Tiltyard

“ Get him away, and I'll stand you something handsome—upon my soul I will!"
"What do you call something handsome?" inquired Tillotson, whose pulse was not so feverish as his friend's.
"Get him safe to London and I'll stand a fiver," said Glover. "Now go. I'll stay here."
Mr. Tillotson, having got matters on a business footing, went, and, carelessly twisting his small moustache, slowly approached the schooner, on the deck of which was a small boy.
"Is Captain Gething aboard, old man?" inquired Mr. Tillotson, in a friendly voice.
"Down the cabin, I b'lieve," said Henry, jerking his thumb. ”

“ Mandragore all said charming things.
Dinner was served; the party took their places. Lord Badgery sat at the head of the table, with Mr. Tillotson on his right hand and Sir Herbert Herne on his left. Confronted with Bomba's succulent cooking and Bomba's wines, Mr. Tillotson ate and drank a good deal. He had the appetite of one who has lived on greens and potatoes for ten years among the black beetles. After the second glass of wine he began to talk, suddenly and in a flood, as though a sluice had been pulled up. ”

“ In the narrow field I noticed some stout stakes, apparently planted at random in the grass and among the hills of potatoes, but carefully painted yellow and white to match the house, a neat sharp-edged little dwelling, which looked strangely modern for its owner. I should have much sooner believed that the smart young wholesale egg merchant of the Landing was its occupant than Mr. Tilley, since a man's house is really but his larger body, and expresses in a way his nature and character. ”

“ He's going to take seventy acres of neighbor Greenman's farm to enlarge the park; and Greenman's acreage is to be made up to him, and more, by throwing my farm in with his. Yes, that's what the squire is going to have done. ... Well, I thought to have died here; but 'tisn't to be."
He looked as helpless as a child, for age had weakened him. Egbert endeavored to cheer him a little, and vexed as the young man was, he thought there might yet be some means of tiding over this difficulty. "Mr. Allenville wants seventy acres more in his park, does he?" ”

“ But the distance was not great enough to quiet her before they got to hard turnpike and young plantations. He would have entered at the grand gate, but found no one at the lodge, for the factor, to save a little, had dismissed the old keeper. He had therefore to go on, and through the town, where, to the awe-stricken eyes of the population peeping from doors and windows, it seemed as if the terrible horse would carry him right over the roofs of the fisher-cottages below and out to sea. ”

“ And Tilly, in a great state of trepidation and excitement, let the wind whisk her over the field to the big gate, whence she could watch him go.
He went up the hill and on towards the vicarage, the wind roaring through the hedges, whilst he tried to shelter his bunch of daffodils by his side. He did not think of anything, only knew that the wind was blowing.
Night was falling, the bare trees drummed and whistled. The vicar, he knew, would be in his study, the Polish woman in the kitchen, a comfortable room, with her child. ”

“ I wish we had a curtain there.' said Tilly.
'I like to have our light shine out in the evening, for the road is dark and lonely just here, and the twinkle of our lamp is pleasant to people's eyes as they go by. We can do so little for our neighbours, I am glad to cheer the way for them. Now put these poor old shoes to dry, and go to bed, dearie; I'll come soon.'
Tilly went, taking her bird with her to sleep in his basket near by, lest he should be lonely in the night.
Soon the little house was dark and still, and no one saw the Christmas spirits at their work that night. ”

“ We had taken but a few steps when a flame about the height of a man rose up beside us in a thicket of dwarf alders. It waved to us, bowed down to the earth, and then began to leap before us as if it had a mind to accompany us.
"A will-o'-the-wisp!"
"The good Lord grant it may be only a will-o'-the-wisp!" said the gamekeeper in a low tone; "but I'm afraid the day will not end well"
"Are there some marshes near here?"
"Yes, certainly. There is even a pond. It must be off here to our right." ”

“ Tildy listened to the adventure with breathless admiration. No man had ever tried to follow her. She was safe abroad at any hour of the twenty-four. What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one and black one’s eye for love!
Among the customers at Bogle’s was a young man named Seeders, who worked in a laundry office. Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair, and appeared to have been recently rough-dried and starched. He was too diffident to aspire to Aileen’s notice; so he usually sat at one of Tildy’s tables, where he devoted himself to silence and boiled weakfish. ”

“ Right through the forest, where none can see,
There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town.
The men are asleep,—or awake, may be,—
But the women are calling John Evereldown.
Ever and ever they call for me,
And while they call can a man be free?
So right through the forest, where none can see,
There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town. ”

“ At the foot of the orchard, and on the very edge of the woodland, lies a small enclosure, where from the head of the slope you catch sight, between the apple trees, of a number of white stones glimmering; but your eyes rest rather on the figure of a girl who has just left the enclosure, and is mounting the slope with a spade on her shoulder.
You watch her, yourself invisible, while she approaches. You might gaze until she has passed, and yet not recognise her for Tilda. ”

“ TILLY slept late the next morning. She crawled out into her cold room and put a handful of coal in the tile stove, lighting it with kindlings the size of matches and a bit of paper. Then she went back to bed until the fire should make an impression on the temperature of the cold room, and sitting up, with her ulster around her shoulders, she examined her feet.
They were covered with scratches from the rose thorns of the night before, and one toe had been badly cut by glass. Not only that, but a streak of red ran from the toe up to the arch of Tilly's foot. Tilly looked at it in dismay. ”

“ A thin quarter moon rising over the pine trees gave dim shape to the barn and silo. She could see no one, yet Tillie’s revelation that strange men spied upon the house, made her attentive to danger.
Swiftly she crossed the lawn to the storm cave. As she had fully expected, the slanting door was padlocked.
“Oh, shoot!” she exclaimed impatiently. “I want to get down there!”
She jerked at the padlock several times, and then accepting the situation, turned toward the house. As she walked, Penny’s eyes fastened absently upon a clump of lilac bushes some twenty yards from the cave. ”

“ Tilda whistled 'Dolph back and fell to work again, filling her lap with nettles; but the load was scarcely complete before the dog, who had been whimpering and trembling with excitement, made another dash for the open, his yells all but drowning a thud of hooves with which a dark body hurled itself past the doorway, between the children and the sunshine, and so leapt clear for the beach over the fall. ”

“ Tillotson was a little chagrined by this unlucky discovery. "Borrow a suit?"
Spode hurried away for counsel to Badgery House. Lord Badgery surprisingly rose to the occasion. "Ask Boreham to come and see me," he told the footman, who answered his ring.
Boreham was one of those immemorial butlers who linger on, generation after generation, in the houses of the great. He was over eighty now, bent, dried up, shriveled with age.
"All old men are about the same size," said Lord Badgery. It was a comforting theory. "Ah, here he is. Have you got a spare suit of evening clothes, Boreham?" ”

“ That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force before. ”

“ Across his shirt front lay the broad green ribbon of some unknown Order.
"Queen of the tambourine, the cymbals, and the bones,"
Mr. Tillotson concluded in a gnat-like voice before welcoming his visitor. "Well, Spode, here you are. I'm dressed already, you see. The suit, I flatter myself, fits very well, almost as though it had been made for me. I am all gratitude to the gentleman who was kind enough to lend it to me; I shall take the greatest care of it. It's a dangerous thing to lend clothes, 'for loan oft loseth both itself and friend.' The bard is always right." ”

“ From the high ramparts of the gothic fortress, there burst upon the midnight gloom and on the narrow bridge a flood of light, with a storm of cannon-shot and musketry.
"To the assault! to the assault! and death be the doom of the first who turns his back!" cried Tilly, rushing on foot across the bridge at the head of his pikemen, with a standard in his left hand, and a horse-pistol in the right; for the old Jesuit, though he trembled last night before an antique picture, and had implicit faith in quacks and astrologers, was brave as a lion. ”

“ The head of Glen Tilt is but an inconsiderable distance from the head of the river Dee, which rises in the great mountains that close up the head of Glen Tilt. I was told there would, some time or other, be a very good road from Blair, by Lude, across the hills to Glen Shee and Glen Beg, which lead to the castle town of Bramar.
The drive from Atholl house to the Forest Lodge is beautiful; the Tilt is for ever noisy throughout its rough course; its banks are highly ornamented with trees, and broken precipices, and openings in the mountains, pouring down their ample tribute to the rapid Tilt. ”

“ We have known each other a long time, Tillotson. There is nothing like an old friend when one is in trouble."
Mr. Tillotson assented modestly. "You won't forget about Leatham and Roberts?" he said.
"Of course not," said Glover. "You see, it won't do to be seen in this thing myself. What I want you to do is to come down with me to Stourwich and bring the old man to London; then I can find him at my own time, in the street or anywhere, quite haphazard like."
"I don't quite see how it is to be done," said Tillotson. ”

“ The boy said:
"A boat takes up room in the water, doesn't it?"
"0' course it does. But what's that got to do with rats?"
"Nothing. I was thinking of Sam's puzzle, and I've guessed it. A boat going downwards through a lock would want a lock full, all but the water it pushes out from the room it takes up. Wouldn't it?"
"I s'pose so," said Tilda doubtfully.
"But a boat going up will want a lock full, and that water too. And that's why an empty boat going downhill takes more water than a loaded one, and less going up." ”

“ The monkey-boat lay with her stem down-stream, and her after-part—her habitable quarters—covered by a black tarpaulin. A solitary man was at work shovelling coal out of her middle hold into a large metal bucket. As Tilda hobbled towards him he hoisted the full bucket on his shoulders, staggered across the towpath with it, and shot its contents into a manhole under the brick wall. ”

“ At last I gave the major a hoist, and he just managed to get into the back seat of the cart — enough to lift the mare off her feet almost — Braddon jumped up in front, and I mounted my pony again, and away we all came, and not a soul of us touched. We should have been here yesterday, but early in the morning we saw some horsemen in the distance who looked very like irregular cavalry, so we took shelter for the day in a village. The people were civil enough — perhaps because we were a good-sized party, and well armed; and we got flour and milk, and food for our horses. ”

“ It seems unjust to pass, with no more than a mention, that lovely little isolated relic at Tilbury. Here was for centuries the natural gate, the military defence of the port. When the range of ordnance was not much more than hailing distance, no defences could be thought of upon the broadening water of the Hope, still less in the funnel of the Sea-reach. But Tilbury, standing over against Gravesend, defended the first point at which the river had narrowed sufficiently to be commanded by batteries from the shore. ”

“ The corpses, under the burning sun, had already swelled up into bloated misshapen masses, and a swarm of crows had settled down to their loathsome feast, joined in the afternoon by the more cautious vultures, some of which had already alighted on the ground, while others, in ever-increasing numbers, circled in the air above.
"Young Yorke is a better engineer than I am," said Falkland, again discussing the situation with Braddon later in the day. "We ought to have occupied Sparrow's house in the beginning, and we shall have to do so now, coute qui coute." ”

“ Sharp-edged and bright-coloured in the sun, houses and cottages stand out in an apparent foreground of tree and field; miniature dwellings, among a miniature vegetation; with liliputian likenesses of men and women between. Then, again, we approach one or the other bank; and see! the little palm-model is sixty feet high at least, and the gabled toy-house a large mansion three or four storeys high. And now the fields and gardens reach down to the very brink of the stream, and our approach has been watched by the labourers from far ”