Title:  The Imperialist

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

Release Date:  March, 2004 [EBook #5301] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 25, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK the imperialist ***

This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan.

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

The Imperialist

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 young male of Elgin, “Old Mother Beggarlegs!  Old Mother Beggarlegs!” And why “Beggarlegs” nobody in the world could tell you.  It might have been a dateless waggery, or it might have been a corruption of some more dignified surname, but it was all she ever got.  Serious, meticulous persons called her “Mrs” Beggarlegs, slightly lowering their voices and slurring it, however, it must be admitted.  The name invested her with a graceless, anatomical interest, it penetrated her wizened black and derisively exposed her; her name