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He was nominally, not only the heir to, but actually the possessor of, a large property; but he could not touch the principal, and of the income only so much as certain legal curmudgeons would allow him. As Greystock had said, everybody was at law with him, so successful had been his father in mismanaging, and miscontrolling, and misappropriating the property.
Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers shivered at the notion of powder and ball. Redworth, in the struggle to haul him away, received a blow from him. 'And you've got it! you would have it! roared the Celt.
Sampson, "to take up the curmudgeons in your friend's behalf; but it don't alter the fact that he has made proposals to me sufficiently obnoxious to ruffle the ignominy of any lady." "Why, now, now, now!" says I. "Old Idaho do that! I could believe it of myself, sooner. I never knew but one thing to deride in him; and a blizzard was responsible for that.
This prying little busybody soon ferreted out the truth of the story, and discovered, by hook and by crook, that I was at the bottom of the affair, and had locked up the donkey in the smoke-house. He stopped to inquire no further, for he was one of those testy curmudgeons with whom unlucky boys are always in the wrong.
I've had them tell me so after marriage; and then they're almost always sure to begin to flirt a little, and enjoy themselves in this happy way they ought to have been left to do when single; and then their old curmudgeons of husbands get jealous, and angry, and then there are dreadful times! Oh, dear! I think it is a terrible state of society!
"They took us for Essex men because of our orange-tawny scarves, but they found out when too late that we were right-tight Cavalier lads and no crop-eared curmudgeons. Why, we were in the thick of them with sword and pistol before they had stayed from snuffling their psalms of welcome." Brilliana held out her hand again for her cousin's hand and clasped it manfully.
"How rich is the ring of victory in your loyal voice," she sighed. "My last public news was of the King's stay at Shrewsbury. Then these curmudgeons raced hot-foot from Cambridge to pull down my flag. But 'This is Loyalty House, says I, and 'Go to the devil, says I forgive me, sirs, if I raged unmaidenly and I slammed the door in their sour faces.
Fine fellows! generous-hearted tars! Seeing this sight, I thought to myself, Well, these generous-hearted tars on shore were the greatest curmudgeons afloat! it's the bottle that's generous, not they! Yet the popular conceit concerning a sailor is derived from his behaviour ashore; whereas, ashore he is no longer a sailor, but a landsman for the time.
But you had better defer the visit till to-morrow, when his father, Sir Richard, will be at Whalley, and when you can have him to yourself. Dick will not say you nay, depend on't; he is too good a fellow for that. A murrain on those close-fisted curmudgeons, Roger Nowell, Nicholas Townley, and Tom Whitaker. They ought to be delighted to oblige me."
In 1921, when she was twenty, the war work was over and she was "getting through the day" much as she lived the night. It was pretty easy to get through the day in 1921. That which the curmudgeons called license, and liberty the free, was in 1921 held by charter and by right prescriptive. Look at her. There she is.
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