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146 There was, however, one exception to the general rule, one member of the school who did not treat the episode as if it were merely an interesting and impersonal item of sensational news. Neville-Smith heard of what had happened towards the end of the interval, and rushed off instantly in search of Mike. He was too late to catch him before he went to his form-room, so he waited for him at half-past twelve, when the bell rang for the end of morning school.

"I say, Jackson, is this true about old Wyatt?"

Mike nodded.

"What happened?"

Mike related the story for the sixteenth time. It was a melancholy pleasure to have found a listener who heard the tale in the right spirit. There was no doubt about Neville-Smith's interest and sympathy. He was silent for a moment after Mike had finished.

"It was all my fault," he said at length. "If it hadn't been for me, this wouldn't have happened. What a fool I was to ask him to my place! I might have known he would be caught."

"Oh, I don't know," said Mike.

"It was absolutely my fault."

Mike was not equal to the task of soothing Neville-Smith's wounded conscience. He did not attempt it. They walked on without further conversation till they reached Wain's gate, where Mike left him. Neville-Smith proceeded on his way, plunged in meditation.

The result of which meditation was that Burgess got a second shock before the day was out. Bob, going over to the nets rather late in the afternoon, came upon the captain of cricket standing apart from his fellow men with an expression on his face that spoke of mental upheavals on a vast scale.

"What's up?" asked Bob.

"Nothing much," said Burgess, with a forced and grisly calm. "Only that, as far as I can see, we shall play Ripton on Saturday with a sort of second eleven.

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Rh You don't happen to have got sacked or anything, by the way, do you?"

"What's happened now?"

"Neville-Smith. In extra on Saturday. That's all. Only our first- and second-change bowlers out of the team for the Ripton match in one day. I suppose by to-morrow half the others'll have gone, and we shall take the field on Saturday with a scratch side of kids from the Junior School."

"Neville-Smith! Why, what's he been doing?"

"Apparently he gave a sort of supper to celebrate his getting his first, and it was while coming back from that that Wyatt got collared. Well, I'm blowed if Neville-Smith doesn't toddle off to the Old Man after school to-day and tell him the whole yarn! Said it was all his fault. What rot! Sort of thing that might have happened to any one. If Wyatt hadn't gone to him, he'd probably have gone out somewhere else."

"And the Old Man shoved him in extra?"

"Next two Saturdays."

"Are Ripton strong this year?" asked Bob, for lack of anything better to say.

"Very, from all accounts. They whacked the M.C.C. Jolly hot team of M.C.C. too. Stronger than the one we drew with."

"Oh, well, you never know what's going to happen at cricket. I may hold a catch for a change."

Burgess grunted.

Bob went on his way to the nets. Mike was just putting on his pads.

"I say, Mike," said Bob. "I wanted to see you. It's about Wyatt. I've thought of something."

"What's that?"

"A way of getting him out of that bank. If it comes off, that's to say."

"By Jove, he'd jump at anything. What's the idea?"

"Why shouldn't he get a job of sorts out in the Argentine? There ought to be heaps of sound jobs

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148 going there for a chap like Wyatt. He's a jolly good shot, to start with. I shouldn't wonder if it wasn't rather a score to be able to shoot out there. And he can ride, I know."

"By Jove, I'll write to father to-night. He must be able to work it, I should think. He never chucked the show altogether, did he?"

Mike, as most other boys of his age would have been, was profoundly ignorant as to the details by which his father's money had been, or was being, made. He only knew vaguely that the source of revenue had something to do with the Argentine. His brother Joe had been born in Buenos Ayres; and once, three years ago, his father had gone over there for a visit, presumably on business. All these things seemed to show that Mr. Jackson senior was a useful man to have about if you wanted a job in that Eldorado, the Argentine Republic.

As a matter of fact, Mike's father owned vast tracts of land up country, where countless sheep lived and had their being. He had long retired from active superintendence of his estate. Like Mr. Spenlow, he had a partner, a stout fellow with the work-taint highly developed, who asked nothing better than to be left in charge. So Mr. Jackson had returned to the home of his fathers, glad to be there again. But he still had a decided voice in the ordering of affairs on the ranches, and Mike was going to the fountain-head of things when he wrote to his father that night, putting forward Wyatt's claims to attention and ability to perform any sort of job with which he might be presented.

The reflection that he had done all that could be done tended to console him for the non-appearance of Wyatt either that night or next morning—a non-appearance which was due to the simple fact that he passed that night in a bed in Mr. Wain's dressing-room, the door of which that cautious pedagogue, who believed in taking no chances, locked from the outside on retiring to rest.

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Rh

got an answer from his father on the morning of the Ripton match. A letter from Wyatt also lay on his plate when he came down to breakfast.

Mr. Jackson's letter was short, but to the point. He said he would go and see Wyatt early in the next week. He added that being expelled from a public school was not the only qualification for success as a sheep-farmer, but that, if Mike's friend added to this a general intelligence and amiability, and a skill for picking off cats with an air-pistol and bull's-eyes with a Lee-Enfield, there was no reason why something should not be done for him. In any case he would buy him a lunch, so that Wyatt would extract at least some profit from his visit. He said that he hoped something could be managed. It was a pity that a boy accustomed to shoot cats should be condemned for the rest of his life to shoot nothing more exciting than his cuffs.

Wyatt's letter was longer. It might have been published under the title "My First Day in a Bank, by a Beginner." His advent had apparently caused little sensation. He had first had a brief conversation with the manager, which had run as follow [sic]

"Mr. Wyatt?"

"Yes, sir."

"H'm.… Sportsman?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cricketer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Play football?"

"Yes sir."

"H'm.… Racquets?"

"Yes, sir."

"Everything?"

"Yes, sir."

"H'm.… Well, you won't get any more of it now."

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150 After which a Mr. Blenkinsop had led him up to a vast ledger, in which he was to inscribe the addresses of all out-going letters. These letters he would then stamp, and subsequently take in bundles to the post office. Once a week he would be required to buy stamps. "If I were one of those Napoleons of Finance," wrote Wyatt, "I should cook the accounts, I suppose, and embezzle stamps to an incredible amount. But it doesn't seem in my line. I'm afraid I wasn't cut out for a business career. Still, I have stamped this letter at the expense of the office, and entered it up under the heading 'Sundries,' which is a sort of start. Look out for an article in the Wrykynian, 'Hints for Young Criminals, by J. Wyatt, champion catch-as-catch-can stamp-stealer of the British Isles.' So long. I suppose you are playing against Ripton, now that the world of commerce has found that it can't get on without me. Mind you make a century, and then perhaps Burgess'll give you your first after all. There were twelve colours given three years ago, because one chap left at half-term and the man who played instead of him came off against Ripton."

This had occurred to Mike independently. The Ripton match was a special event, and the man who performed any outstanding feat against that school was treated as a sort of Horatius. Honours were heaped upon him. If he could only make a century! or even fifty. Even twenty, if it got the school out of a tight place. He was as nervous on the Saturday morning as he had been on the morning of the M.C.C. match. It was Victory or Westminster Abbey now. To do only averagely well, to be among the ruck, would be as useless as not playing at all, as far as his chance of his first was concerned.

It was evident to those who woke early on the Saturday morning that this Ripton match was not likely to end in a draw. During the Friday rain had fallen almost incessantly in a steady drizzle. It had stopped late at night; and at six in the morning there was every

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Rh prospect of another hot day. There was that feeling in the air which shows that the sun is trying to get through the clouds. The sky was a dull grey at breakfast time, except where a flush of deeper colour gave a hint of the sun. It was a day on which to win the toss, and go in first. At eleven- thirty, when the match was timed to begin, the wicket would be too wet to be difficult. Runs would come easily till the sun came out and began to dry the ground. When that happened there would be trouble for the side that was batting.

Burgess, inspecting the wicket with Mr. Spence during the quarter to eleven interval, was not slow to recognise this fact.

"I should win the toss to-day, if I were you, Burgess," said Mr. Spence.

"Just what I was thinking, sir."

"That wicket's going to get nasty after lunch, if the sun comes out. A regular Rhodes wicket it's going to be."

"I wish we had Rhodes," said Burgess. "Or even Wyatt. It would just suit him, this."

Mr. Spence, as a member of the staff, was not going to be drawn into discussing Wyatt and his premature departure, so he diverted the conversation on to the subject of the general aspect of the school's attack.

"Who will go on first with you, Burgess? "

"Who do you think, sir? Ellerby? It might be his wicket."

Ellerby bowled medium inclining to slow. On a pitch that suited him he was apt to turn from leg and get people out caught at the wicket or short slip.

"Certainly, Ellerby. This end, I think. The other's yours, though I'm afraid you'll have a poor time bowling fast to-day. Even with plenty of sawdust I doubt if it will be possible to get a decent foothold till after lunch."

"I must win the toss," said Burgess. "It's a nuisance too, about our batting. Marsh will probably be dead out of form after being in the Infirmary so long. If he'd had a chance of getting a bit of practice yesterday, it might have been all right."

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152 "That rain will have a lot to answer for if we lose. On a dry, hard wicket I'm certain we should beat them four times out of six. I was talking to a man who played against them for the Nomads. He said that on a true wicket there was not a great deal of sting in their bowling, but that they've got a slow leg-break man who might be dangerous on a day like this. A boy called de Freece. I don't know of him. He wasn't in the team last year."

"I know the chap. He played wing three for them at footer against us this year on their ground. He was crocked when they came here. He's a pretty useful chap all round, I believe. Plays racquets for them too."

"Well, my friend said he had one very dangerous ball, of the Bosanquet type. Looks as if it were going away, and comes in instead."

"I don't think a lot of that," said Burgess ruefully. "One consolation is, though, that that sort of ball is easier to watch on a slow wicket. I must tell the fellows to look out for it."

"I should. And, above all, win the toss."

Burgess and Maclaine, the Ripton captain, were old acquaintances. They had been at the same private school, and they had played against one another at football and cricket for two years now.

"We'll go in first, Mac," said Burgess, as they met on the pavilion steps after they had changed.

"It's awfully good of you to suggest it," said Maclaine. "but I think we'll toss. It's a hobby of mine. You call."

"Heads."

"Tails it is. I ought to have warned you that you hadn't a chance. I've lost the toss five times running, so I was bound to win to-day."

"You'll put us in, I suppose?"

"Yes—after us."

"Oh, well, we sha'n't have long to wait for our knock,

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Rh that's a comfort. Buck up and send some one in, and let's get at you."

And Burgess went off to tell the ground-man to have plenty of sawdust ready, as he would want the field paved with it.

The policy of the Ripton team was obvious from the first over. They meant to force the game. Already the sun was beginning to peep through the haze. For about an hour run-getting ought to be a tolerably simple process; but after that hour singles would be as valuable as threes and boundaries an almost unheard-of luxury.

So Ripton went in to hit.

The policy proved successful for a time, as it generally does. Burgess, who relied on a run that was a series of tiger-like leaps culminating in a spring that suggested that he meant to lower the long jump record, found himself badly handicapped by the state of the ground. In spite of frequent libations of sawdust, he was compelled to tread cautiously, and this robbed his bowling of much of its pace. The score mounted rapidly. Twenty came in ten minutes. At thirty-five the first wicket fell, run out.

At sixty Ellerby, who had found the pitch too soft for him and had been expensive, gave place to Grant. Grant bowled what were supposed to be slow leg-breaks, but which did not always break. The change worked. Maclaine, after hitting the first two balls to the boundary, skied the third to Bob Jackson in the deep, and Bob, for whom constant practice had robbed this sort of catch of its terrors, held it.

A yorker from Burgess disposed of the next man before he could settle down; but the score, seventy-four for three wickets, was large enough in view of the fact that the pitch was already becoming more difficult, and was certain to get worse, to make Ripton feel that the advantage was with them. Another hour of play remained before lunch. The deterioration of the wicket would be

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154 slow during that period. The sun, which was now shining brightly, would put in its deadliest work from two o'clock onwards. Maclaine's instructions to his men were to go on hitting.

A too liberal interpretation of the meaning of the verb "to hit" led to the departure of two more Riptonians in the course of the next two overs. There is a certain type of school batsman who considers that to force the game means to swipe blindly at every ball on the chance of taking it half-volley. This policy sometimes leads to a boundary or two, as it did on this occasion, but it means that wickets will fall, as also happened now. Seventy-four for three became eighty-six for five. Burgess began to look happier.

His contentment increased when he got the next man leg-before-wicket with the total unaltered. At this rate Ripton would be out before lunch for under a hundred.

But the rot stopped with the fall of that wicket. Dashing tactics were laid aside. The pitch had begun to play tricks, and the pair now in settled down to watch the ball. They plodded on, scoring slowly and jerkily till the hands of the clock stood at half-past one. Then Ellerby, who had gone on again instead of Grant, beat the less steady of the pair with a ball that pitched on the middle stump and shot into the base of the off. A hundred and twenty had gone up on the board at the beginning of the over.

That period which is always so dangerous, when the wicket is bad, the ten minutes before lunch, proved fatal to two more of the enemy. The last man had just gone to the wickets, with the score at a hundred and thirty-one, when a quarter to two arrived, and with it the luncheon interval.

So far it was anybody's game.

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Rh

Ripton last-wicket man was de Freece, the slow bowler. He was apparently a young gentleman wholly free from the curse of nervousness. He wore a cheerful smile as he took guard before receiving the first ball after lunch, and Wrykyn had plenty of opportunity of seeing that that was his normal expression when at the wickets. There is often a certain looseness about the attack after lunch, and the bowler of googlies took advantage of it now. He seemed to be a batsman with only one hit; but he had also a very accurate eye, and his one hit, a semicircular stroke, which suggested the golf links rather than the cricket field, came off with distressing frequency. He mowed Burgess's first ball to the square-leg boundary, missed his second, and snicked the third for three over long-slip's head. The other batsman played out the over, and de Freece proceeded to treat Ellerby's bowling with equal familiarity. The scoringboard showed an increase of twenty as the result of three overs. Every run was invaluable now, and the Ripton contingent made the pavilion re-echo as a fluky shot over mid-on's head sent up the hundred and fifty.

There are few things more exasperating to the fielding side than a last-wicket stand. It resembles in its effect the dragging-out of a book or play after the dénouement has been reached. At the fall of the ninth wicket the fieldsmen nearly always look on their outing as finished. Just a ball or two to the last man, and it will be their turn to bat. If the last man insists on keeping them out in the field, they resent it.

What made it especially irritating now was the knowledge that a straight yorker would solve the whole thing. But when Burgess bowled a yorker, it was not straight. And when he bowled a straight ball, it was not a yorker. A four and a three to de Freece, and a four bye sent up a hundred and sixty.

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156 It was beginning to look as if this might go on for ever, when Ellerby, who had been missing the stumps by fractions of an inch, for the last ten minutes, did what Burgess had failed to do. He bowled a straight, medium-paced yorker, and de Freece, swiping at it with a bright smile, found his leg-stump knocked back. He had made twenty-eight. His record score, he explained to Mike, as they walked to the pavilion, for this or any ground.

The Ripton total was a hundred and sixty-six.

With the ground in its usual true, hard condition, Wrykyn would have gone in against a score of a hundred and sixty-six with the cheery intention of knocking off the runs for the loss of two or three wickets. It would have been a gentle canter for them.

But ordinary standards would not apply here. On a good wicket Wrykyn that season were a two hundred and fifty to three hundred side. On a bad wicket—well, they had met the Incogniti on a bad wicket, and their total—with Wyatt playing and making top score––had worked out at a hundred and seven.

A grim determination to do their best, rather than confidence that their best, when done, would be anything record-breaking, was the spirit which animated the team when they opened their innings.

And in five minutes this had changed to a dull gloom.

The tragedy started with the very first ball. It hardly seemed that the innings had begun, when Morris was seen to leave the crease, and make for the pavilion.

"It's that googly man," said Burgess blankly.

"What's happened?" shouted a voice from the interior of the first eleven room.

"Morris is out."

"Good gracious! How?" asked Ellerby, emerging from the room with one pad on his leg and the other in his hand.

"L.-b.-w. First ball."

"My aunt! Who's in next? Not me?"

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Rh "No. Berridge. For goodness sake, Berry, stick a bat in the way, and not your legs. Watch that de Freece man like a hawk. He breaks like sin all over the shop. Hullo, Morris! Bad luck! Were you out, do you think?" A batsman who has been given l.-b.-w. is always asked this question on his return to the pavilion, and he answers it in nine cases out of ten in the negative. Morris was the tenth case. He thought it was all right, he said.

"Thought the thing was going to break, but it didn't."

"Hear that, Berry? He doesn't always break. You must look out for that," said Burgess helpfully. Morris sat down and began to take off his pads.

"That chap'll have Berry, if he doesn't look out," he said.

But Berridge survived the ordeal. He turned his first ball to leg for a single.

This brought Marsh to the batting end; and the second tragedy occurred.

It was evident from the way he shaped that Marsh was short of practice. His visit to the Infirmary had taken the edge off his batting. He scratched awkwardly at three balls without hitting them. The last of the over had him in two minds. He started to play forward, changed his stroke suddenly and tried to step back, and the next moment the bails had shot up like the débris of a small explosion, and the wicket-keeper was clapping his gloved hands gently and slowly in the introspective, dreamy way wicket-keepers have on these occasions.

A silence that could be felt brooded over the pavilion.

The voice of the scorer, addressing from his little wooden hut the melancholy youth who was working the telegraph-board, broke it.

"One for two. Last man duck."

Ellerby echoed the remark. He got up, and took off his blazer.

"This is all right," he said, "isn't it! I wonder if the man at the other end is a sort of young Rhodes too!"

"Fortunately he was not. The star of the Ripton

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158 attack was evidently de Freece. The bowler at the other end looked fairly plain. He sent them down medium-pace, and on a good wicket would probably have been simple. But to-day there was danger in the most guileless-looking deliveries.

Berridge relieved the tension a little by playing safely through the over, and scoring a couple of twos off it. And when Ellerby not only survived the destructive de Freece's second over, but actually lifted a loose ball on to the roof of the scoring-hut, the cloud began perceptibly to lift. A no-ball in the same over sent up the first ten. Ten for two was not good; but it was considerably better than one for two.

With the score at thirty, Ellerby was missed in the slips off de Freece. He had been playing with slowly increasing confidence till then, but this seemed to throw him out of his stride. He played inside the next ball, and was all but bowled: and then, jumping out to drive, he was smartly stumped. The cloud began to settle again.

Bob was the next man in.

Ellerby took off his pads, and dropped into the chair next to Mike's. Mike was silent and thoughtful. He was in after Bob, and to be on the eve of batting does not make one conversational.

"You in next?" asked Ellerby.

Mike nodded.

"It's getting trickier every minute," said Ellerby. "The only thing is, if we can only stay in, we might have a chance. The wicket'll get better, and I don't believe they've any bowling at all bar de Freece. By George, Bob's out! … No, he isn't."

Bob had jumped out at one of de Freece's slows, as Ellerby had done, and had nearly met the same fate. The wicket-keeper, however, had fumbled the ball.

"That's the way I was had," said Ellerby. "That man's keeping such a jolly good length that you don't know whether to stay in your ground or go out at them. If only somebody would knock him off his length, I believe we might win yet."

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Rh The same idea apparently occurred to Burgess. He came to where Mike was sitting.

"I'm going to shove you down one, Jackson," he said. "I shall go in next myself and swipe, and try and knock that man de Freece off."

"All right," said Mike. He was not quite sure whether he was glad or sorry at the respite.

"It's a pity old Wyatt isn't here," said Ellerby. "This is just the sort of time when he might have come off."

"Bob's broken his egg," said Mike.

"Good man. Every little helps.… Oh, you silly ass, get back!"

Berridge had called Bob for a short run that was obviously no run. Third man was returning the ball as the batsmen crossed. The next moment the wicket-keeper had the bails off. Berridge was out by a yard.

"Forty-one for four," said Ellerby. "Help!"

Burgess began his campaign against de Freece by skying his first ball over cover's head to the boundary. A howl of delight went up from the school, which was repeated, fortissimo, when, more by accident than by accurate timing, the captain put on two more fours past extra-cover. The bowler's cheerful smile never varied.

Whether Burgess would have knocked de Freece off his length or not was a question that was destined to remain unsolved, for in the middle of the other bowler's over Bob hit a single; the batsmen crossed; and Burgess had his leg-stump uprooted while trying a gigantic pull-stroke.

The melancholy youth put up the figures, 54, 5, 12, on the board.

Mike, as he walked out of the pavilion to join Bob, was not conscious of any particular nervousness. It had been an ordeal having to wait and look on while wickets fell, but now that the time of inaction was at an end he felt curiously composed. When he had gone out to bat against the M.C.C. on the occasion of his first appearance for the school, he experienced a quaint sensation of

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160 unreality. He seemed to be watching his body walking to the wickets, as if it were some one else's. There was no sense of individuality.

But now his feelings were different. He was cool. He noticed small things—mid-off chewing bits of grass, the bowler re-tying the scarf round his waist, little patches of brown where the turf had been worn away. He took guard with a clear picture of the positions of the fieldsmen photographed on his brain.

Fitness, which in a batsman exhibits itself mainly in an increased power of seeing the ball, is one of the most inexplicable things connected with cricket. It has nothing, or very little, to do with actual health. A man may come out of a sick-room with just that extra quickness in sighting the ball that makes all the difference; or he may be in perfect training and play inside straight half-volleys. Mike would not have said that he felt more than ordinarily well that day. Indeed, he was rather painfully conscious of having bolted his food at lunch. But something seemed to whisper to him, as he settled himself to face the bowler, that he was at the top of his batting form. A difficult wicket always brought out his latent powers as a bat. It was a standing mystery with the sporting Press how Joe Jackson managed to collect fifties and sixties on wickets that completely upset men who were, apparently, finer players. On days when the Olympians of the cricket world were bringing their averages down with ducks and singles, Joe would be in his element, watching the ball and pushing it through the slips as if there were no such thing as a tricky wicket. And Mike took after Joe.

A single off the fifth ball of the over opened his score and brought him to the opposite end. Bob played ball number six back to the bowler, and Mike took guard preparatory to facing de Freece.

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Rh little jump in the middle of the run increased the difficulty of watching him.

The smiting he had received from Burgess in the previous over had not had the effect of knocking de Freece off his length. The ball was too short to reach with comfort, and not short enough to take liberties with. It pitched slightly to leg, and whipped in quickly. Mike had faced half-left, and stepped back. The increased speed of the ball after it had touched the ground beat him. The ball hit his right pad.

"'S that?" shouted mid-on. Mid-on has a habit of appealing for l.-b.-w. in school matches.

De Freece said nothing. The Ripton bowler was as conscientious in the matter of appeals as a good bowler should be. He had seen that the ball had pitched off the leg-stump.

The umpire shook his head. Mid-on tried to look as if he had not spoken.

Mike prepared himself for the next ball with a glow of confidence. He felt that he knew where he was now. Till then he had not thought the wicket was so fast. The two balls he had played at the other end had told him nothing. They had been well pitched up, and he had smothered them. He knew what to do now. He had played on wickets of this pace at home against Saunders's bowling, and Saunders had shown him the right way to cope with them.

The next ball was of the same length, but this time off the off-stump. Mike jumped out, and hit it before it had time to break. It flew along the ground through the gap between cover and extra-cover, a comfortable three.

Bob played out the over with elaborate care.

Off the second ball of the other man's over Mike scored his first boundary. It was a long-hop on the off. He banged it behind point to the terrace-bank. The last ball of the over, a half-volley to leg, he lifted over the other boundary.

"Sixty up," said Ellerby, in the pavilion, as the

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162 umpire signalled another no-ball. "By George! I believe these chaps are going to knock off the runs. Young Jackson looks as if he was in for a century."

"You ass," said Berridge. "Don't say that, or he's certain to get out."

Berridge was one of those who are skilled in cricket superstitions.

But Mike did not get out. He took seven off de Freece's next over by means of two cuts and a drive. And, with Bob still exhibiting a stolid and rock-like defence, the score mounted to eighty, thence to ninety, and so, mainly by singles, to a hundred.

At a hundred and four, when the wicket had put on exactly fifty, Bob fell to a combination of de Freece and extra-cover. He had stuck like a limpet for an hour and a quarter, and made twenty-one.

Mike watched him go with much the same feelings as those of a man who turns away from the platform after seeing a friend off on a long railway journey. His departure upset the scheme of things. For himself he had no fear now. He might possibly get out off his next ball, but he felt set enough to stay at the wickets till nightfall. He had had narrow escapes from de Freece, but he was full of that conviction, which comes to all batsmen on occasion, that this was his day. He had made twenty-six, and the wicket was getting easier. He could feel the sting going out of the bowling every over.

Henfrey, the next man in, was a promising rather than an effective bat. He had an excellent style, but he was uncertain. [Two years later, when he captained the Wrykyn teams, he made a lot of runs.] But this season his batting had been spasmodic.

To-day he never looked like settling down. He survived an over from de Freece, and hit a fast change bowler who had been put on at the other end for a couple of fluky fours. Then Mike got the bowling for three consecutive overs, and raised the score to a hundred and twenty-six. A bye brought Henfrey to the batting end again, and de Freece's pet googly, which had not been

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Rh much in evidence hitherto, led to his snicking an easy catch into short-slip's hands.

A hundred and twenty-seven for seven against a total of a hundred and sixty-six gives the impression that the batting side has the advantage. In the present case, however, it was Ripton who were really in the better position. Apparently, Wrykyn had three more wickets to fall. Practically they had only one, for neither Ashe, nor Grant, nor Devenish had any pretensions to be considered batsmen. Ashe was the school wicket-keeper. Grant and Devenish were bowlers. Between them the three could not be relied on for a dozen in a decent match.

Mike watched Ashe shape with a sinking heart. The wicket-keeper looked like a man who feels that his hour has come. Mike could see him licking his lips. There was nervousness written all over him.

He was not kept long in suspense. De Freece's first ball made a hideous wreck of his wicket.

"Over," said the umpire.

Mike felt that the school's one chance now lay in his keeping the bowling. But how was he to do this? It suddenly occurred to him that it was a delicate position that he was in. It was not often that he was troubled by an inconvenient modesty, but this happened now. Grant was a fellow he hardly knew, and a school prefect to boot. Could he go up to him and explain that he, Jackson, did not consider him competent to bat in this crisis? Would not this get about and be accounted to him for side? He had made forty, but even so.…

Fortunately Grant solved the problem on his own account. He came up to Mike and spoke with an earnestness born of nerves. "For goodness sake," he whispered, "collar the bowling all you know, or we're done. I shall get outed first ball."

"All right," said Mike, and set his teeth. Forty to win! A large order. But it was going to be done. His whole existence seemed to concentrate itself on those forty runs.

The fast bowler, who was the last of several changes

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164 that had been tried at the other end, was well-meaning but erratic. The wicket was almost true again now, and it was possible to take liberties.

Mike took them.

A distant clapping from the pavilion, taken up a moment later all round the ground, and echoed by the Ripton fieldsmen, announced that he had reached his fifty.

The last ball of the over he mishit. It rolled in the direction of third man.

"Come on," shouted Grant.

Mike and the ball arrived at the opposite wicket almost simultaneously. Another fraction of a second, and he would have been run out.

The last balls of the next two overs provided repetitions of this performance. But each time luck was with him, and his bat was across the crease before the bails were off. The telegraph-board showed a hundred and fifty.

The next over was doubly sensational. The original medium-paced bowler had gone on again in place of the fast man, and for the first five balls he could not find his length. During those five balls Mike raised the score to a hundred and sixty.

But the sixth was of a different kind. Faster than the rest and of a perfect length, it all but got through Mike's defence. As it was, he stopped it. But he did not score. The umpire called "Over!" and there was Grant at the batting end, with de Freece smiling pleasantly as he walked back to begin his run with the comfortable reflection that at last he had got somebody except Mike to bowl at.

That over was an experience Mike never forgot.

Grant pursued the Fabian policy of keeping his bat almost immovable and trusting to luck. Point and the slips crowded round. Mid-off and mid-on moved halfway down the pitch. Grant looked embarrassed, but determined. For four balls he baffled the attack, though once nearly caught by point a yard from the wicket. The fifth curled round his bat, and touched the offstump. A bail fell silently to the ground.

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Rh Devenish came in to take the last ball of the over.

It was an awe-inspiring moment. A great stillness was over all the ground. Mike's knees trembled. Devenish's face was a delicate grey.

The only person unmoved seemed to be de Freece. His smile was even more amiable than usual as he began his run.

The next moment the crisis was past. The ball hit the very centre of Devenish's bat, and rolled back down the pitch.

The school broke into one great howl of joy. There were still seven runs between them and victory, but nobody appeared to recognise this fact as important. Mike had got the bowling, and the bowling was not de Freece's.

It seemed almost an anti-climax when a four to leg and two two's through the slips settled the thing.

Devenish was caught and bowled in de Freece's next over; but the Wrykyn total was one hundred and seventy-two.

"Good game," said Maclaine, meeting Burgess in the pavilion. "Who was the man who made all the runs? How many, by the way?"

"Eighty-three. It was young Jackson. Brother of the other one."

"That family! How many more of them are you going to have here?"

"He's the last. I say, rough luck on de Freece. He bowled rippingly."

Politeness to a beaten foe caused Burgess to change his usual "not bad."

"The funny part of it is," continued he, "that young Jackson was only playing as a sub."

"You've got a rum idea of what's funny," said Maclaine.

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166

was a morning in the middle of September. The Jacksons were breakfasting. Mr. Jackson was reading letters. The rest, including Gladys Maud, whose finely chiselled features were gradually disappearing behind a mask of bread-and-milk, had settled down to serious work. The usual catch-as-catch-can contest between Marjory and Phyllis for the jam (referee and timekeeper, Mrs. Jackson) had resulted, after both combatants had been cautioned by the referee, in a victory for Marjory, who had duly secured the stakes. The hour being nine-fifteen, and the official time for breakfast nine o'clock, Mike's place was still empty.

"I've had a letter from MacPherson," said Mr. Jackson.

MacPherson was the vigorous and persevering gentleman, referred to in a previous chapter, who kept a fatherly eye on the Buenos Ayres sheep.

"He seems very satisfied with Mike's friend Wyatt. At the moment of writing Wyatt is apparently incapacitated owing to a bullet in the shoulder, but expects to be fit again shortly. That young man seems to make things fairly lively wherever he is. I don't wonder he found a public school too restricted a sphere for his energies."

"Has he been fighting a duel?" asked Marjory, interested.

"Bushrangers," said Phyllis.

"There aren't any bushrangers in Buenos Ayres," said Ella.

"How do you know?" said Phyllis clinchingly.

"Bush-ray, bush-ray, bush-ray," began Gladys Maud, conversationally, through the bread-and-milk; but was headed off.

"He gives no details. Perhaps that letter on Mike's plate supplies them. I see it comes from Buenos Ayres."

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Rh "I wish Mike would come and open it," said Marjory. "Shall I go and hurry him up?"

The missing member of the family entered as she spoke.

"Buck up, Mike," she shouted. "There's a letter from Wyatt. He's been wounded in a duel."

"With a bushranger," added Phyllls.

"Bush-ray," explained Gladys Maud.

"Is there?" said Mike. "Sorry I'm late."

He opened the letter and began to read.

"What does he say?" inquired Marjory. "Who was the duel with?"

"How many bushrangers were there?" asked Phyllls.

Mike read on.

"Good old Wyatt! He's shot a man."

"Killed him?" asked Marjory excitedly.

"No. Only potted him in the leg. This is what he says. First page is mostly about the Ripton match and so on. Here you are. 'I'm dictating this to a sportsman of the name of Danvers, a good chap who can't help being ugly, so excuse bad writing. The fact is we've been having a bust-up here, and I've come out of it with a bullet in the shoulder, which has crocked me for the time being. It happened like this. An ass of a Gaucho had gone into the town and got jolly tight, and coming back, he wanted to ride through our place. The old woman who keeps the lodge wouldn't have it at any price. Gave him the absolute miss-in-baulk. So this rotter, instead of shifting off, proceeded to cut the fence, and go through that way. All the farms out here have their boundaries marked by wire fences, and it is supposed to be a deadly sin to cut these. Well, the lodge-keeper's son dashed off in search of help. A chap called Chester, an Old Wykehamist, and I were dipping sheep close by, so he came to us and told us what had happened. We nipped on to a couple of horses, pulled out our revolvers, and tooled after him. After a bit we overtook him, and that's when the trouble began. The johnny had

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168 when we arrived. I thought he was simply tightening his horse's girths. What he was really doing was getting a steady aim at us with his revolver. He fired as we came up, and dropped poor old Chester. I thought he was killed at first, but it turned out it was only his leg. I got going then. I emptied all the six chambers of my revolver, and missed him clean every time. In the meantime he got me in the right shoulder. Hurt like sin afterwards, though it was only a sort of dull shock at the moment. The next item of the programme was a forward move in force on the part of the enemy. The man had got his knife out now—why he didn't shoot again I don't know—and toddled over in our direction to finish us off. Chester was unconscious, and it was any money on the Gaucho, when I happened to catch sight of Chester's pistol, which had fallen just by where I came down. I picked it up, and loosed off. Missed the first shot, but got him with the second in the ankle at about two yards; and his day's work was done. That's the painful story. Danvers says he's getting writer's cramp, so I shall have to stop.…'"

"By Jove!" said Mike.

"What a dreadful thing!" said Mrs. Jackson.

"Anyhow, it was practically a bushranger," said Phyllis.

"I told you it was a duel, and so it was," said Marjory.

"What a terrible experience for the poor boy!" said Mrs. Jackson.

"Much better than being in a beastly bank," said Mike, summing up. "I'm glad he's having such a ripping time. It must be almost as decent as Wrykyn out there.… I say, what's under that dish?"

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Rh

years have elapsed and Mike is home again for the Easter holidays.

If Mike had been in time for breakfast that morning he might have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr. Jackson opened the envelope containing his school report and read the contents, that the document in question was not exactly a pæan of praise from beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was late for breakfast in the holidays.

When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over. Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs. Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for the jam, while Marjory, who had put her hair up a fortnight before, looked on in a detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.

"Hullo, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered; "here you are—I've been keeping everything hot for you."

"Have you? Thanks awfully. I say—" his eye wandered in mild surprise round the table. "I'm a bit late."

Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she always did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing thoroughly. She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they made centuries in first-class cricket, but Mike was her favourite. She would field out in the deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at the net in the paddock, though for the others, even for Joe, who had played in all five Test Matches in the previous summer, she would do it only as a favour.

Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the table and watched Mike eat.

"Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.

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170 The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up interested. "What did it say?"

"I didn't see—I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the envelope. Father didn't say anything."

Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."

"It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when you were in his form."

"No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any more tea in that pot?"

"I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."

"Last summer he said he'd take me away if I got another one."

"He didn't mean it really, I know he didn't! He couldn't! You're the best bat Wrykyn's ever had."

"What ho!" interpolated Mike.

"You are. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very first term you were there—even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good as that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another year or two."

"Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half-volley on the off the first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out at the net now. Let's go and see."

Saunders was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike put on his pads and went to the wickets, while Marjory and the dogs retired as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.

She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons now, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had filled out in three years. He had

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Rh always had the style, and now he had the strength as well. Saunders's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple to him. It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was beginning to find his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own special invention, was delighted.

"If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain, Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."

"I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."

Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no light thing to captain a public school at cricket.

As he was walking towards the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been hunting for you, Mike; father wants you."

"What for?"

"I don't know."

"Where?"

"He's in the study. He seems—" added Phyllis, throwing in the information by way of a make-weight, "in a beastly wax."

Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with that bally report," was his muttered exclamation.

Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the placid sea of good-fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was an unfailing wind-raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's sarcastic résumé of Mike's short-comings at the end of the previous term, there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of

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172 removing Mike from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.

It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson entered the study.

"Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the wastepaper basket; "I want to speak to you."

Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.

There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he had carted a half-volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that morning.

"It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out—may I bag the paper-knife for a jiffy? I'll just show"

"Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen to this report."

"Oh, is that my report, father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.

"It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."

"Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.

"'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the extreme, both in and out of school.'"

"It wasn't anything really. I only happened"

Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a cannon-ball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on several occasions, he paused.

"'French bad; conduct disgraceful'"

"Everybody rags in French."

"'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"

"Nobody does much work in Math."

"'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"

"We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term—all speeches and doubtful readings, and cruxes and things—beastly hard! Everybody says so."

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Rh "Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he declines to use in the smallest degree.'"

Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.

"'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire in him to realise the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the same effect."

Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted a public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He understood cricket, and some of Mike's shots on the off gave him thrills of pure æsthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form-room was about as near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear firm hand.

"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike? " said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in its envelope.

Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.

"I shall abide by what I said."

Mike's heart thumped.

"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."

Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering; somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.

The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father, when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the normally easy-going man.

Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he said very little now.

"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.

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174 Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name—one of those schools with about a hundred fellows which you never hear of except when they send up their gymnasium pair to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley. Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps they didn't even play cricket!"

"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.

Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke drily to hide his sympathy.

"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit—boys work there. Young Barlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis-parties, but not much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics of conversation were not Mike's.

"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.

Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would have liked to have said.

train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half-hour, pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up, opened the door, and hurled a Gladstone bag out on to the platform in an emphatic and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.

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text:
Index talk:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu

Better scan
Available on Archive.org. This scan lacks the "Digitized by Microsoft" watermark and the cutting off of characters on the left side for some pages. -Einstein95 (talk) 21:04, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Glossary
Note that there is a glossary. For text integrity link the unusual words in the text to the glossary rather than to wiktionary. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 01:46, 10 September 2016 (UTC)


text:
Page:Basic Law of Hong Kong.djvu/5

Decree of the President of the People's Republic of China

The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China

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 foreign governments concerning arrangements for such services referred to in the first paragraph of this Article.

Article 133

Acting under specific authorizations from the Central People's Government, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may:

All scheduled air services to. from or through Hong Kong, which do not operate to. from or through the mainland of China shall be regulated by the air service agreements or provisional arrangements referred to in this Article.

Article 134

The Central People's Government shall give the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region the authority to:

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Article 135

Airlines incorporated and having their principal place of business in Hong Kong and businesses related to civil aviation functioning there prior to the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may continue to operate.

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 Article 130

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be responsible on its own for matters of routine business and technical management of civil aviation, including the management of airports, the provision of air traffic services within the flight information region of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the discharge of other responsibilities allocated to it under the regional air navigation procedures of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Article 131

The Central People's Government shall, in consultation with the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, make arrangements providing air services between the Region and other parts of the People's Republic of China for airlines incorporated in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and having their principal place of business in Hong Kong and other airlines of the People's Republic of China.

Article 132

All air service agreements providing air services between other parts of the People's Republic of China and other states and regions with stops at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and air services between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and other states and regions with stops at other parts of the People's Republic of China shall be concluded by the Central People's Government.

In concluding the air service agreements referred to in the first paragraph of this Article, the Central People's Government shall take account of the special conditions and economic interests of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and consult the government of the Region.

Representatives of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may, as members of the delegations of the Government of the People's Republic of China, participate in air service consultations conducted by the Central People's Government with

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Page:Ruffhead - The Statutes at Large - vol 2.djvu/19

 An Act for licencing the Butchers of London to kill their Cattle within the Walls of the same City. An Act for Confirmation of an Exchange of Lands, made between Henry Lord Marquess Dorsett and the Lord John Gray and other his younger Bretheren. An Act for Confirmation of an Exchange of Lands, made between the King and the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Christ-Church in Cambridge. An Act for Sir Richard Longe, Knight, for his better enjoying of the Manor of Shingaye.

S.

Anno 25 Henrici 8.

 AN Act concerning Grasiers and Butchers, and selling of Flesh by Weight. An Act for Proclamation to be made concerning Victuals. An Act that such Perfons as will stand mute, and not answer, when they are arraigned for Felony, shall lose the Benefit of Clergy.

An Act against Forestallers and Regrators.

An Act for the avoiding of Deceipts in callendring Worsteds.

An Act for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggery.

An Act against killing of young Spawn or Fry of Fish.

An Act for paving of Holbourn.

An Act concerning Pewterers.

An Act that every Commissioner of Sewers refusing to take the Oath appointed to be taken, shall forfeit to the King five Marks.

An Act against taking of Wild-Fowle between the last Day of May and the last Day of August.

An Act concerning the Attainder of Elizabeth Barton and others.

An Act limiting what Number of Sheep Men shall keep, occupy and have in their own Possession at one Time.

 An Act for Punishing of Heresy.

An Act concerning Printers and Binders of Books.

An Act that every Judge of the High Courts may have one Chaplain beneficed with Cure.

An Act concerning Shooting in Crows-bows and Hand-Guns.

An Act for Clothiers within the County of Worcester.

An Ast shewing the Submission of the Clergy to the King, and to give Power to certain Persons, with the King's Consent and Allowance, to make Canons and Constitutions.

An Act against Payment of First-fruits to the Pope, and the Manner how Bishops shall be elected.

An Act concerning Peter-pence and Dispensations.

An Act declaring the Establishment of the Succession of the King's most Royal Majesty in the Imperial Crown of this Realm.

S.

Anno 25 Henrici 8.

AN Act concerning the Town of Plymouth, containing a Discharge of Payment of 29l. 6 s. 3d. to the Prior of the Monastery of St. Peter and Paul in Plympton, and that the Parsonages of Ugburgh and Blackaveton shall be appropriated to the said Prior and his Successors in lieu thereof.

An Act for Confirmation of an Exchange of certain Lands between the Duke of Norfolk and the Heirs General of the Earl of Oxford.

An Act concerning the Queen's Jointure.

An Act concerning an Exchange between the King and the Abbot of Waltham.

An Act concerning the Deprivation of the Bishops of Sarum and Worcester, for their living beyond the Seas.

An Act concerning the Bishop of Norwich his Pardon, for suing in the Court of Rome for Things concerning the King.

An Act concerning the Lady Dowager Queen Katherine.

An Act for Confirmation of an Exchange made between the King and the Duke of Richmond on the one Part, and John Lord Lumley on the other Part.

An Act concerning the Pardon of Richard Southwell and others.

An Act concerning the Assurance of Chrst-church in London to the King and his Heirs.

An Act concerning the Attainder of John Woolse, his Wife, and others.

An Act for the Assurance of the Manor of Pyshoo, Pyshoo Park, and other Lands in the County of Hertford, to the king and his Heirs.

S.

Anno 26 Henrici 8.

AN Act concerning the King's Highness to be Supream Head of the Church of England, and to have Authority to redress all Errors, Heresies, and Abuses in the same.

An Act ratifying the Oath that every of the King's Subjects hath taken, and hereafter shall be bound to take, for due Observation of the Act made for the Surety of the Succeddion of the King's Highness in the Crown of the Realm.

An Act concerning the Payments of First-fruits of all Dignities, Benefices and Promotions Spiritual, and also concerning one annual Penfion of the tenth Part of all the Possessions of the Church, Spiritual and Temporal, granted to the King's Highness and his Heirs.

An Act for punishment of Perjury of Jurors in the Lordships Marchers in Wales.

An Act that Keepers of Ferries on the Water of Severn shall not convey in their Ferry-boats any Manner of Persons, Goods or Chattels, after the Sun going down till the Sun be up.

An Act that Murders and Felonies done or committed within any Lordships Marchers in Wales, shall be inquired of at the Sessions holden within the Shire-ground next adjoining, with many good Orders for Minsitration of Justice there to be had.

An Act for amending of Highways in Sussex.

An Act for the re-edifying of void Grounds in the City of Norwich.

An Act for the re-edifying of void Grounds within the Town of Lyn.

An Act whereby the King's Highness hath Authority to repeal the Statute made for Restraint of Wines to come in afore Candlemas.

An Act for Punishment of Welsh-Men attempting Assaults or Frays upon any the Inhabitants of Hereford, Glocester and Salop.

An Act for Purgation of Convicts in Wales.

An Act whereby divers Offences be made Hiqh Treason, and taking away all Sanctuaries for all Manner of High Treasons.

An Act for Nomination and Consecration of Suffragans within this Realm.

An Act for taking away certain Exactions taken within the Archdeaconry of Richmond by Spiritual Men.

16. An


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Page:Appeal to the Christian women of the South (Grimké, 1836).djvu/27

25 roar of the cannon came rolling onward, from the Texian country, where Protestant American Rebels are fighting with Mexican Republicans—for what? For the re-establishment of slavery; yes! of American slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic, where that system of robbery, violence, and wrong, had been legally abolished for twelve years. Yes! citizens of the United States, after plundering Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict, for the privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles—upon whom? upon the subjects of some foreign prince? No! upon native born American Republican citizens, although the fathers of these very men declared to the whole world, while struggling to free themselves from the three penny taxes of an English king, that they believed it to be a self-evident truth that all men were created equal, and had an unalienable right to liberty.

Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,

Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times; do you not see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or are you still slumbering at your posts?—Are there no Shiphrahs, no Puahs among you, who will dare in Christian firmness and Christian meekness, to refuse to obey the wicked laws which require woman to enslave, to degrade and to brutalize woman? Are there no Miriams, who would rejoice to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern States to liberty and light? Are there no Huldahs there who will dare to speak the truth concerning the sins of the people and those judgments, which it requires no prophet's eye to see, must follow if repentance is not speedily sought? Is there no Esther among you who will plead for the poor devoted slave? Read the history of this Persian queen, it is full of instruction; she at first refused to plead for the Jews; but, hear the words of Mordecai, "Think not within thyself, that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews, for if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed." Listen, too, to her magnanimous reply to this powerful appeal; "I will go in unto the king, which is not according to law, and if I perish, I perish." Yes! if there were but one Esther at the South, she might save her country from ruin; but let the Christian women there arise, as the Christian women of Great Britain did, in the majesty of moral power, and that salvation is certain. Let them embody themselves in societies, and send petitions up to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, to abolish the institution of slavery; no longer to subject woman to the scourge and the chain, to mental darkness and moral degradation; no longer to tear husbands from their wives, and children from their parents; no longer to make men, women, and children, work without wages; no longer to make their lives bitter in hard bondage; no longer to reduce American


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Rh Before his eyes all fixed, corporeal things

Melted to vision, his habitual world;

And all experience to his hand was clay,

The stuff of life, wherein his moulding thought

Mysterious moved, and fashioned, like a god's,—

The poet's art-instinctive in his life,

Not for the world, but his own natural breath

Whereby he greatened and grew into man,

True man and whole, at one with this dark frame,

By penetration mastering the sphere

In secret study, and at one with man,

Merging with men by love and sympathy

And old imaginations fusing might

Confederating man in human fate.

Now on he bore unto the place of dread,

Youth gone and manhood come; soon should his soul

Encounter fate; slowly those mountains rose,

And morning turned to night upon their slopes,

And in their shadow now the Roamer moved,

And nothing else but that great vision saw

Of earth or heaven or any human face.

Up soared aloft the lone eternal steep;

He knew the Range that borders on the night—

To North and South its summits blocked the sky,

Before in silence stood its awful front;


text:
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24 And, irresistible, the terror fell,

And, irrepressible, the longing broke,—

Terror that seizes on the spirit spent,

Longing that swells within the homeless heart,

To yield the soul's adventure and the search,

To kiss our mother-earth, and so to end;

And o'er the long years trembling came the song

From that fair valley where his joy began,

And bird-like beat against his prison bars:

"The new grass springs, and red the willow glows;

O'er fallen showers, sweet-breathed, the rainbow smiles,

And sunset floods the fields; as in a lake

Reflected lies the bow along the grass

Rain-beaded, and is brighter in the grass

It lies on; in the black loam gleams the plough;

And all the land is freshened with the rain.

Now twilight falls, star-clear; the flowers shut;

The hills shine low—O, wilt thou never come?

The woods oblivious, venerable, dim,

Loved by the winds, and loved by quiet stars,

Listen for thee as for the feet of spring,

And 'O sweet truant' cry and cry in vain;


text:
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Rh 'The singing birds are come, but not thy voice;'

And to the sea they send their fragrant breath—

'Roams now the Child in thy dear charge' they call;

And voiceless is the beach, and echo flown;

And Ocean's self, whose benedictions move

Still blessèd in thy blood, sets in to shore,

And landward calls the wandering waves with him;

But One no more he shepherds whom he loved.

O, thou ungrateful, why dost thou delay?

Too far into the West thy roaming is!

Too long upon thy ocean-cherished eyes,

Brown, bleak, and bare, withers the wind-blown waste;

No fresh-turned field, no glade of violets there,

Nor far gleams of the emerald winter-wheat,

Nor drifts of orchard-blossoms on the hills,

Nor garden-plot, nor tree, nor lilac-spray!

Now homeward through the moonlight-darkened fields

The lover goes; the fire-flies flash; but he

Sees one sweet face that held the rosy West"—

As one who thinks of her he may not love,

And feels his eyes o'erbrim with wasted light,


text:
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26 He sighed, and, sighing, kept the herbless way.

Beneath the gorge a stronger music rose,

And swept a noble anger from the strings,

The chord of glory smote,—loud rang the song:

"Ah far behind, ah far behind thee rise

The towered cities where the people toil,

Builders of life, as their dead fathers were;

And, as their fathers, still they seek the man

Heroic, framed for action, loving Christ;

The laurel withers while the tribune waits;

He fears, nor guesses how his thought shall burst,

The hope that gathers in ten thousand hearts,

The sun-like deed that blesses half the World!

Weak is his single might, but strong is man's,

And giant-like bears up from age to age

The starry load. O, let the burden fall!

Weep, O lost people, for the Leader lost,

Into the desert gone, the forfeiter!

His heart shall dry, his dead soul drags him down;

The plague shall prosper him who hath forgot

The cords of birth, of country, and of kind,

The bonds unforced and mystery of love,

The heaven-conjoinèd league, the state to be!

Friendless he goes, nor gives his brother aid;


text:
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Rh Tribeless, his ancient heritage betrayed;

Alone, he is belittled to himself!

O, heavily fate's scorn shall fall on him;

Far in the waste upon his track prowls death;

Unmourned he drops; unburied shall he lie;

The wild beast's portion and the vulture's perch;

The outcast, whitening in the passing winds;

The fool, erased from human memory!"

"All ye remembered years, upbear me now!"

The Roamer cried, descending down the dark;

And he was shut in that tremendous pass

Whose exit lay on sky-hung capes unknown,

On seas of death perchance; for well he knew

The frailty that the wasting years had wrought,

And his stern need, O, not of youth's green strength

Undisciplined, but that all-secret proof

Which from defeat its perfect temper takes,—

The wisdom of how much the weak can dare;

And he had learned in what close mail he goes,

How steadfast, who doth own his ruin just,

But dares despair not of the deeds to be.

The hollow track fell downward through the gulch,

By dropping eaves and cones of shadow swept;


text:
Page:Ruffhead - The Statutes at Large - vol 2.djvu/581

A. D. 1558. Mansion or Dwelling-House or Houses or any of them, or to take any other Lands or tenements commonly used and kept in the Manurance, Tillage or Manual Occupation of any Archbishop or Bisop, for the Maintenance of Hospitality and good Housekeeping; any Thing in this Act contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

IV. Saving to all and every Person and Persons, Bodies Politick and Corporate, their Heirs and Successors, and to the Heirs and Successors of every of them, other than the said Archbishops and Bishops and their sucessors, all such Estate, Right, Title, Term, Interest, Rent, Profit, Offices or Commodities as they or any of them have, should, might or ought to have had, in or to any Honours, Castles, Manors, Lands, Tenements or other Hereditaments whatsoever, in such like Manner. Form and Condition, to all intent and Purposes, as if this Act had never been had nor made; any Thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

V. And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That all Gift, Grants, Feoffments, Fines or other Conveyance or Estates, from the first Day of this present Parliament, to be had, made, done or suffered by any Archbishop or Bishop, of any Honours, Castles, Manors, Lands, Tenements or other Hereditaments, being Parcel of the Possessions of his Archbishopriek or Bishoprick, or united, appertaining or belonging to any the same Archbishopricks or Bishopricks, to any Person or Persons, Bodies Politick or Corporate, other than to the Queen's Highness, her Heirs or Successors, whereby any Estate or Estates should or may pass from the same Archbishops or Bishops or any of them, other than for the Term of xxi. Years or three lives, from such Time as any such Lease Estates fliould or may pafs from the fame Archbifhops or Biftiops or any of them, other than for the fcfgfl' ,07 ** Term of xxj. Years or three Lives, from fuch Time as any fuch Leafc, Grant or Affurancc fhall begin, c- .c-r. 16J4*. and whereupon the old accuftomed yearly Rent or more, fhall be referved and payable yearly during/'..:. ,". s. 5O4. the faid Term of xxj. Years or three Lives, fhall be utterly void and of none Effect, to all Intents, Con- ductions and Purpofcsj, any Law, Cuftom or Ufagc to the contrary in any wife notwithftanding.

P. XX.

A Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage, granted to the Queen during her Life, payable out of divers Merchandises EXP.

{{center|{{larger|{{sp|CA}}P. XXI.}}

An Act of a Subsidie and two Fifteenes and Tenth, by the Temporaltie. See Appendix.

{{center|{{larger|{{sp|CA}}P. XXII.}}}}

{{R sidenote|PR. & EXP.}}An Act giving Authority to the Queen during her Life to make Ordinances in Collegiate Churches and Schools.

{{rule}}

{{center|{{xx-larger|Anno quinto Reginæ {{sc|{{sp|Elizabeth}}æ.}}}} }}

{{dropinitial|A}}{{uc|t}} the Parliament holden at Westminster the twelfth Day of January in the fifth Year of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, &c.. To the high Pleasure of Almighty God, and the Weal Publick of this Realm, were enacted as followeth. {{center|{{larger block|{{sp|CA}}P. I.

An Act for the Assurance of the Queen's Royal Power over all Estates and Subjects within her Dominions.}}}}

{{di|F|fl='}}OR Preservation of the Queen's most excellent Highness, her Heirs and Successors, and the Dig- nity of the Imperial Crown of this Realm of England, and for avoiding both of such Hurts, Perils, Dishonours and Inconveniencies, as have before-time befallen, as well to the Queen's Majesty's Noble Progenitors, Kings of this Realm, as for the whole Eatate thereof, by Means of the Juriadiction and. Power of the See of Rome, unjustly claimed and usurped within this Realm and the Dominions thereof, and also of the Dangers by the Fautors of the said usurped Power, at this Time grown to marvellous Outrage and licencious Boldness, and now requiring more sharp Restraint and Correction of Laws, than hitherto in the Time of the Queen's Majesty's most mild and merciful Reign have been had, used or established:'

II. Be it therefore enacted, ordained and established by the Queen our Sovereign Lady, and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament asembled, and by Authority of the same, That if any Person and Persons, dwelling, inhabiting, or resiant within this Realm, or within any other the Queen's Dominions, Seigniories, or Countries, or in the Marches of the same, or else- where within or under her Obeysance and power of what Estate, Dignity, Prheminence, order, De- gree or Condition, soever he or they, be after the first Day of April which shall be in the Year of our Lord God one thousand five hundred and sixty-three, shall by Writing, Chyphering, Printign or Preaching or Teaching, Deed or Act, advisedly and wittingly hold or stand with, to extol, set forth, maintain or {{hws|s=de|e=fend}} {{right|fend}} {{sidenotes end}}


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28 And straightway to a sinking gulf it came,

Tortuous and vague, with glimpses of the moon

Seaming the rock far on; sheer from the pit

The wall adverse, one bulging precipice,

With random ledges ribbed of pine and fir,

Struck heaven, and eclipsed the highest stars;

Upon the hither side the fissure hugged

The scaling way, and from its hungry gloom,

That felt the beam of light in his young eyes,

The blind deep seemed to heave its wandering arms.

Upon the brink profound his cold hand clung,

Now, past the jut, pursued the crumbled shelf,

And won beyond, where cliffs retreating rolled

A vast moraine, steep-furrowed by old floods—

Far-reaching swells, like billowy seas aslant,

Where many a rocky bed poured headlong down;

And higher up the swaying slopes he rose,

And further to the rent the rough slide fell,

O'er which the loose stones clattered, heard no more.

The winds dropped down; black clouds like bars shot o'er;

And, opposite, the pine-sheathed mountain moaned.

On many a mortal death he set his foot;

Not these he feared; he feared the heart within;


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Rh Treason and guile he feared, and silent arms.

Then stooped the foe, no more as when he shone

Upon the front and promise of this world

The morning star; nor when in gloom he came,

Not less majestic than the eternal force

And regnancy of Nature; dark with peril,

And to the death engaged, his war drew on,

Winding like thought within the doubtful brain,

Warping imagination to his will,

Transforming to his semblance every sense;

And in the spirit, ere the mortal throe,

Failure foreseen, and scorn to be betrayed,

The yearning of the long impetuous years

To loathing turned, the dying flame of hope

Leaping in anger at the long deceit;

And utterance indistinguishable arose,

That sometimes on the waking sense alarmed

Strikes undetermined whether thought or sound;

From crag and cleft "this air-built goal" it shot,

Doubtful, and fled upon the vagrant gust;

"Courage," it shrieked, and leaped in the abyss;

"The hounds of vengeance on his track are hot,

Therefore he hastes," it struck the rock behind.

The lonely steep grew spectral to his gaze;

He seemed to see them spring from cirque and cairn,


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30 Who perished here at last,—some, trembling things,

Dropped from the talons of the heavenly bird,

Conscience, whose quarry is the gentle heart;

Some, blown by folly or haled on by crime;

Some, led by lights that seemed earth's morning stars,

Spirits of joyful trust, whom most he loved,

Forerunners of his hope; all darkly there,

Risen from the storm-bared rock where they had sunk,

With presages of woe, sad warning, stood;

And still the apprehensive heart of man,

That will not all obey, brooded within.

And long the Mocker warred, whom all men know,

To make illusion of his lonely trust,

And ill foreboding of his broken life,

And dark suggestion of the woe within;

Now he unrolled dead time's monotony,

The jester's scroll inscribed with golden tales

Of noble spirits in their ecstasy

Destroyed; and now he showed the peopled lands,

The world of men, the pity and the woe,

Shame, penury, crime, folly, and ill desire,

The faiths that were, and last the pallid Christ,


text:
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Rh And gray despair re-settling on the world;

Till on that slope, as from the visioned mount,

The Roamer saw the kingdoms of this world,

O, not for glorious conquest, but despair,—

Craven and conqueror leveled in contempt,

Him foolishest who most would save the world!

The moon dropped down behind the shouldering rocks;

The gauntlet narrowed on; the cliffs closed in,

Age-shattered spurs compact of rocky spires,

Slim monoliths and boulder-pilèd towers,

Fantastic masonry—earth's nakedness—

Dark colored veins of purple porphyry,

Volcanic thrusts, dull spots of hematite,

Chaotic sediment; there, as he stood,

He held the skull of Nature in his hand

Musing, and curiously turned it o'er;

And versed he was to read what there is found—

For some is known, and some is darkly guessed—

The cosmic tale that vaunts its ignorance,

No chaos, no catastrophe, no more

But definite order in indefinite time,

Events, successions, processes, fixed change.

He touched the gray grooves of the icy flood,

The delicate print of tropic fern and flower,

Strange petrifactions of the forest; saw,


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32 So were his eyes anointed with their lore,

The bones of mammoth bedded in the clay,

Reptilian birds, the horse's five-fold hoof,

The buried drift of antenatal earth,

Transparent ruin; backward spun the orb,

Whirled through the seethe and steam of fusing fire,

Metallic vapors of the molten globe,

The planetary star, the comet mist,

The sun-belt meteoric-fleece and flame;

And finer than all vision probed his thought,

Bared Nature's pulse, told the electric throb

Like his own blood, beats of ethereal force,

Laying his linger on the element.

Then, startled, he remembered what man is,

Hidden in this dark corner of chilled space,

His history with all its circumstance,

Races, religions, policies, archives

Of scriptured wisdom, monumental war,

The passing of a grain of that gray sand

That measures Nature's period,—a drop

That falls within the glacier's blue crevasse,

While the slow frozen motion creeps along

Through ages, and the sun expires in frost.

Death-cold he turned; the leaping trail abrupt

Sharp to the right struck up the mountain's face;


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Rh By matted vines he hung above the fall;

By jag, and cranny, and rock-withered root,

From doubtful hold to dangerous footing passed;

Nor less did Fraud mount with him unperceived.

At last upon the topmost naked ridge,

Between the great seam and the hanging bank,

He sank for rest, feeling his strength at ebb.

The lower pass beneath him lay unrolled,

A tangled murk of rock and awful shade,

Most like an inlet thrusting gloomy reefs

Up from the sunken vale,—his world that was,

And through its stony heart the black gash drawn.

So far his feet had pierced into the night,

Such labors done had stamped out all return,

Such grim despair had cut him from his kind;

And in the narrow onward what should lie

More than the bare couch of a lonely grave,

Where never one of men should find the place?

Then leaped the arrow in the open wound:

"Go, if thou wilt, O following with the stars

That rose with thy creation—unbeloved,

Inglorious, though love and fame without

None finds the wholesome uses of his life;

He who forsaketh all, him all forsake—

And this thou feelest; now go mix with those

Who in the creature the Creator slight—


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34 So in themselves abject is God disprized!"

And silence fell—far off the dark voice ceased.

Then desperately he rose,—"Something remains;

There is a failure worse than all defeat—

Not to attempt; yet there endureth strength

To fail with,—so to mix with those bright names,

My lovers lost who beckoned me afar,

Dust with their dust commingled, soul with soul!"

So sad a courage seldom wins its way;

And ever as he went his thoughts moved back,

And knowledge, gathered in the wasted years,

Poured its dark flood upon his flagging mind,—

Of heartlessness fixed at the core of things;

Of one blind Will that is the Universe,

Illusion made in man's intelligence,

Pain in his heart, and life its striving woe;

Of instinct never swerving from the line;

Reason, the instrument of all mistake,

And appetite, the passion multiforrn;

And from these two, that couple in each deed,

The birth is pain, and still increase of pain,

Though oft in joy disguised, but quickly found.

O, only he of men is fortunate,

Who on the seas of slumber dreamless lies,

Thrice happy if he drift unwakeful on,


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Sunn

SUNN. A plant (Crotalaria juncea) grown in India and some other warm climates for its fibre. See ;, and illustrations on Plate of ,

title: The New International Encyclopædia/Sunn


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Sunna

SUN'NA (Ar. sunnah, custom, legal usage, tradition, from sanna, to establish a usage or law). In the original meaning among Moslems,

the sayings and the example of Mohammed and his community, provided they are in accordance with the Koran, the meaning of which, however, is itself explained by the Sunna. As embracing traditional law, Sunna is divided into three parts: (1) what Mohammed did; (2) what he enjoined; and (3) what was done in his presence and not forbidden by him. The term is therefore (though incorrectly) used for the collections of moral and legal traditions known as ../Hadith/ (q.v.) traced to the Prophet, which supplement the Koran, somewhat like the ../Mishna/ (q.v.), which supplements the laws of the Pentateuch. The Sunna not only comprises religious doctrines and practice, but also civil and criminal laws, and the usages of common life, the way to eat and to drink, to dress, and the like. For the credibility and canonicity of a tradition, it was originally necessary that it should have been heard by one truthful witness; but this law was much relaxed in later times. By the beginning of the ninth century a large number of individual collections known as Musnads had been produced by different theologians, but the first who sifted them critically, and without regard to any special theological system, was Buchari (810-887). His collection contains 7275 single traditions, 4000 of which, however, occur twice in the work. Muslim. a younger contemporary (817-873), supplemented Buchari with another collection, containing 12,000 traditions, again including 4000 repetitions. Besides these, there are “canonical” collections by Abu Daud (817-888). by Tirmidhi (830-914), a pupil of Buchari, and by Abu Maja (824-886), besides others that also enjoyed some measure of authority. The Sunna, as we have it in these collections, contains, broadly speaking, more truth than it is generally supposed to contain, and, critically used, is, besides the Koran, the most authentic source of a knowledge of Islam. A selection from the different collections (both canonical and otherwise), called Mishkat Al Masabih, has been translated into English by Matthews (Calcutta, 1809). The Arabic text of Buchari has been published by Krehl, Le recueil des traditions musalmanes (Leyden, 1862-68), and fragments of this work in German translation were embodied by Hammer-Purgstall in his Fundgruben des Orients (Vienna, 1810-19). Goldziher has a valuable treatise on the Hadith literature in his Mohammedanische Studien, vol. ii., pp. 1-274 (Halle, 1890).


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Rh Nor ever into any harbor come!

Shimmers the Sphere within the mind alone,

Hung on the breathing poles of thy dense life

Only revolves,—thyself, thou art the Lie!

Then live no more, but with the bullet league,

Thrust with the dagger, bruise the herb of death—

And perish; instant, at the very stroke,

The sparkle of the globe like dew exhales,

And vanishes; as, when the sun goes down,

Night in the twilight clouds the purple deep,

Ungirds the robing flame, and heaven is dark!

More sad, more deep, with darker currents flowed

His moods in bitter channels; doctrines old

As is the heart, with ancient sorrow hoar,—

Of guilt once acted no remorse annuls,

No penance stays its injury to men,

And no forgiveness cleanses from the soul;

Incorporate with the world it works till doom;

Still memory points and names the brutal stroke,

Or self-inflicted, or another's wound;

And closer shuts the strong-knit frame of things—

The clearest vision so with error blurred,

The strongest will so palsied with defect,

That evil still must come, and woe to him

By whom it cometh, those on whom it falls!


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36 O prison of souls lost, abandoned, dead,

Time cannot crumble! and the captives there

Lay the base courses, and themselves immure.

Deep sink thy founding piers; thy mighty girth

Doth man encompass; thou shalt reach to heaven!

Life after life, race after dying race,

Mine thy dark quarry, hew the living block,

Lift the long work, a generation's toil—

Strong art thou built, O thou Eternal Stone!

As one who lies submerged in shallow sleep,

Whose thoughts interminably stream along,

No choice, no purpose, no volition his,

He drifted masterless, no respite given,

No lovely thing to steal him from himself;

And round his heart while weaker grew his strength,

Some strangling evil clutched, and seemed to rise,

A shuddering coil, and breathed upon his brain.

So like a man who sees not, on he went,

Stumbling to death; and low he heard him sing

Who of the heart's voice makes his falsest lie:

"Of all the Immortals kind was only He

Who on the fringes of the eye hung sleep,

And with death's stolen dew made sweet the lips!


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Rh O thou who darest to tread the Eternal Wild,

On heavenly pity leaning, hurt to death,

See, every herb and flower of ruth is here.

Or wilt thou suffer long, and bleed away?

Strict is the recompense—one lonely grave,

Spread on the rock or flower-strown in the vale.

Or dost thou think, on that dim verge arrived

Where sits the Eternal Hunger, thou wilt glut

With thy poor morsel life the famined void?

Aha! the breasts of life are sweet to suck

When to the innocent mouth they give the milk;

But thou—thy innocency is forgot!

I am the way unto the place of loss;

The Death indeed I am; and mine the art,

Mine, only mine, to still the Serpent's fangs."

Bitter, and hoarse and short with struggling will,

The cry broke from him in his misery:

"Sleeps then—man am I—sleeps because I die,

Sleeps in man's heart the writhing worm of hell?

Had I sought peace, peace long ago were found.

O cruel guile! O pitiless! to make

The sorrow of the soul thy instrument,


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38 And ruin with what saves, if aught!" He turned

Into the dark beneath the great stone brows;

"O fertile Falsehood! fool, to think him known

Who draws his cordon round the mount of time

And singly doth beleaguer the whole world

That there sits perched! races and states opposed,

And God's alliance! yet each poor soul doth press

As it were all his war! drop not thy fence,

Nor think thyself secure though angels guard;

Keep watch with all thy gates; within be stern!"

Once more he taught his spirit to endure

The rugged track; o'er crevice and high ravine

Great huddled peaks and ridges bulked in air,—

Rivers of ice, vast copes of ageless frost,

With glittering bergs and thin crevasses hoar,

The waste eternal winter; loft on loft,

The rolling snow-field whitened the great skies;

Now nigh to heaven he rose and prospects broad,

Out of the silent valleys drifting death,

On great plateaus that should command the world;

And ever where the far horizons flung

Round him with mightier folds the starry robe,

He read the man-myth on the shining hem,—

Iràn, Chaldæa, Egypt,—and more late,

Divinely springing from the Olympian mount,


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Sunnites

SUNNITES, (from Ar. sunnah, custom, legal usage, tradition, from sanna, to establish a usage or law). The orthodox sect in Islam; politically it may be described as the Centre, in contrast to extreme theories concerning the headship of the Church. The term arose in distinction to several tendencies which early asserted themselves, but especially differentiates that section which denies the claim of the (q.v.) for the peculiar authority of Ali, as the sole legitimate successor of Mohammed. (See .) These Shiites fast developed their peculiar theological and constitutional theories, and so drove their opponents to an understanding of their own position; as they were content with tradition and with things as they were, they called themselves Sunnites, or Traditionalists. The differences rapidly developed into those of a political and

ethnic character, the Shiites being found in the lands which wore opposed to the (q.v.), as Arabia, where independence was characteristic, and in Persia, which only by force of arms had submitted to Islam. But the decision between the two parties was by no means immediately reached. The fall of the Ommiads was brought about by Persian Shiite influences (750), although the new Abbasside dynasty which was installed soon threw in its lot with the Sunnites. In general the geographic centre of the Arab power, Mesopotamia and Syria, remained in the control of this party. But the Shiites maintained the contest. The latter as liberalists and theosophists possessed a strong following, especially among the cultured, and they often enjoyed immunity under free-thinking caliphs. The Empire was honeycombed with Shiite secret societies like the (q.v.), and Shiite dynasties arose in Egypt and at Bagdad. (See .) But by 1100 Sunnism was master in Southwestern Asia. This party was able to maintain itself during the Mongol invasions, and with the favor of the Ottoman Turks it remains as the predominant body in Islam. At the present time orthodoxy outnumbers all its opponents by ten to one, and commands not only the whole Turkish Empire, but the millions of Moslems in Africa, India, China, Malaysia and the Philippines, non-Turkish Arabia, and Northern Africa (Morocco being practically Sunnite).

Within this conservative and orthodox body, apart from outer foes, there early developed all kinds of theological strife. Rationalistic and liberal parties developed, which opposed, one after another, the original principles of Islam, such as its views of God, and of heaven and hell, its doctrines of predestination and of the literal authority of the Koran. On the other hand, the crass views of the fanatical mob opposed anything like philosophy, even though orthodox. Traditionalism was not fitted to meet the dialectic methods of its opponents, who had learned from the ancient schools of culture, and was ignorant of the use of philosophy in self-defense. But the champion of orthodoxy arose in Al-Ashari (born 882). A member originally of the Mutazilite sect, which had gone to the extreme of rationalizing upon the faith and the Koran (see ), he was led to the consciousness of this inconsistency, and openly abjured that heresy, henceforth devoting himself to the formulation of a scholastic philosophy in support of orthodoxy. This school encountered for long the opposition of the liberals and the ignorant, but about 1050 Ashari's triumph became evident. His philosophy was continued and popularized by (q.v.), who established the pietistic principle of Sufiism, which may be compared to the Christian emotional principle of faith. Since Ashari and Gazali no commanding theologian has arisen and no further philosophic advance has been made in Islam.

With reference to the head of Islam, Sunnism still as ever lacks a definite principle. Since 1658 the Ottoman Sultan has claimed the caliphate, although he possesses but fictions of the traditional requirements, and he holds his power by force and through the agreement of the Faithful. Hence Sunnism is not bound to the dynasty at Constantinople, and many of its thoughtful minds would regard the fall of the Ottoman

power in the light of redemption for the Church. Contrary, therefore, to the original theocratic constitution of Mohammed there has arisen a division between the spiritual and the political forces. Political power is wielded by the Sultan, but the spiritual rule is in the hands of the (q.v.) of Constantinople, a close corporation of lawyer-theologians. Its chief, the Sheik-ul-Islam, is appointed by the Sultan, but only out of that body, and he possesses large independent powers which the Sultan dare not invade. He is the chief spiritual person in orthodox Islam.

Within the Sunnite body exist four different schools of law, those respectively of the Hanbalites, the Hanifites, the Shafiites, and the Malikites (so named after their respective founders). The first code is confined to the Wahabites (see ); the second to Upper Egypt and North Africa; the third prevails in Lower Egypt, Southern India, and Malaysia; the fourth is followed by the Turks and by the Moslems of Central and Northern Asia. These schools arose in the second and third centuries of the Hejira and represent so many different compositions between tradition and progressive law. They are at peace with one another now, and divide orthodox Islam among themselves, each people being allowed to live by its law, and each lawyer electing his choice. But in the Ottoman Empire there exists the contrast between this canon law and the secular law. The latter proceeds from the authority of the Sultan or is the ancient secular law of the land; the other, the law of the Church, is confined mostly to domestic matters, and it is one of the grievances of the orthodox that the legal authority of the Church is thus put into abeyance by the secular arm. Here again the analogy may be drawn with the dispute which has prevailed in European Christendom between the canon and the civil law. Therefore, both in its past history and in its present condition, Sunnism is by no means to be regarded as a homogeneous body or practice. For literature, see ; .


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Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/49

Rh The torch-race of the ever-dying gods,

Orb after orb of throneless deity;

And spectral o'er him broke in that frore air

The burnt-out hopes, and ghosts of prophecy,

That once from holy hearts rose charioted,

And in the zenith hung their mighty faiths,—

Visions of old, by every mastering race,

Set in the blazing zodiac of time;

The fiery pillar that brought Israel forth

Rose like an exhalation; flaming stood

The Cross that went before imperial Rome;

Pale swam the moon of Islam dropping blood;

And out they flickered, brief as shooting stars;

Then dark the slow recovery of his sight,

Weary of all that never ceasing death,

Saw Lethe roll against a purple dawn,

Weird as by breadths of watery gloom far North

The sun at midnight sheds unearthly morn;

Saw still Avilion on the unoared lake,

Dim, dusky, fragile, like a flower of night

Half-open to the white and slumbrous moon;—

"Peace, if not hope; death, if not life; calm death

That of the grave keeps but tranquillity,"

He murmured—snatches of remembered prayer;

"Not mine, no longer mine, no more," he mused;

"O, for Thy service build Thy Strength in me