G. P. R. James

“ Wittingham! Wittingham!" cried the baronet, stretching forth his hand without rising, as the servant introduced the worthy magistrate, "is that you, my old buck? If you haven't come in pudding-time, you have come in wine-time, and will get what so few men get in life,--your dessert. Sit down and pledge me, old fellow. What shall it be in? Here's port that was bottled when I came of age, so you may judge that it is good old stuff! Madeira that has made more voyages than Cook, Comet Claret of 1811, and a bottle of Burgundy that smells under my nose like oil of violets." ”

“ Miles will insure that your father is put to no inconvenience; for it so luckily happens, that I have a large sum unemployed at the present moment, which could not be better applied, than by saving you from distress and annoyance."
"Oh, Mr. Beauchamp," cried Isabella, greatly moved, "what right have I to so much kindness and generosity?"
"Every right, that a fine and noble heart can give," answered Beauchamp; "and, oh, let me add, every right, that can be bestowed by the most sincere affection, that ever woman inspired in man--but I will not agitate you more to-night. ”

“ Beauchamp, we are, in many, respects, the creatures of your hands; you give the bent and the direction of somewhat more than half our thoughts, I am afraid, and are--"
"To be blamed, if you go wrong," exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, with a loud laugh; "to be sure, to be sure; that is a woman's philosophy, my dear Harriet; all that she does good is her own, all that she does wrong is man's; but let me tell you, my dear sister, that there is no little doubt, in the minds of the best informed, which has the most influence; man over woman, or woman over man. ”

“ I never saw him, but people say 'he's the best fellow in the world.' You know what that means, Mary: a man that will drink, or hunt, or shoot, or fish with any body, or every body, and when none of these are to be done, will go to sleep upon the sofa. Pray, pray do stay, dear aunt, till he is gone, for I know not what I should do with him in the house by myself. I positively must get papa to ask somebody else, or get the good doctor to come up and flirt with him to my heart's content, just as a diversion from the pleasures of this Captain Hayward's society. ”

“ There is always something melancholy in contemplating the final resting-place of the last of a long line. The mind naturally sums up the hopes gone by, the cherished expectations frustrated, the grandeur and the brightness passed away; the picture of many generations in infancy, manhood, decrepitude, with a long train of sports and joys, and pangs and sufferings, rises like a moving pageant to the eye of imagination; and the heart draws its own homily from the fate and history of others. But there seemed something more than this in the young gentleman's breast. ”

“ Were it not for this spirit acting through this power, should we see in our manufactories such squalid misery, such enfeebled frames, such overtasked exertions, such want of moral and religious culture, such recklessness, such vice, such infamy, such famine?"
"Perhaps not," answered Ned Hayward, "but yet something is to be said for the manufacturers too. You see, my good Sir, they have to compete with all Europe. They are, as it were, running a race, and they must win it, even if they break their horses' wind."
"If they do that, they will lose it," replied Beauchamp ”

“ Who is not gay, when beauty and cheerfulness pour their mingled rays upon us, flooding our feelings and our thoughts with a bright, happy, and congenial stream? Take a glass of iced-water, dear reader--as cold as you will, so that it be not actually frozen--and pour into it a merry glass of warm champagne; see how it will sparkle and dance up to the brim; and, unless the heart of man is a mass of ice indeed, such will be the effect upon it of mere association with youth, beauty, and innocent gaiety.
But since then, Beauchamp had slept upon the matter. ”

“ I thought you had been brought up enough with men, to know that they are not always thinking of love and matrimony. You women have but one paramount idea, as to this life's concerns I mean, and you never hear any thing without referring it to that. However, after all, perhaps, it is natural:
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart. 'Tis woman's whole existence." "Too sad a truth," replied Mary Clifford, thoughtfully; "perhaps it is of too little importance in man's eyes; of too much in woman's."
"And yet how terribly she sometimes trifles with it," said Beauchamp, in a still gloomier tone. ”

“ That poor little fellow, all crooked and deformed as he is, has more heart and soul in him than the whole town of Tarningham."
"There are more good people in Tarningham and in the world, Stephen, than you know," answered Doctor Miles, with a sharp look; "you have to learn, my good friend, that there are natural consequences attached to every particular line of conduct; and, as you turn a key in a door, one way to open it, and another way to shut it; so, if your conduct be good, you open men's hearts towards you; if your conduct be bad, you close them." ”

“ As soon as ever I find that I wish to dance with any dear girl twice in a night, and fall into reveries when I think of her, and feel a sort of warm blood at my fingers' ends when my hand touches hers, I am off like a hair-trigger, for if a man is bound to act with honour to other men, who can make him if he does not willingly, he is ten times more strongly bound to do so towards women, who can neither defend nor avenge themselves."
With a sudden impulse Beauchamp held out his hand to him, and shook his heartily, and that grasp seemed to say, "I know you now to the heart. We are friends." ”

“ Thus saying, with the landlord leading the way and Beauchamp, Ned Hayward, and one or two others following, he walked slowly upstairs and entered the room where Captain Moreton lay. The surgeon was bending over him and holding his head up on his left-arm. But the moment the old man heard the bustle of many feet, he waved his right-hand as if to forbid any one to approach. Every body paused for an instant, and in the midst of the silence that ensued an awful and very peculiar sound was heard, something like that made by a horse taking a draught of water, but not so long and regular. ”

“ Wittingham's men have brought up Stephen Gimlet, whom they call Wolf, with irons upon him. I have kept him in the hall."
"Hang it!" cried Ned Hayward, "my little boy's father. I hope he has not been doing any serious mischief!"
"I don't think it, I don't think it," said Dr. Miles, eagerly, "the man has a heart and a conscience, a little warped, it is true; but still sound--sound, I think--I will go and speak to him."
"Hang him, he steals my pheasants!" exclaimed Sir John Slingsby.
"Then why don't you put him to keep them, colonel?" asked Ned Hayward. "He would make a capital keeper, I am sure. ”

“ It seemed as if a general call had been made upon Tarningham, to attend and witness the disgrace and discomfort of the family. A number of tradesmen were gathered before the doors, conversing together in low tones, and with gloomy faces; and there was a post-chaise, besides a gig, a saddle-horse, and a tax-cart or two. Beauchamp thought the spectacle somewhat odd; for it seemed to him, notwithstanding all he knew of the gossiping propensities of small places, that the news of Sir John Slingsby's misfortunes must have spread with marvellous rapidity. ”

“ Beauchamp," rejoined Isabella; "but men know so little of women, and see so little of women as they really are, that they judge the many from the few: and we must forgive them; nevertheless, even if it be true that they do trifle with it, it is not the least proof that they do not feel it. All beings are fond of sporting with what is bright and dangerous: the moth round the candle, the child with the penknife, and man with ambition."
"All mankind," said Ned Hayward, "men and women alike, get merrily familiar with that which is frequently presented to their thoughts. ”

“ Isabella, pale as death, looking down upon the ground, and Beauchamp with his lip quivering and his brow contracted, but his step firm and regular, as if the very intensity of his feelings had, after the first moment, restored him all his energies. As they passed through the vestry-door Isabella raised her eyes for an instant to his, and saw the deep dejection which was written on his countenance. She touched his arm gently to call his attention, and said, as he bent down his head,
"Do not be so sad, you have nothing to reproach yourself with." ”

“ Involuntarily, and almost unconsciously as they marked this, Mary Clifford and Captain Hayward turned to each other with a smile. The impulse with each was to see if the other had remarked it--a very simple impulse--but when their looks met, it made a more compound phrase; and the anagram of the heart might read thus:
"May we not as well make love too?"
It was a sore temptation; but the next instant Ned Hayward's countenance became exceedingly grave, and the warm healthy glow in his cheek grew a shade paler. ”

“ Isabella is full of resources, and, perhaps, may devise many means that would never strike me."
These thoughts passed through her mind as she was approaching the house, and very soon after she stood in her cousin's dressing-room, finding her, even at that early hour, up and partly dressed.
"Why, dearest Mary," exclaimed Isabella, "where have you got all those roses? The morning air must be very good for the health, as every one says, to change your cheek, which was yesterday as pale as twilight, into the very aspect of the dawn." ”

“ I knew he had been brought up in the army, under the judicious auspices of Sir John Slingsby. That dear girl, Isabella, told me that, from what she could remember of him, he was a gay, lively, rattling fellow. Sir John called him the best fellow that ever lived, and I know tolerably well what that means. The reason, then, why he interested me very soon, was because he disappointed me. For half an hour after I first saw him, I thought he was just what I expected--a man constitutionally lively, gay from want of thought, good-humoured from want of feeling; having some talents, but no judgment ”

“ All the objects of country life are gone. It seems to me that the world has turned as dead as a horse-pond, and men and women nothing but the weed at the top, waiting coolly in green indifference for the ducks to come and gobble them up. Lack-a-day! lack-a-day! if we had but Ned Hayward here to cheer us up! What can have become of him?"
"Oh, he has come back, my dear uncle," replied Mary; "I saw him upon the terrace as I was taking my morning's walk."
"Then why is he not here?" exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, "why is he absent from his post? ”

“ As it is a fine day, and those large heavy floating clouds give frequently a pleasant shade, I do not see why we should not follow him up to Chandleigh Heath. How quick the little fellow's long, disproportioned legs carry his small round turkey-shaped body. But Billy Lamb must be going to visit his mother after he has fulfilled his errand, or he would not walk so fast this warm noontide. It is a round of six miles, yet he will do it in an hour and a quarter. On my life he is already on the heath. One can hardly keep up with him; and now he is at the cottage garden-gate. ”

“ It is the regulation of our desires that makes us happy, the bounding them to our means--ay, with those who have no already existing cause for sorrow, but the cup of our fate is ever open for each passing hand to drop a poison into it, and once there, it pervades the whole--the whole? by every drop down to the very dregs, turning the sweetness and the spirit of the wine of life to bitterness and death. ”

“ We may be cross with its wild tricks and sportive mischief, we may be vexed at its whims and caprices as with those of an untamed boy or girl, but yet there is a grace in its waywardness, a softness in its blue violet eyes, a brightness in its uncontaminated smile, a lustre even in the penitential tears, dried up as soon as shed, that has a charm we cannot, if we would, shake off. Oh yes, youth and spring speak to every heart of hope, and hope is the magic of life! ”

“ If you quit the high-road from Tarningham on the right-hand side by that little sandy path, just a hundred yards on the other side of the stone pump, equidistant from it and the mile-stone which marks on the hither side, five miles and a half from Tarningham, and walk straight on, it leads you over the moor, and through the midst of scenery very common in England, not much loved by ordinary ramblers, but which for me and a few others has a peculiar and almost indescribable charm. ”

“ Beauchamp?"
That gentleman turned his eyes suddenly upon her, and very fine and lustrous eyes they were, and he gazed at her for an instant with a smile so blended with many emotions, that Isabella, she knew not why, cast down her eyes, and coloured. After a brief pause, he replied:
"Not unpleasant, Miss Slingsby; for so strange a thing is the heart of man, or, rather I should say, so strange a thing is his fate, that, in the course of years and with the change of circumstances, there will be pleasure even in the total ending of what were once bright hopes. ”

“ But his companion was upon his guard. "That's neither here nor there," he replied.
"It is I can assure you, my good friend Wolf," said the young gentleman; "for whatever you may think, this was just as much a felony as if you had taken a purse or cut a throat. Two pistols were fired, I think--the young lady is an heiress; and forcibly carrying away an heiress, is as bad as a robbery; it is a sort of picking her pocket of herself. So, if you have a mind to escape a noose, you'll instantly tell me where he is." ”

“ Those who calculate upon the difficulty of carrying a secret are rarely mistaken; but in this case Mademoiselle Minette did not arrive at her end. Mary said nothing more; and, at length, the girl was dismissed, and the two cousins were left alone together.
"In the name of fortune!" exclaimed Miss Slingsby, as soon as the maid was gone; "what solemn thing have you got to tell? Has he proposed already? On my word, it is a very speedy declaration!"
Mary coloured like a rose, but answered gravely, "Dear Isabella, how can you be so light? ”

“ No form of grim and grisly gamekeeper was before him; no shooting-jacket and leathern leggings; but a person in the garb of a gentleman of good station, furnished with arms, legs, and chest of dimensions and materials which seemed to show that a combat would be neither a very safe nor pleasant affair.
"Who the devil are you?" asked the lover of trout, in the same terms which Mr. Wittingham had used the night before to the very same personage.
"Ha, ha, my friend!" exclaimed Ned Hayward; "so you have been hocussing the trout have you?" ”

“ Captain Moreton gave a long, low whistle, exclaiming, "Upon my life, you must stop that. Hang me, if I would not pretend to be penitent and play a good boy for a month or two."
"It is no use in the world," answered Harry Wittingham; "you might as well try to turn the Thames at Gravesend as to put him out of his course when once he has taken a thing into head. He must do what he likes, he can't take it all, that's one comfort; but I say, Moreton, what the devil is that fellow Wolf hanging about here for? ”

“ What's his name?"
"Why that's another matter," replied Ned Hayward; "perhaps he may not much like his name mentioned; but I can tell you what people call him sometimes. He goes by the name of Wolf occasionally."
The slightest possible twinkle of intelligence came into the man's eyes for a moment, and then went out again, just as when clouds are driving over the sky at night we sometimes see something sparkle for an instant, and then disappear from the heavens, so faint while it is present, and so soon gone, that we cannot tell whether it be a star or not. ”

“ Such an inn was the White Hart at Tarningham, and such a host was the landlord, but he was a wise man, and loved not to look upon his successors, for which cause, as well as on account of the trade not being very brisk in that quarter, he maintained no regular waiter; he had a tapster it is true, but the cloth in the neat little parlour on the left hand was laid by a white-capped, black-eyed, blooming maid-servant, and the landlord himself prepared to carry in the first dish, and then leave his expected guest to the tendance of the same fair damsel. ”

“ Wittingham," answered Captain Moreton, in his easy, nonchalant way, "not long enough for him to eat you, or for you to eat him. You know what obstinate devils these women are; and I have got to do with the most pigheaded of the whole race. The fact is, Wittingham, we have got in our hands, if we do but use it properly, the means of having full revenge upon one or two good friends of ours; amongst the rest, that fellow, who, as you ought to remember, was second to Captain Hayward in his duel with you, Mr. Beauchamp, he calls himself." ”

“ Mary Clifford was darker in complexion, with the hair braided on her brow, there was deep but gentle thought in her dark eyes, and though the short chiselled upper lip could at times bear a joyous smile enough, yet the general expression was grave though not melancholy.
Beauchamp was a serious man, of a calm, quiet temper, somewhat saddened by various events which had befallen him, but which of those two faces, reader, think you he admired the most? The gay one, to be sure, the one the least like himself. ”

“ I never fell in love with a beautiful woman in my life--I don't like them; they are always either pert, or conceited, or vain, or haughty, or foolish. Sooner or later they are sure to find some ass to tell them how beautiful they are, and then they think that is quite sufficient for all the purposes of life."
"Perhaps because they are first impressed with a wrong notion of the purposes of life," answered Beauchamp; "but yet I never heard of a man before who objected to a woman because she was pretty."
"No, no," answered Ned Hayward, "that is a very different thing. ”

“ The poetical idea of a cottage, for instance, is rarely very like truth. We take it and cover it with roses and surround it with flowering shrubs. That may be all very well, for there are such cottages; but then we strip it of all coarse attributes of life; we take away the evils of poverty, and vulgarity, and vice, and leave it nothing but content, and natural refinement, and calm innocence. ”

“ The lad was somewhat pale, and there was an air of fatigue in his small pinched, but intelligent countenance, which made his mother hold him to her heart with a feeling of painful anxiety. Oh! how the affections of a parent twine themselves round a suffering child! Every care, every labour, every painful apprehension that he causes us seems but a new bond to bind our love the more strongly to him. The attachment that is dewed with tears and hardened with the cold air of sorrow and fear, is ever the more hardy plant.
"Sit down, Bill," said Stephen Gimlet, kindly, "you look tired, my lad. ”

“ At length, however, the stout form of the poacher was seen descending the small steep path which led from the moor into the sand-pit. His step was slow and heavy, his air dull and discontented; but Harry Wittingham as soon as he beheld him started up and opened him the door of the cottage, exclaiming, "Well, Wolf, what news?"
"Neither the best in the world nor the worst," answered the man somewhat sullenly.
"And what have you got for breakfast?" inquired the young gentleman, "I am as hungry as the devil!" ”

“ If she does not spoil all, and this man here can be kept in, we have got them completely in our power."
"Why, what in fortune's name can he have to do with Lord Lenham's marriage?" asked Harry Wittingham.
"I don't know, exactly," answered Captain Moreton, musing gravely; "but I have a good many suspicions about him, which it won't do to mention just yet. All I ask, is to have him kept in here, till after the marriage is over; and you will have nothing further to do with it, than to keep the key of the room and prevent any of the girls from going in. ”