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Each took a searching look at the other, with mental reservations in each case, as thus: "Dodd": "Gray hard worker not up to snuff square as a brick." Mr. Bright: "Flashy clothes shambling gait a look in the eye that is not direct." These are the things they thought. They spoke of other matters.
The shambling barn man, summoned gruffly by McAlpin, hesitated as he appeared at the office door and seemed to regard the situation with suspicion. He looked at de Spain tentatively, as if ready either for the discharge with which he was daily threatened or for a renewal of his earlier, friendly relations with the man who had been queer enough to make a place for him.
Then, with a sort of shambling bow, he turned away, and the main body of the meeting clapped excitedly, while at the back some of the "sweaters" grinned, and chatted sarcastic things in Yiddish with their neighbours. Tressady saw Lady Maxwell rise eagerly as the old man passed her, take his hand, and find him a seat.
Pasquale paused, looked round and motioned her onward. She followed without a word, holding the trim silver mounted umbrella, and I mechanically brought up the rear. It had all happened so quickly that I too was confused. The scanty populace in the rain-filled street stared and gaped. A shambling fellow in corduroys bawled an obscene jest. Pasquale put down his bundle.
By hell, I think they all had a touch. We shall call it riding a hack to spare the hunter, said Dixon. Tell us, Temple, O'Keeffe said, how many quarts of porter have you in you? All your intellectual soul is in that phrase, O'Keeffe, said Temple with open scorn. He moved with a shambling gait round the group and spoke to Stephen. Did you know that the Forsters are the kings of Belgium? he asked.
The sensitiveness of youth had steeled itself in irony; he was impatient of delusions and exaltations, and scornful of the shambling, shame-faced motives that moved so many of the people who came under his observation.
In other squares there were cattle for sale later, and fish, but I cannot in even my present leniency claim that the markets were open at the hour which the genteeler commerce of the place found so indiscreet. They were irregular spaces of a form in keeping with the general shambling and shapeless character of the town, which, once for all, I must own was not an impressive place.
A little behind them came Mr. Newman, carrying his sober hat in his hand, and the curate. "Hi!" called Carrick, and they turned toward him as he came down the bank, with his sly spaniel shambling at his heels. The curate looked with disfavor at Carrick's worn tweed clothes and his general week-day effect. "I think," he said primly, "I'll be getting along."
Scott has forgotten to prepare the reader for the presence of the "damsel"; he has forgotten to mention the spring and its relation to the ruin; and now, face to face with his omission, instead of trying back and starting fair, crams all this matter, tail foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is not merely bad English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative besides.
All the questionable pursuits, fancies, foibles of silly, childish man are discussed grimly and at length in the newspapers and magazines. Our poor hobby-horses are dragged out of the stable, and made to show their shambling paces before the mob of gentlemen who read with ease.
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