Character Sketches of Romance
Chapter 85 : CRANE (_Dame Alison_), mistress of the Crane inn, at Marlborough._Gaffer Crane_, the da

CRANE (_Dame Alison_), mistress of the Crane inn, at Marlborough.

_Gaffer Crane_, the dame's husband.--Sir W. Scott, _Kenilworth_ (time, Elizabeth).

_Crane (Ichabod)_, a credulous Yankee schoolmaster. He is described as "tall, exceedingly lank, and narrow-shouldered; his arms, legs, and neck unusually long; his hands dangle a mile out of his sleeves; his feet might serve for shovels; and his whole frame is very loosely hung together."

The head of Ichabod Crane was small and flat at top, with huge ears, large green gla.s.sy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-c.o.c.k perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew.--W. Irving, _Sketch-Book_ ("Legend of Sleepy Hollow.")

CRANES (1 _syl_.). Milton, referring to the wars of the pygmies and the cranes, calls the former

That small infantry Warred on by cranes.

_Paradise Lost_, i. 575 (1665).

CRANION, queen Mab's charioteer.

Four nimble gnats the horses were, Their harnesses of gossamere, Fly Cranion, her charioteer.

M. Dayton, _Nymphidia_ (1563-1631).

CRANK (_Dame_), the papist laundress at Marlborough.--Sir W. Scott, _Kenilworth_ (time, Elizabeth).

CRA'PAUD (_Johnnie_), a Frenchman, as John Bull is an Englishman, Cousin Michael a German, Colin Tampon a Swiss, Brother Jonathan a North American, etc. Called c.r.a.paud from the device of the ancient kings of France, "three toads erect saltant." Nostradamus, in the sixteenth century, called the French _c.r.a.pauds_ in the well-known line:

Les anciens c.r.a.pauds prendront Sara.

("Sara" is Aras backwards, a city taken from the Spaniards under Louis XIV.) CRATCHIT (_Bob_ or _Robert_), clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge, stock-broker. Though Bob Cratchit has to maintain nine persons on 15s.

a week, he has a happier home and spends a merrier Christmas than his master with all his wealth and selfishness.

_Tiny Tim Cratchit_, the little lame son of Bob Cratchit, the Benjamin of the family, the most helpless and most beloved of all. Tim does not die, but Ebenezer Scrooge, after his change of character, makes him his special care.--C. d.i.c.kens, _A Christmas Carol_ (in five staves, 1843).

CRAW'FORD (_Lindsay, earl of_), the young earl-marshal of Scotland.--Sir W. Scott, _Fair Maid of Perth_ (time, Henry IV.).

_Craw'ford (Lord)_, captain of the Scottish guard at Plessis les Tours, in the pay of Louis XI.--Sir W. Scott, _Quentin Durward_ (time, Edward IV.).

CRAWLEY (_Sir Pitt_), of Great Gaunt Street, and of Queen's Crawley, Hants. A sharp, miserly, litigious, vulgar, ignorant baronet, very rich, desperately mean, "a philosopher with a taste for low life," and intoxicated every night. Becky Sharp was engaged by him to teach his two daughters. On the death of his second wife, Sir Pitt asked her to become lady Crawley, but Becky had already married his son, Captain Rawdon Crawley. This "aristocrat" spoke of "bra.s.s fardens," and was unable to spell the simplest words, as the following specimen will show:--"Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on Tuseday, as I leaf ... to-morrow erly." The whole baronetage, peerage, and commonage of England did not contain a more cunning, mean, foolish, disreputable old rogue than Sir Pitt Crawley. He died at the age of fourscore, "lamented and beloved, regretted and honored," if we can believe his monumental tablet.

_Lady Crawley_. Sir Pitt's first wife was "a confounded quarrelsome, high-bred jade." So he chose for his second wife the daughter of Mr.

Dawson, iron-monger, of Mudbury, who gave up her sweetheart, Peter b.u.t.t, for the gilded vanity of Crawleyism. This ironmonger's daughter had "pink cheeks and a white skin, but no distinctive character, no opinions, no occupation, no amus.e.m.e.nts, no vigor of mind, no temper; she was a mere female machine." Being a "blonde, she wore draggled sea-green or slatternly sky-blue dresses," went about slip-shod and in curl-papers all day till dinner-time. She died and left Sir Pitt for the second time a widower, "to-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

_Mr. Pitt Crawley_, eldest son of Sir Pitt, and at the death of his father inheritor of the t.i.tle and estates. Mr. Pitt was a most proper gentleman. He would rather starve than dine without a dress-coat and white neckcloth. The whole house bowed down to him; even Sir Pitt himself threw off his muddy gaiters in his son's presence. Mr. Pitt always addressed his mother-in-law with "most powerful respect," and strongly impressed her with his high aristocratic breeding. At Eton he was called "Miss Crawley." His religious opinions were offensively aggressive and of the "evangelical type." He even built a meeting-house close by his uncle's church. Mr. Pitt Crawley came into the large fortune of his aunt, Miss Crawley, married Lady Jane Sheepshanks, daughter of the Countess of Southdown, became an M.P., grew money-loving and mean, but less and less "evangelical" as he grew great and wealthy.

_Captain Rawdon Crawley_, younger brother of Mr. Pitt Crawley. He was in the Dragoon Guards, a "blood about town," and an adept in boxing, rat-hunting, the fives-court, and four-in-hand driving. He was a young dandy, six feet high, with a great voice, but few brains. He could swear a great deal, but could not spell. He ordered about the servants, who nevertheless adored him; was generous, but did not pay his tradesmen; a Lothario, free and easy. His style of talk was, "Aw, aw; Jave-aw; Grad-aw; it's a confounded fine segaw-aw--confounded as I ever smoked. Gad-aw." This military exquisite was the adopted heir of Miss Crawley, but as he chose to marry Becky Sharp, was set aside for his brother Pitt. For a time Becky enabled him to live in splendor "upon nothing a year," but a great scandal got wind of gross improprieties between Lord Steyne and Becky, so that Rawdon separated from his wife, and was given the governors.h.i.+p of Coventry Isle by Lord Steyne. "His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died in his island of yellow fever, most deeply beloved and deplored," and his son Rawdon inherited his uncle's t.i.tle and the family estates.

_The Rev. Bute Crawley_, brother of Sir Pitt. He was a "tall, stately, jolly, shovel-hatted rector." "He pulled stroke-oar in the Christ Church boat, and had thrashed the best bruisers of the town. The Rev.

Bute loved boxing-matches, races, hunting, coursing, b.a.l.l.s, elections, regattas, and good dinners; had a fine singing voice, and was very popular." His wife wrote his sermons for him.

_Mrs. Bute Crawley_, the rector's wife, was a smart little lady, domestic, politic, but apt to overdo her "policy." She gave her husband full liberty to do as he liked; was prudent and thrifty.--Thackeray, _Vanity Fair_ (1848).

CRAYDOCKE _(Miss)._ Quaint friend of the Ripwinkleys and of everybody else who figures in A.D.T. Whitney's _Real Folks_, and other of her books. "Around her there is always springing up a busy and a spreading crystallizing of s.h.i.+ning and blessed elements. The world is none too big for her, or for any such, of course."

CRAY'ON _(Le Sieur de_), one of the officers of Charles "the Bold,"

Duke of Burgundy.--Sir W. Scott, _Anne of Geierstein_ (time, Edward IV.).

_Crayon (Geoffrey), Esq._, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, author of _The Sketch-Book_ (1820).

CREA'KLE, a hard, vulgar school-master, to whose charge David Copperfield was entrusted, and where he first made the acquaintance of Steerforth.

The circ.u.mstance abont him which impressed me most was that he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper.--C. d.i.c.kens, _David Copperfield_, vi.

(1849).

CREAM CHEESE _(Rev.)_, an aesthetic divine whose disciple Mrs.

Potiphar is in _The Potiphar Papers_.--George William Curtis (1853).

CREBILLON OF ROMANCE _(The)_, A. Francois Prevost d'Exiles (1697-1763).

CREDAT JUDAEUS APELLA, NONEGO (Horace, _Sat. I_. v. 100). Of "Apella"

nothing whatever is known. In general the name is omitted, and the word "Judaeus" stands for any Jew. "A disbelieving Jew would give credit to the statement sooner than I should."

CRES'SIDA, in Chaucer CRESSEIDE (2 _syl_.), a beautiful, sparkling, and accomplished woman, who has become a by-word for infidelity. She was the daughter of Calchas, a Trojan priest, who took part with the Greeks. Cressida is not a character of cla.s.sic story, but a mediaeval creation. Pope says her story was the invention of Lollius the Lombard, historiographer of Urbino, in Italy. Cressida betroths herself to Troilus, a son of Priam, and vows eternal fidelity. Troilus gives the maiden a _sleeve_, and she gives her Adonis a _glove_, as a love-knot. Soon after this betrothal an exchange of prisoners is made, when Cressida falls to the lot of Diomed, to whom she very soon yields her love, and even gives him the very sleeve which Troilus had given her as a love-token.

As false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth.

Yea, let [_men_] say to stick the heart of falsehood, "As false as Cressid."

(Shakespeare, _Troilus and Cressida_, act iii. sc. 2) (1602).

CRESSWELL (_Madame_), a woman of infamous character, who bequeathed 10 for a funeral sermon, in which nothing ill should be said of her.

The Duke of Buckinham wrote the sermon, which was as follows:--"All I shall say of her is this: she was born _well_, she married _well_, lived _well_, and died _well_; for she was born at Shad-well, married Cress-well, lived at Clerken-well, and died in Bride-well."

CRESSY MCKINSTRY. Belle of Tuolumne County, California; pretty, saucy and illiterate. She conceives the idea of getting an education, and attends the district school, breaking an engagement of marriage to do this; bewitches the master, a college graduate, and confesses her love for him, but will not be "engaged:"

"I don't know enough to be a wife to you just now and you know it. I couldn't keep a house fit for you and you couldn't keep me without it.... You're only a dandy boy, you know, and they don't get married to backwood Southern girls."

After many sc.r.a.pes involving perils, shared together, and much love-making, he is stunned one morning to learn that Cressy is married to another man, whom she had feigned not to like.--Bret Harte, _Cressy_ (1889).

CRETE (_Hound of_), a blood-hound.--See _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii. sec. 2.

Coupe le gorge, that's the word; I thee defy again, O hound of Crete!

Shakespeare, _Henry V_. act ii. sc. 1 (1599).

_Crete (The Infamy of)_, the Minotaur.

[_There_] lay stretched The infamy of Crete, detested brood Of the feigned heifer.

Dante, _h.e.l.l_, xii. (1300, Cary's translation).

CReVECOUR (2 _syl_.). The count Philip de Crevecour is the envoy sent by Charles "the Bold," duke of Burgundy, with a defiance to Louis XI., king of France.