They are
above all art, your Honour. In the galleries of memory there are
none like them--none so charming, so delightful. If I were to die
to-morrow, sir, I should thank God that my last hour came not until
I had seen these pictures of Colonel Jenkins; and it may be sir,
that my happiness would even delay the hand of death. My only
regret is that mine is the great misfortune of having failed to
witness the event they portray. Sir, you have a great
responsibility, for you have to judge whether human law may
interfere with the working of divine justice. It was the decree of
fate, your Honour, following his own word and action, that this man
should become as a rag doll in the hands of a termagant. I submit
to you that Providence, in the memory of the living, has done no
better job."
A tumult of applause stopped him, and he sat down.
Brooke was defeated promptly, and known ever after as "The Old Rag
Doll."
XII
The Santa Claus of Cedar Hill
Christmas Eve had come and the year of 1850. For two weeks snow
had rushed over the creaking gable of the forest above Martha
Vaughn's, to pile in drifts or go hissing down the long hillside.
A freezing blast had driven it to the roots of the stubble and sown
it deep and rolled it into ridges and whirled it into heaps and
mounds, or flung it far in long waves that seemed to plunge, as if
part of a white sea, and break over fence and roof and chimney in
their downrush.
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