The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863Morford, Henry
History
The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863
Morford, Henry
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
So Shoddy, or that particular manifestation of it, at least, rolled away
from the Profile House. Whither, is no matter of consequence, for the
incidental connection of the Brooks Cunninghames with this veracious
history is concluded with the exit of that morning. But let no one suppose
that the travelling world was thereafter rid of them, or of others to whom
they only supply a type and index, during the remainder of the summer. For
did not some of us meet them at Niagara later in the season, resident at
the Clifton as the most aristocratic (because on monarchical ground) of all
the houses, Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame a little more querulous and redder in
the face than when at the Notch; Mr. Brooks Cunninghame a little trembly,
as if whiskey and idleness were beginning to tell upon his system; Miss
Marianna still un-cavaliered and hopelessly unexpectant in the wreck of her
silks, laces, and jewelry; and Master Brooks Brooks pulling the curtains
and drumming on the keys of the piano with his unwashed fingers, pending
his greater opportunity to frighten a pair of horses into plunging over the
bank, or to relieve the future of a dreary prospect by himself falling off
Table Hock?
* * * * *
There was another departure from the Profile House the same morning.
Whether the event of the night before had done anything to bring about that
consummation, or whether previous arrangements and the pressure of time
dictated such a movement--Halstead Rowan and the two friends in his company
were among the passengers by one of the coaches that went through to the
Crawford, bearing such as contemplated an immediate ascent of Mount
Washington from that direction. It may be the pleasant duty of writer and
reader to overtake them at the Crawford, at a very early period. Nothing
more can now be said of the situation in which the Vanderlyn imbroglio and
the Townsend friendship were left, than that the departing man saw nothing
of the lawyer after they parted on the evening previous, and that his early
stage rolled away long before the luxurious Vanderlyns were likely to have
opened their eyes at the summons of the first gong rolling through the
corridors to awaken them for the regular breakfast.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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