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Instead of this, I was compelled to be at the beck and call of all upon the place, including Ham, the captain's only son, and miserably spoiled at that. Before I had been a year in my new home, I was dissatisfied, for the cloven heels of the three members of the family had appeared. I was crowded with work, picked upon, insulted, and trodden under foot.
As they do so, they also drop hands and each makes a courtesy, with hands at the hips for the "beck," and straighten up and make a deep bow forward for the "boo"; assuming an upright attitude, then, and bending the head sideways to the right for "Here's a side," and to the left for "Here's a sou." The partners clasp hands, and all run forward ten steps, keeping time with the rhythm of the words.
But you can't change her mind about anything." "I thought that you wouldn't be so unreasonable all summer," said Aunt Barbara, picking very fast. "You see that you expect Mary Beck to be perfect, and the poor child isn't. You made up a Mary Beck in your own mind, who was perfect at all points and just the kind of a girl you would like best to spend all your time with.
"I suppose it's being good that made you run after Nelly Foster. I wished that I had gone to see her more, when you went; but she used to act hatefully sometimes before you came. She used to cry in school, though," confessed Becky. "I didn't 'run after' her. You do call things such dreadful names, Mary Beck! There, I'm getting cross, my foot is all stinging."
The two young men strolled through the village, Maulevrier pausing to exchange greetings with almost everyone he met, and so to the rustic churchyard, above the beck. The beck was swollen with late rains, and was brawling merrily over its stony bed; the churchyard grass was deep and cool and shadowy under the clustering branches.
He was a merchant in Petrograd and a man of considerable means, but, as I afterwards discovered, was an agent of Potsdam specially sent to Russia as the secret factotum of the Tsaritza. He was ever at her beck and call, and was the instrument by which she exchanged confidential correspondence with the Kaiser and other persons in Germany.
The object of his chase is before him, he views distinctly, on the brow of yon hill, the horse and the rider, spurring fast, like himself. They descend the hill, horse and horseman, and are snatched from his sight. Up the steep strains the pursuer. He is at the summit. He sees the fugitive before him, almost within hearing. Beck has slackened his steed; he seems swaying to and fro in the saddle.
"Then," said Percival, laughingly, "what, my good friend, will you ever do with your money?" Beck put his finger to his nose, sunk his voice into a whisper, and replied solemnly: "I 'as a mattris." "A mistress," said Percival. "Oh, a sweetheart. Well, but if she's a good girl, and loves you, she'll not let you spend your money on her."
"Paul Beck can't hold a candle to him." "That's so. He's smart, and no mistake." Poor Mr. Beck! It was fortunate he was unable to hear these comparisons made. He could not brook a rival near the throne, and had gone home in low spirits, feeling that he could never again hold his head as high as he had done.
He could not see the bottom, for it was filled with mist, but the height of the rock wall hinted at its depth. A transverse ravine ran into the chasm, and he could hear the roar of a waterfall. Then the mist rolled up in a white smother and blotted everything out. "We cross the beck," said Helen. "Then we go nearly straight down, keeping this side of the big ghyll."
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