Bolton

“ The archdeacon was preparing to introduce Bolton, without noticing his embarrassment, when the bishop anticipated the introductory speech by saying, as he held out his hand, "Mr Bolton and I are old friends—may I not say so?"
A man of less self-possession than our friend the curate might have been put quite at his ease by the kind tone and manner, and warm grasp of the hand. ”

“ Robert Bolton’s regular circle of admirers and listeners are an undertaker, a greengrocer, a hairdresser, a baker, a large stomach surmounted by a man’s head, and placed on the top of two particularly short legs, and a thin man in black, name, profession, and pursuit unknown, who always sits in the same position, always displays the same long, vacant face, and never opens his lips, surrounded as he is by most enthusiastic conversation, except to puff forth a volume of tobacco smoke, or give vent to a very snappy, loud, and shrill hem! ”

“ These men were bound together by something stronger than any part of themselves. Over them stood the Company, and to its commands all other things gave way. No matter how rebellious might be Dick Herron's heart, how ruffled the surface of his daily manner, Bolton knew perfectly well he would never for a single instant swerve in his loyalty to the main object of the expedition. Serene in this consciousness, the old woodsman dwelt in a certain sweet and gentle rumination of his own. Among the finer instincts of his being many subtle mysteries of the forest found their correspondences. ”

“ What choice has a man in Bolton’s case? Either he must take the vile pleasures of the town, or sink into a soured loneliness, or make a home with some woman kind and tender that will keep youth and joy green in him. Can I trust you, Fanny—if I say something in my mind? I don’t speak idly, as you know.”
“You can trust me. I tell you I love Bolton—and—I don’t wholly hate your Grace!” says Lady Fanny, smiling also. She stretched her hand behind her painted fan, and the Duchess quickly claspt and dropt it. Little did the Duke know what those fair creatures plotted as he glanced their way idly. ”

“ The clogs still clatter on the pavements of Bolton, and shawled girls are yet to be seen going to and from the mills, but even in the last fifteen years Bolton has grown enormously, not only in population but towards a higher standard of life. ”

“ William Bolton undertook to go out to Folking and give the invitation by which she was to be allured to come to Puritan Grange,—only for a day and night if longer absence was objectionable; only for a morning visit, if no more could be achieved. It was all treachery and falsehood;—a doing of certain evil that possible good might come from it. 'She will hate me for ever, but yet it ought to be done,' said William Bolton; who was a good man, an excellent husband and father, and regarded in his own profession as an honourable trustworthy man. ”

“ Bothan! but thou art a rare fellow, Master Konrad," said Bolton. "Loving this damsel, and yet labouring to restore her to the arms of a rival. Rare platonism—by the mass!"
"Sir, thou knowest not the pure sentiment of love that animated me. So refined was my passion for this fair being, that so far from being happy in possessing her, if she loved me not, I would have preferred to see her happiness increased by the love of a rival"——
"Mass! if I understand either this or thee," said the lieutenant of the archers, sipping his Rochelle with a face of perplexity. ”

“ Bolton was well described in an article written for the New York Home Journal, in 1850, by Robert Dale Owen:
With a finely formed head, and ample intellectual forehead, her countenance, without boasting regularity of feature, is of highly pleasing expression, especially when lighted up, as in conversation it usually is, by the bright and cheerful spirit within. Her manners are frank, lively and winning, with little of conventional form and much of genuine propriety about them. ”

“ Yet more to the point, a glove, a boot, and a spoon, relics of his sojourn with them, remained in the family till they lost Bolton in the middle of the last century, and are still preserved. A beautifully wooded cliff rising high above the broad rapids of the Ribble near the house has great local notoriety under the name of Pudsay’s Leap. For tradition tells how the owner of Bolton, in the reign of Elizabeth, had acquired great favour at Court, but having discovered silver on the estate proceeded to set up a mint of his own, thereby bringing down upon his head the rough arm of the law. ”

“ Bolton, as lieutenant of the archers, stood in the recess of a window at the lower end of the room, accoutred in half armour, and having his helmet lying near him; and Bothwell, clad in black velvet, magnificently embroidered with Venetian gold, his sword and waistbelt, his poniard and bonnet blazing with jewels, as his blue velvet mantle did with spangles, stood in another, clanking his gold spurs, and pointing his well-perfumed and pomatumed mustaches; for, however deep and deadly his projects, he now never omitted an opportunity of appearing to the best advantage in Mary's presence ”

“ Then he told of how his courage grew again, of how he put the cowardice of death behind him, resolved to dare all—and live. He finished at last, his voice husky with emotion. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced triumphantly at Bland. That gentleman was gazing thoughtfully at the blazing logs.
"You did quite right," commented Professor Bolton, "in making up your mind to live. I congratulate you on your common sense. And perhaps, as the years go by, you will realize that had you married your Arabella, you would not have found life all honey and roses. ”

“ She had learnt one particular that might furnish a clue in the maze—namely that my Lord and the Duke of Bolton were now seldom together. The Duchess she dared not approach. A slap in the face from that white but powerful hand was as likely a finish to what her Grace might consider impertinence as any other. But Bolton——! A lady may count on a courteous answer from a gentleman she knows and honours, whether he reveal the truth or no. She had therefore writ him the sweetest little perfumed billet requesting his company next day. As an old friend. ”

“ Wherefore the good citizens of Bolton cheerfully put up with the dirt and the damp and the abnormal expenditure on umbrellas and mackintoshes in view of the fact that all the world must come to Bolton for its finest threads. ”

“ Speak, Bolton!"
Bolton replied in a voice so inarticulate that it was lost in the hollow of his helmet; for his mind seemed a chaos of despair and stupefaction. Since that terrible hour he had vainly been endeavouring to arrange his thoughts, and act like a sane man.
"'Tis the verity, my lord!" continued Halkett. "Hark! how the roar increaseth in the town."
"And who, say they, hath done this dark deed?"
"All men accuse the Earls of Morton and Moray," replied Huntly, who had been industriously spreading the rumour, which their known hostility to Darnley made common at the time. ”

“ Dost thou play the guitar, or the viol-de-gambo?"
"I play neither," replied Konrad, haughtily.
"Then in what dost thou excel? for all these foreign knaves excel us poor Scottish barbarians in some slight of hand."
"I can handle the bow, the arblast, the backsword and dagger, the morglay and ghisarma, with all of which, Sir Archer, I am very much at your service."
"Now, God be with thee!" replied Bolton, frankly clapping him on the shoulder; "thou art a right cock o' the game. ”

“ Bolton, who was annoyed by the circumstance. "And there he is himself, as I live! riding along over my ground as coolly as if it belonged to him. Verily, some men have the impudence of old Nick himself!"
"They always go by that road," replied Ben; "at least, it has been so ever since I have worked on the farm. I think I once heard Mr. Jenkins, from whom you bought, tell somebody that Mr. Halpin's farm had the right of way across this one.
"The right of way across my farm!" exclaimed Mr. Bolton, with strongly-marked surprise. "We'll see about that! Come! go with me. ”

“ Then it was that Jim Dodge, pressing closer to the long window, heard her say quite distinctly:
“Very well, father; we will go. Only I must go with you.... You are not strong enough to go alone. We will go anywhere you like.”
Andrew Bolton got nimbly out of his chair and stood glowering at her across its back. Then he burst into a prolonged fit of laughter mixed with coughing. ”

“ Bolton was all the while doing obliging things for me and for Jim, but he asked nothing from us; and while we felt safe in saying anything in the world before him, and while we never felt at the moment that conversation flagged, or that there was any deficiency in sympathy and good fellowship on his part, yet upon reflection we could never recall anything which let us into the interior of his own life-history. ”

“ In the parlour of the Green Dragon, a public-house in the immediate neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge, everybody talks politics, every evening, the great political authority being Mr. Robert Bolton, an individual who defines himself as ‘a gentleman connected with the press,’ which is a definition of peculiar indefiniteness. ”

“ I know that your father is a wealthy man—very wealthy—but millions of dollars are not to be despised by anyone. There are very big things at stake, Bolton, very big indeed.”
137
He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Bill’s, the smoke from his cigarette curling up between them like a banner. “Well? Don’t misunderstand me, Bolton. I don’t mean that you’re to leave Mr. Evans. Oh, not at all. No need for you to have a row with him or anything of the sort. No, no, you can go on exactly as you are doing. Carry out whatever he has sent you here to do. ”

“ Her feelings did not escape Bolton: “I forgive you, dame,” he said, “for being suspicious that an English falcon was hovering over your Scottish moor-brood. But fear not—those who have fewest children have fewest cares; nor does a wise man covet those of another household. Adieu, dame; when the black-eyed rogue is able to drive a foray from England, teach him to spare women and children, for the sake of Stawarth Bolton.” ”

“ Bolton constantly reminded him. He insisted upon going with Mrs. Bolton and the children to the Friends Meeting on First Day, when Ruth and Alice and Philip, "world's people," went to a church in town, and he sat through the hour of silence with his hat on, in most exemplary patience. In short, this amazing actor succeeded so well with Mrs. Bolton, that she said to Philip one day,
"Thy friend, Henry Brierly, appears to be a very worldly minded young man. Does he believe in anything?" ”

“ Bolton, who now reigned at the Abbey—who and what was he? The desire to visit the place once more grew stronger. Wild schemes for becoming rich, and having the place back again, ran riot in his mind—chimerical schemes, for, as each one rose and fell, he had to tell himself again and again that each was vanity. In England—in this part of England especially—the way in which men made fortunes was that of trade and successful speculation. ”

“ I thought of Bolton and its suburbs, Entwistle and other straggling little towns on the edge of the moors, with Doffcocker and rural villages among cornfields, and factory chimneys on the horizon, and slag-heaps beyond green fields. ”

“ He glanced at some books on the table, and at one or two in the book-shelves, and was struck at finding them to be nearly all confined to two classes—voyages and travels, and Italian books, the latter almost all bearing some reference to Dante, or to Dante’s great poem.
‘Odd!’ thought Jerome, and as he thought it, the door was opened, and Mr. Bolton entered.
A man of medium height, and of moderate proportions, with a round, obstinate-looking head, dark complexion, brown eyes, a mouth with a protruding under-lip, and an all-pervading expression of shrewdness, and strong, powerful common-sense. ”

“ Once on the road, tramping back toward the settlement below, Mr. Bolton passed his arm through Bill’s.
“Your Naval Academy training has put a head on your shoulders, son,” he said affectionately. “You have developed better control of your temper under stress than I have. I’m glad you stopped me. Ordinarily a man of my position in the world is in the habit of speaking his mind when provoked.” ”

“ From the beginning of my acquaintance I had regarded him with daily increasing admiration. Young men like a species of mental fealty—a friendship that seems to draw them upward and give them an ideal of something above themselves. Bolton's ripe, elegant scholarship, his rare, critical taste, his calm insight into men and things, and the depth of his moral judgment, had inspired me with admiration, and his kindness for me with gratitude. ”

“ His deserved popularity had already acquired such a height, that the nation might be said to participate in his sufferings; and he received the most consoling civilities from the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Clarence, and other illustrious and noble characters. Friends flocked around him. His worthy relatives hastened to attend and console him, from the country; and Mr. Bolton, in particular, was his constant companion. ”

“ Was it because when he had once spoken so crudely of the University I had seen the reflection of her spirit in his eyes? A light still burned in the extension roof—Krebs's light; another shone dimly through the ground glass of the front door. Obeying a sudden impulse, I crossed the street.
Mrs. Bolton, in the sky-blue wrapper, and looking more forbidding than ever, answered the bell. Life had taught her to be indifferent to surprises, and it was I who became abruptly embarrassed. ”