Re-watching snippets of the 1982
The Scarlet Pimpernel right now, so I couldn't resist posting some
TSP quotes!!
She had fallen on her knees and was cowering against the wall, had lost
consciousness probably for a minute or two. Then she heard that pleasant
laugh again and the soft drawl of the English tongue.
"I love to see those beggars scuttling off, like so many rats to their
burrows, don't you, Ffoulkes?"
"They didn't put up much fight, the cowards!" came from another voice,
also in English. "A dozen of them against this wretched woman. What had
best be done with her?"
"I'll see to her," rejoined the first speaker. "You and Tony had best
find the others. Tell them I shall be round directly."
Sir Percy Explains by Baroness Orczy
He looked up at Mole as he said this, for the latter, though his
shoulders were bent, was unusually tall, and Mole took the papers from
him. Thus for the space of a few seconds the two men looked into one
another's face, eyes to eyes—and suddenly Chauvelin felt an icy sweat
coursing down his spine. The eyes into which he gazed had a strange,
ironical twinkle in them, a kind of good-humoured arrogance, whilst
through the firm, clear-cut lips, half hidden by a dirty and ill-kempt
beard, there came the sound—oh! a mere echo—of a quaint and inane
laugh.
Sir Percy Explains by Baroness Orczy
Heriot laughed—a low, cynical laugh and shrugged his thin shoulders:
"And who will prevent me, I pray you?" he asked sarcastically.
The old man made no immediate reply, but he came just a step or two
closer to the citizen-deputy and, suddenly drawing himself up to his
full height, he looked for one brief moment down upon the mean and
sordid figure of the ex-valet. To Heriot it seemed as if the whole man
had become transfigured; the shabby old scarecrow looked all of a sudden
like a brilliant and powerful personality; from his eyes there flashed
down a look of supreme contempt and of supreme pride, and Heriot—unable
to understand this metamorphosis which was more apparent to his inner
consciousness than to his outward sight, felt his knees shake under him
and all the blood rush back to his heart in an agony of superstitious
terror.
From somewhere there came to his ear the sound of two words: "I will!"
in reply to his own defiant query. Surely those words uttered by a man
conscious of power and of strength could never have been spoken by the
dilapidated old scarecrow who earned a precarious living by writing
letters for ignorant folk.
The Old Scarecrow by Baroness Orczy
Ffoulkes nodded, and anon in this squalid room, ill-lit, ill-ventilated,
barely furnished, was presented one of the most curious spectacles of
these strange and troublous times: two English gentlemen, the
acknowledged dandies of London drawing-rooms, busy picking locks and
filing hinges like any common house-thieves.
The Old Scarecrow by Baroness Orczy
"And God bless you for a brave, loyal soul," came in merry, ringing
accent from the other end of the room. "And God save the Scarlet
Pimpernel!"
A Fine Bit of Work by Baroness Orczy
Note: These are all snippets from stories in the short story collection, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
