Wynd

“ When we sallied forth, we called at Blackford's Wynd upon his second, whom we found waiting upon him, and then proceeded by St Mary's Wynd Port and the South Back of the Canongate to the ground, which we reached a few minutes before the appointed time. The captain and his friend arrived almost as soon as we did. Since then, I have seen blood spilled as freely as water; but never did my heart quail as at this time. In fighting with the blood warm, there is a fierce pleasure ”

“ And the consideration of this problem of Cromwellian psychology brought us to Wynd's Point.
The day before our arrival there had been a visitor to the house, an old gentleman who had wandered in the grounds and sat and mused in the little arbour that Jenny Lind built, and whence she used to look out on the beacon and across the plain to the Cots-wolds. He had gently declined to go inside the house. There are some memories too sacred to disturb. It was the long widowed husband of the Swedish saint and singer. ”

“ This priest of yours seems to have got you all worked up about some story of a dreadful death and judgement; but I'm going to leave him and his religion out of it altogether. If Wynd came out of that room, somebody let him out. And if Wynd was found hanging on that tree, somebody hung him there."
"Quite so," said Fenner; "but as our evidence is that nobody let him out, the question is how could anybody have hung him there?"
"How could anybody have a nose on his face?" asked the inspector. "He had a nose on his face, and he had a noose round his neck. Those are facts ”

“ The proposed marriage of Lady Wynde completely vitiates your present relations to her. In becoming Mrs. Craven Black, I consider that Lady Wynde throws off all allegiance to Sir Harold Wynde, and ceases to be your step-mother. It is for you to decide if you will choose a new personal guardian in her stead.”
All eyes turned upon the fair young girl. The young [195] earl awaited her reply with a breathless anxiety. Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins fixed their eager gaze upon her, and Lady Wynde regarded her sharply and with some uneasiness. ”

“ Lord Towyn from his marine villa and Mr. Atkins from Canterbury to accompany me into your presence, and assist me to impart to you the unpleasant news. Lady Wynde, this Craven Black, your accepted lover, is a scoundrel, a gamester, a man unworthy your consideration for a moment.”
“Indeed!” said Lady Wynde, with a slight sneer. “Mr. Black, to my knowledge, goes in the first society. He visited at the Duke of Cheltenham’s last year, and the duke is a perfect Puritan, as every one knows.” ”

“ As your late husband’s most intimate friend, I desire to ask you if you have well considered this step you are about to take?”
Lady Wynde bowed a cold assent.
“Your knowledge of the character of Mr. Black can be but slight,” persisted Sir John Freise, leaning his chin upon the gold knob of his walking-stick, and regarding the handsome widow with troubled eyes. “He has been at Wyndham but a few months. I grant that he is of attractive exterior, Lady Wynde, but what do you know of his character? I have not come here to make any charges against Mr. Black but those I am prepared to substantiate. ”

“ A grave thoughtful man with a wonderfully sweet expression.
It was plain to be seen that Wyndham, the expectant curate of Jewsbury-on-the-Wold, and Wyndham, the promised husband of Valentine Paget, were totally different individuals. Wyndham's prospects were changed, so was his appearance—so, in very truth, was the man himself. ”

“ The gray companion smiled.
“I was sure you would,” she said.
“But Sir Harold has not made a new will since our marriage,” urged Lady Wynde. “By our marriage settlements, I am to have the use of the dower house, Wynde Heights, during my lifetime, and a life income of four thousand pounds a year. At my death, both house and income revert to the family of Wynde. I have nothing absolutely my own, nothing left to me by will to do with as I please. Craven expected that I would have the dowry of a princess, I suppose, out of Sir Harold’s splendid property.” ”

“ He nods towards Llangorren Court.
“You are merry, Monsieur. But your jests are out of place—in presence of the misery around us.”
“You may some day,” he goes on, without heeding her observation.
“Yes; when the sky falls we may catch larks. You seem to forget that Mademoiselle Wynn is younger than either of us, and by the natural laws of life will outlive both. Must, unless she break her neck in the hunting field, get drowned out of a boat, or meet some other mischance.” ”

“ The lawn of Llangorren Court, for a time abandoned to the dumb quadrupeds, that had returned to their tranquil pasturing, is again enlivened by the presence of the two young ladies; but so transformed, that they are scarce recognisable as the same late seen upon it. Of course, it is their dresses that have caused the change; Miss Wynn now wearing a pea jacket of navy blue, with anchor buttons, and a straw hat set coquettishly on her head, its ribbons of azure hue trailing over, and prettily contrasting with the plaits of her chrome-yellow hair, gathered in a grand coil behind. ”

“ So Green Knoll Camp presented a very orderly appearance when the boys and Professor Skillings appeared ahead of the bateau that was to take all their goods and chattels back to their home town.
“Goodness! aren’t you girls smart?” cried Dave Shepard, the first ashore. “Are you all ready?”
“Every bit,” declared Wyn.
“Then we can get off in the Go-Ahead at once?”
“Right,” declared Frank, laughing. “And as soon as you can teach Wyn and me how to manage the motor boat, we girls sha’n’t need you boys at all.” ”

“ Business is dreadfully dull. I heard my father say so.”
3She was a tall, lanky girl, was Frances Cameron, with a great mass of blue-black hair and flashing black eyes. She was thin, strong, and lacking in those soft curves of budding womanhood which girls of her age usually display. “Straight up and down, my dears,” she often said. “Built upon the most approved clothespin plan, with every bone perfectly–not to say generously–developed.”
“Well,” said Wyn, laughing, “if you girls will give me a chance I will divulge my news.”
“Be still!” commanded Frank. “The oracle speaks.”
“Oh, hurry up, Wyn!” ”

“ Havel. “But I am quite as afraid of cows―”
“Nor cows, either. I guess you wouldn’t have been fooled for a minute if you had seen them,” said Wyn.
“What do you mean, Wyn?” cried Frank. “I tell you I saw them with my own eyes―”
“Of course you did. So did I,” admitted Wyn. “But we did not see them right. They are not bears, walking on their hind legs; they are just boys walking on the only legs they’ve got!”
“The Busters!” ejaculated Frank.
“Oh, Wyn! do you think so?” asked Mina, hopefully.
“Look ahead,” commanded Wyn. “There are the boys’ canoes. ”

“ Wyn had listened at that meeting to the opinions of all the other girls–and to their hopeless and disappointed complaints as well–and then she had taken the whole burden on her own shoulders.
“Don’t you say another word at home about it, girls–any of you,” she said. “Leave it to me. Our idea of living for the summer in the open is a good one. We’ll come back to school in the fall with ginger and health enough to keep us going like dynamos during the next school year.” ”

“ Miss Wynn gathered books about her, and in the days of April and May she and Alwyn read up on education. He marvelled at the subtlety of her mind, and she at the relentlessness of his. They were very near each other during these days, and yet there was ever something between them: a vision to him of dark and pleading eyes that he constantly saw beside her cool, keen glance. And he to her was always two men: one man above men, whom she could respect but would not marry, and one man like all men, whom she would marry but could not respect. ”

“ Here Wynnie spoke, though with some tremor in her voice.
"I never know, papa, what people mean by talking about childhood in that way. I never seem to have been a bit younger and more innocent than I am."
"Don't you remember a time, Wynnie, when the things about you—the sky and the earth, say—seemed to you much grander than they seem now? You are old enough to have lost something." ”

“ Earle, he wishes, and Miss Wynn, she—well, she don't say much. I suppose she knows a fellow can't stand it; but she means it. I think most every Sunday that she will bring some of us around before long, in spite of ourselves. ”

“ Dobbles and his master were quite out of sight, and Wyn had got to the other side of the pond, among a mass of ferns and brambles not likely to yield much out of the common, when he heard a rustling and saw a tall man standing on the little track beyond him, with his back turned. Wyn was a keeper’s son, and as soon as he perceived that the man was a stranger he at once jumped to the conclusion that he was after no good, and that he, Mr Edgar’s only protector, had left him alone at some distance. ”

“ As she stands in the door of Glyngog, looking down the river, at Llangorren, and through the darkness sees the Court with only one or two windows alight—they but in dim glimmer—she reflects less on how they blazed the night before, with lamps over the lawn like constellations of stars, than how they will flame hereafter, and ere long—when she herself be the ruling spirit and mistress of that mansion.
But as the time passes and no husband home, a cloud steals over her features. From being only impatient, she becomes nervously anxious. ”

“ Wyn demanded, “with everybody talking about her father the way they do?”
“Come, girls!” commanded Mrs. Havel. “Don’t gossip. Find some other topic of conversation.”
“Ha! quite so,” cried Frank, with a grimace upon her own homely face. “A girl may be as 123 pretty as a picture and spoil it all by an ugly frame of mind. How’s that for a spark thrown from the wheel?”
“Stand back, audience!” exclaimed Dave. “Something like that is likely to happen any minute.”
“I don’t really see how the old professor gets on with you boys at all,” remarked Bessie Lavine, with a sigh. ”

“ Before turning the bend, where Gwen Wynn and Eleanor Lees were caught in the rapid current, at the estuary of a sluggish inflowing brook, whose waters are now beaten back by the flooded river, he sees what causes him to start, and hang on the stroke of his oar.
"What is it, Wingate?" asks young Powell, observing his strange behaviour. "Oh! a waif—that plank floating yonder! I suppose you'd like to pick it up! But remember! it's Sunday, and we must confine ourselves to works of necessity and mercy." ”

“ That land of Llangorren belonged to his grandfather, but now is, or soon will be, the property of his cousin—Gwendoline Wynn. Were she not, it would be his. Between him and it runs the Wye, a broad, deep river. But what its width or depth, compared with that other something between? A barrier stronger and more impassable than the stream, yet seeming slight as a thread. For it is but the thread of a life. Should it snap, or get accidentally severed, Lewin Murdock would only have to cross the river, proclaim himself master of Llangorren, and take possession. ”

“ Only two of the men are at the oars; two standing up, one amidships, the other at the head.
Both are endeavouring to lay hold of the pleasure-boat, and bring it alongside. So occupied they see not the fishing skiff, while the two rowing, with backs turned, are equally unconscious of its approach. They only wonder at the "wenches," as they continue to call them, taking it so coolly, for these do not seem so much frightened as before.
"Coom, sweet lass!" cries he in the bow—the black fellow it is—addressing Miss Wynn. "Tain't no use you tryin' to get away. ”

“ And the Busters must not know a thing about it until they were sure―
“Then Mr. Lavine believes father’s story about the boat?” burst in Polly.
“I believe he does, Polly, dear. I think, Polly, that he would be very, very glad to have Mr. Jarley cleared of all suspicion. He is sorry for your father’s trouble. I think his attitude, toward your father has changed from what it must have been at one time.”
“It ought to be!” exclaimed Polly.
“Of course. But we none of us always do all we ought to do,” observed Wyn mildly. ”

“ They were Wynn's own words, and Wynn was a gentleman who for no consideration on earth would have torn little Edna into those vividly coloured strips and strings. But this thing hunched under the oak-tree had done that thing. It was no question of reading horrors out of newspapers to Miss Fowler. Mary had seen it with her own eyes on the 'Royal Oak' kitchen table. She must not allow her mind to dwell upon it. Now Wynn was dead, and everything connected with him was lumping and rustling and tinkling under her busy poker into red black dust and grey leaves of ash. ”

“ I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left him?"
"Why not?"
"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts on."
Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him.
"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and helped his wife down.
"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away. ”

“ The depth of the sky overhead, which you could not see for the arrangement of the picture, was mirrored lovelily in a piece of water that lay in the centre of the valley.
“My dear fellow,” I cried, “why did you not show me this first, and save me from saying so many unkind things? Here is a picture to my own heart; it is glorious. Look here, Wynnie,” I went on; “you see it is evening; the sun’s work is done, and he has set in glory, leaving his good name behind him in a lovely harmony of colour. ”