The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Imperialist, by
(a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

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Title: The Imperialist

Author: (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5301]
Posting Date: April 21, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST ***

Produced by Gardner Buchanan

THE IMPERIALIST

By Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1861-1922 (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

1904

CHAPTER I

It would have been idle to inquire into the antecedents, or even the
circumstances, of old Mother Beggarlegs. She would never tell; the
children, at all events, were convinced of that; and it was only the
children, perhaps, who had the time and the inclination to speculate.
Her occupation was clear; she presided like a venerable stooping hawk,
over a stall in the covered part of the Elgin market-place, where she
sold gingerbread horses and large round gingerbread cookies, and brown
sticky squares of what was known in all circles in Elgin as taffy. She
came, it was understood, with the dawn; with the night she vanished,
spending the interval on a not improbable broomstick. Her gingerbread
was better than anybody's; but there was no comfort in standing, first
on one foot and then on the other, while you made up your mind--the
horses were spirited and you could eat them a leg at a time, but there
was more in the cookies--she bent such a look on you, so fierce and
intolerant of vacillation. She belonged to the group of odd characters,
rarer now than they used to be, etched upon the vague consciousness of
small towns as in a way mysterious and uncanny; some said that Mother
Beggarlegs was connected with the aristocracy and some that she had been
"let off" being hanged. The alternative was allowed full swing, but in
any case it was clear that such persons contributed little to the common
good and, being reticent, were not entertaining. So you bought your
gingerbread, concealing, as it were, your weapons, paying your copper
coins with a neutral nervous eye, and made off to a safe distance,
whence you turned to shout insultingly, if you were an untrounced