so profound, that Swinburne had heard the sound of the oars at a considerable distance. Fortunate it was, that I had such a trusty follower. Another might have slumbered, and the schooner have been boarded and captured without our being prepared. When I came on deck again I spoke to the men, exhorted them to do their duty, and pointed out to them that these cut-throat villains would certainly murder us all if we were taken, which I firmly believe would have been the case. The men declared that they would sell their lives as dearly as they could. ”

“ The march down to Bandipur was a short and easy one, and we got comfortably settled on board our boats early in the afternoon. About sunset the clouds gathered thick over the hills which we had left, and a thunderstorm broke, its preliminary squall throwing the crews of our fleet into a fearful fuss, and sending them on to the bank with extra ropes and holdfasts to make all secure. An elderly lady, with a dirty red cap and very untidy ringlets, superintended the business with much clamour. ”

“ I expect you'll find that chita at the bottom, kicked to death by the Cabuli."
Swinton, indicating an abrasion on the boulder that might have been left by the iron tire of a wheel, said: "My cart didn't strike this, and there are no other iron-wheel marks on the road; just part of this beastly plot—to be used as evidence that the stone put me over the bank."
"They even rolled the boulder down to leave an accidental trail. There's not a footprint of a native, though. Hello, by Jove!" Finnerty was examining two bamboos growing from the bank above the road. "See that?" ”

“ Swinton relit his pipe, and sat cogitating.
“A pipe don’t become a guardsman,” jokingly remarked his guest. “The favourites of the Foreign Office smoke only regalias.”
Swinton received this sally with a smile, that showed the dawning of a new hope.
“Take one?” continued the baronet, presenting his gold-clasped case.
Swinton pitched the briar-root aside, and set fire to the cigar.
“You are right, Sir Robert,” he said; “I ought to try for something. It’s very good of you to give me the advice. But how am I to follow it? I have no acquaintance with the nobleman you speak of ”

“ Should he prove obstinate, and persist in knocking, he is engaged on a lengthy sport; the worst thing that can happen is that Zwinger himself, and not the long man-servant, should come down presently to give admission. Cheerful blades have, ere this, on the door being opened, tried to meet Zwinger with a pleasantry, affecting to have brought the milk, or giving an imitation of the crowing of a cock, but a look from Zwinger arrests. Others, less daring and more diplomatic, rush past, snatch their candlestick from the counter, and vanish with the celerity easy to those possessed by sudden fear ”

“ Swinton answered, "so I stayed with the major."
"What made me think something might have happened was that the bally forest here is pretty well impregnated with leopards and things—one of Ananda's hunting chitas escaped last evening and he was worrying about it at dinner; says he's a treacherous brute, has turned sour on his work, and is as liable to spring on a man as on a pronghorn."
"Was the prince anxious about me in particular?" the captain asked innocently.
"Oh, no; he didn't say anything, at least."
Finnerty sprang to his feet as a big gong boomed a tattoo over at the keddah. "Trouble!" ”

“ When refreshed as a bride and set free;
With stars and sea-winds in her raiment
Night sinks on the sea.” My very soul was taken: I had no need to read them twice: I’ve never seen them since: I shall not forget them so long as this machine lasts. They flooded my eyes with tears, my heart with passionate admiration. In this state the old gentlemen came back and found me, a cowboy to all appearance, lost, tear-drowned in Swinburne.
“I think that’s my book”, he said calling me back to dull reality. “Surely”, I replied bowing; “but what magnificent poetry and I never heard of Swinburne before.” ”

“ But the ode, in a more or less irregular form, whether pæan or threnody, has been the instrument of several of our leading lyrists. The genius of Mr. Swinburne, even to a greater degree than that of Shelley, is essentially dithyrambic, and is never happier than when it spreads its wings as wide as those of the wild swan, and soars upon the very breast of tempest. In these flights Mr. Swinburne attains to a volume of sonorous melody such as no other poet, perhaps, of the world xxxvi has reached, and we may say to him, as he has shouted to the Mater Triumphalis ”

“ Had ne'er gaun round a man's body.
"Gin my mither had dreamed a dream
That sic a kail should fall on me,
She had bound me between her smock and her kirtle
And cast me ower the sea.
"She had row'd me between her smock and her kirtle,
Let me to swim or sink;
And I had drunken o' the saut water
Instead of tears to drink.
"The bairn that is waxen me within,
It is waxen a pain to me;
But weel lie he and ever weel
That made my bairn's body. ”