Alexander Cunningham

“ I saw thee, thou last and thou bravest of all the Selbys, with thy banner spread, thy sword bright, and thy long golden locks waving on thy shoulders, when the barriers of Preston were lost and won, and the gallant laird of Ashiestiel fought like a brother by thy side. Oh, that this last bright picture were all I remembered of thee! But can the heart of woman, though her head be grey, forget that she saw those long locks which made the dames sigh, waving, soiled and bloody, on the gates of Carlisle. ”

“ HIS friends held that Cunningham was at least fifty years old when he was born. According to that very plausible theory he was now about eighty-five; good looking, with that sort of impersonal attractiveness which inspires respect long before it arouses admiration; and possessed of enough intelligence to make him feared not only in courts of law and equity, but also at the modest club where his chief delight lay in spoiling, by utter and relentless logic, the other fellow's epigram. ”

“ James Cunningham was a grim, gray pirate, as malleable as cast iron and as soft. He was a large, big-boned man, aggressive, dominant, the kind that takes the world by the throat and shakes success from it. ”

“ He shed back his long and moistened locks from a burning and bewildered brow, and looking steadfastly in her face for a moment, said, 'Rachel, dost thou know me?' She answered only with a flood of tears, and a wave of her hand to be gone. 'Know me! ay, how can ye but know me, since for me that deadly water opened its lips, and swallowed thy darling up. If ye have have a tongue to curse and a heart to scorn me, scorn me then, and curse me; and let me be seen no more on this blessed earth. For the light of day is misery to me, and the cloud of night is full of sorrow and trouble. ”

“ Mark rose and shouted, and waved him back from a place which, to a person unacquainted with the dangers of the bay, real and superstitious, seemed sufficiently perilous: his granddaughter, too, added her voice to his, and waved her white hands; but the more they strove, the faster advanced the peasant, till he stood to his middle in the water, while the tide increased every moment in depth and strength. "Andrew, Andrew," cried the young woman, in a voice quavering with emotion, "turn, turn, I tell you! O the Ships, the Haunted Ships!" ”

“ Cunningham will have to dig a pretty deep hole somewhere if he expects to hide successfully. It’s a hundred-to-one shot that father will never see his rug again. He probably realizes that, and he will be relentless. He’ll coal at Manila and turn back. He’ll double or triple the new crew’s wages. Money will mean nothing if he starts after 243 Cunningham. ”

“ Be ruthless! Use them, work them—sweat them to death! Keep away from messes and parades; seek no praise, for you will get none in any case! Work! Work for what is coming!”
“You speak as though the fate of a continent were hanging in the balance,” laughed Cunningham, shaking hands with him.
“I speak truth!” said Mahommed Gunga, riding off and leaving the youngster wondering. ”

“ The Mediator is, at once, King of Zion and King of nations. The people of God are members of his Church, and also of civil society,—over which, as well as over the Church, he rules. For an individual, merely as a member of his Church, to acknowledge God, is to do his duty but in part. When the rulers in a nation as rulers, and the people as subjects, do not Covenant, they appear regardless of a part of character which, for the glory of God, they should maintain not less tenaciously than their ecclesiastical relations ”

“ The pen of every writer who has noticed the career of William Cunningham, the notorious provost-marshal of the British army in New York and Philadelphia, has portrayed him as a most detestable character. To the credit of the commander with whom he served, be it said that it is satisfactorily proven that he was employed directly by the British ministry, and was independent of the authority of Howe and Clinton. He was a large, burly, red-haired, red-faced Irishman, sixty years of age, addicted to strong drink to excess, and with most forbidding features. ”

“ We know that any reference to the prison ships in New York Harbor sets Cunningham before us as a cowardly murderer, starving men to death by depriving them of rations which the English supplied for them, and which he sold, pocketing the proceeds. He stands alone on a pedestal of infamy.
The letters that Hale had written and left, as he hoped, to be delivered to his friends, Cunningham ruthlessly destroyed, giving as his reason that "the rebels should not know that they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness." ”

“ There won't be a train till later in the afternoon by which they can get away now. They'd have to go by the night boat, if it was France. Somehow or other–though everything seems against us, and we are only two, where there ought to be a dozen going in as many ways at once–we'll circumvent that devil yet."
"You have plenty of confidence in yourself," said Cunningham. "Perhaps you don't know Carson Wildred as well as I do." ”

“ The stars appeared. Cunningham knew only one of them by name—Betelgeuse, a red star, the apex of a triangle of which three stars formed the base. The name had struck him as remarkable, and he once had called a bull pup after it. For a moment he thought of his dog's untimely end.
But was the Panhard never coming? Perhaps there had been a puncture, and in the absence of a chauffeur Lord Tadcaster was stranded. Possibly he had returned to Bolton Abbey, or taken train forward, or, since he was short-handed, he might have [191] altered his route and gone by the easier road through Otley. ”

“ Hech be't, she's sore changed since that merry time—it cannot be her. Harkee, my douce decent-looking dame, d'ye ken if Prudence Caird be living yet?"
"And what hast thou to say to Prudence Caird?" said the old woman, growing blacker with anger, and clutching, as she spoke, the long sharp fingers of her right hand, portending hostility to the blue eyes of Judith.
"Say to Prudence Caird?" said the maiden; "a bonnie question, indeed! What advice could a poor bewildered creature like me give to a douce person who has had twice the benefit of the counsel of the minister and kirk session?" ”

“ She sought to be serviceable to others as well as to gain her livelihood: she was a constant helper to the ministry, and a great comfort to her parents, with whom she dwelt. Her religious mind appeared to be continually progressing. At the close of the year 1836, she began a private journal, which has been lent to me. It contains chiefly notes of sermons which she heard, and of the impression which they produced on her mind. How happy it is when the soul is brought so to hunger and thirst after righteousness, that it feeds upon all the food which is presented to it ”

“ When reprimanded by one of his courtiers for leading or interlarding his discourse with unnecessary oaths, he defended himself by saying, "Your martyr swore twice more than ever I did." [12] And, in allusion again to his father's character, he observed to Lord Keeper Guildford, who was musing somewhat pensively on the woolsack, "My Lord, be of good comfort, I will not forsake my friends as my father did." [13] To Reresby he remarked, "Do not trouble yourself; I will stick by you and my old friends, for if I do not I shall have nobody stick to me;" ”

“ He led King James's cavalry at the Battle of the Boyne, and died in France. John, the sixth and youngest son, was a colonel in King James's army, and was killed at the battle of Aghrim in Ireland, in 1691.
Of the six sons of Sir George and Lady Hamilton, three were killed in action, one died in New England, and two in France. Of the three daughters, Elizabeth, the eldest, the only one of whom anything is known, was married to the Count de Grammont, by whom she also had three daughters. She was Anthony's senior by five years, and was twenty-seven years old when married. ”

“ The engines were not moving, and the chain on the windlass of one of them appeared not to have been disturbed, but on the other windlass one of the chains had been unwound. Cunningham was so astonished that he could not believe what he saw. He had been there the night before; everything had been in order, the shaft closed, and the trap-door locked. He leaned over the grating and looked down; he could see nothing but a black hole without any bottom. The man did not look long, for it made him dizzy. He turned and ran out of the house to call Mr. Bryce. ”

“ Cunningham must be insane. Certain no man with his wits about him could make such a foolish selection. Listen to me! I am poor as well as you. I need a new suit of clothes, but I can’t buy it. I have been out of work for three months. Now I am going to ask a favor of you.”
Bernard concluded that the favor was a pecuniary one, and he felt disposed to assist his unfortunate fellow applicant; but he waited to have him explain himself.
“This is the favor I ask,” the young man proceeded. “You will not long retain your position. Mr. Cunningham will discover your incompetency. ”

“ Alas!" said he, touching my treasures with the end of his staff, "here are gauds for our young and our rosy madams—bosom-busks, brow-snoods, and shining brooches for ensnaring the eyes of youth. I tell thee, young man, woman will fall soon enough from her bright station by her own infirmities without thy helping hand to pluck her down. Much do I fear thou hast been disposing of sundry of thy snares to the vain old dame of Airnaumrie. She is half-saint and half-sinner ”

“ Soon they were in a by-street, whence the clamor of Carnival slowly died away, leaving no sound upon the morning air but their footfalls and the faint whisper of her petticoats where she tripped along beside him.
Presently the poke-bonnet was raised; Charles Cunningham beheld his companion’s face, a perfect oval, set with eyes of deepest brown, demurely passionate, eyes that in this empty street were all for him. He had never considered himself a romantic young man ”

“ This privileged wit, after telling the King the ill state of his affairs, was pleased to suggest a way to help all. "There is," says he, "a good honest able man that I could name, whom if your majesty would employ, and command to see things well executed, all things would soon be mended, and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the court, and hath no other employment; but if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it." [22] He had what Sheffield called the foible of his family, to be easily imposed upon ”

“ Cunningham sat down. “The spirit is willing, Cleigh, but the flesh is weak. You’ll never get my hide. How will you go about it? Stop a moment and mull it over. How are you going to prove that I’ve borrowed the rug and the paintings? These are your choicest possessions. You have many at home worth more, but these things you love. Out of spite, will you inform the British, the French, the Italian governments that you had these objects and that I relieved you of them? In that event you’ll have my hide, but you’ll never set eyes upon the oils again except upon their lawful walls—the rug, never! ”

“ No! triumph will not suit me till I get to heaven. If I am admitted, as I hope to be there, then, if there be one that will sing louder than the rest, I think I shall be that one; but while here, I am a sinner, a redeemed sinner, and as such I would lie here to the last, at the foot of the cross, p. 60looking unto Jesus, and go as such into the presence of God.’ Elizabeth’s Journal shews this to have been her feeling. She then, however, declared her sense of the possession of a true peace, founded on the atonement of her Saviour. ”

“ A funeral sermon was preached on the occasion of the death of James Cullingham. He was a communicant, and his character called for this public notice. Advantage was taken of the same occasion to speak of the death of another individual, a friend of Elizabeth and her mother, and I believe of most of the servants of God, who came within her reach in our little flock. This was Mary Smith. Her husband’s shop in which she served, made her well known in the parish, and enabled her to do much for others, and thus brought into view most of the infirmities which belonged to her nature. ”

“ Those, however, who would in such circumstances claim that power, may often be looked upon with a jealous eye, as in general they would be found least entitled to the possession of it. Those who have most warrantably declaimed against evil constitutions, have been among those who were least given to assume to themselves a title to power;—they have been found to defend themselves, but not rashly to usurp authority. If there were but one individual who could avenge bloodshed, and were his mind in a proper state, he would seem to have a call addressed to him to do so ”

“ But gang up to the Boran Point, and down to Barnhourie Bank, and if the crews of two bonnie ships, buried under fifteen fathom of quicksand and running water, winna waken and tell ye whose uncannie skill sunk them there, the simplest hind will whisper ye that Margery Forsythe kens mair about it than a God-fearing woman should. So ye see, Lord William Forster, I would even counsel ye to make yere presence scarce on this kittle coast—just wyse yersel warily owre the salt water again. And true-love's no like a new-killed kid in summer ”

“ It was gallant to see the maids and the matrons of Cumberland, standing in crowds, on headland and cliff, waving their white hands seaward, as we spread our sails to the wind, and shot away into the Solway, with our streamers dancing and fluttering like the mane of a steed as he gallops against the wind. Proud of our charge, and glorying in our skill, we made the good ship go through the surge as we willed; and every turn we made, and every time we wetted her silken sails, there came shout and trumpet-sound from the shore, applauding the seven merry mariners of Allanbay. ”