Bradbury

“ All that night Bradbury labored to save the man that was condemned to die. He knocked up the sheriff of Middlesex, and told him all.
"Don't come to me," said the sheriff; "go to the minister."
He rode to the minister's house. The minister was up. His wife gave a ball—windows blaring, shadows dancing—musics—lights. Night turned into day. Bradbury knocked. The door flew open, and revealed a line of bedezined footmen, dotted at intervals Up the stairs.
"I must see my lord. Life or death. I'm an officer from Bow Street." ”

“ Bradbury.
He nodded approval. He muttered, “Bradbury, I’ve thought to die on a night like this! To go out on the storm. Hark to the wind and the voices in it! And the wind blows from the sea. Oh, God, there’s many a soul of the dead men out of the sea rides with the wind to-night!”
“Sir,” cried Mr. Bradbury, shuddering, “the p. 238dead shall not rise from the sea till the last trump sound!”
“I’ll have the boy by me,” the old man whispered. “I’ll have him watch. I’ll lie upon my bed; I’ll rest—if he’ll watch by me.”
“Surely, sir,” said Charles, “I am willing to sit with you!” ”

“ Bradbury was one of the most vehement and virulent spirits of the times, he was infected with the prevalent spirit of railing long before he began to cast about his Shimei and Rabshakeh pleasantries upon Watts; he was well known for his capabilities in this way, and in 1715 Daniel Defoe reproved him in a pamphlet entitled, “A Friendly Epistle by way of Reproof, from one of the people called Quakers to Thomas Bradbury, a dealer in many words.” ”

“ Bart struggled in the grip of one runner, whilst the second bound his hands; Roger Galt and Sir Gavin’s men were standing guard over Martin lying against the wall, and seeking to staunch the flow of blood from his shoulder; Mr. Bradbury, pistol in hand, stood in the doorway. But Mr. Bradbury, at the sight of my father, stepped forward, crying out, “My dear Richard! My dear sir! Alive and well,—that’s brave!” ”

“ Bradbury’s apprehension grew with the darkness and the storm. When he drew up the glass and sat down, he did not lie back on his cushions or muffle his shawl about his ears; he leaned towards the window, staring forth into the dark, seeming, too, by his impatient wave of his hand when I would have spoken, to be listening intently. I strained my ears to hear, but for the time heard nothing save the rumble of wheels, and the rushing of the wind; afar a thunderous sound as the beating of the sea, no more, until the wind was cut from us in a dip of the road, as if we p. ”

“ You cannot lay an egg but you must be cackling over it.' Bradbury's name next occurs in 1681, when he was one of two trustees of the marriage settlement of one of the Carys of Tor Abbey. His position in his profession must consequently have been considerable, and in December 1688, when the chiefs of the bar were summoned to consult with the peers upon the political crisis, Bradbury was among the number. In the July of the year following he was assigned by the House of Lords as counsel to defend Sir Adam Blair, Dr. ”

“ Bradbury comes this night, with his men, and Sir Gavin’s folk, and all the gentry round. He comes to make an end here—to sweep this house clean—for me! You’ve threatened murder; you’ve robbed and broken; you’ve set every man of you his neck in reach of a rope to-night; I warn you all, for you served my grandfather, that soon, perhaps now, the house must be surrounded. You’ve escaped hanging so long, how d’ye like the prospect of swinging at the end of a rope at the end of your days? Take what you’ve looted—plate and what not?—and go! You’ll take no more. There is no treasure! ”

“ Cunning dog, Bradbury.”
“And even for Mr. Bradbury,” said I, “I’ll not be staying, sir.”
“Why? D’ye fear Charles? Has Charles done aught—after my word to him?” He lurched up from his chair and stood glowering down on me; the tobacco pipe, dropping from his grasp, smashed on the hearth.
“No, he’s done nothing.”
“Why would you go then? Are you afraid—our ways not being yours? Why would you go?”
I answered, “I do not like the house or the folk around you. What’s there about this house, sir? What’s it in the very wind of a night? What’s all the muttering in the dark?” ”

“ And none save old Sir Gavin within miles of us. Should we not work our will with you, and set our fingers on what’s hid in the house, and be away—in France, or whither in the world we would—ere Bradbury might lift a finger.”
“What’s hid in the house!” I repeated.
With sudden impatience he cried out, “Ay, what’s hid in the house! Why not be frank with me, nephew? You know this—Bradbury knows, as I—there’s in this house more than a moiety of all my father ever took on his voyages. There’s treasure in this house, about this house; and one man knows where it is hidden. ”

“ Jacket or breeches then, as you will,” said Mr. Bradbury, chuckling. “Who’s the other lad?”
“Parson’s son, sir,—young Vining.”
“Bring them both before Mr. Chelton at the Hall,” Mr. Bradbury ordered. “It’s only just that they should suffer equally, as Mr. Chelton thinks fit; one’s as culpable as the other. Bring them both after me, Kerrick! Now, my man, go ahead with the lantern.”
Wrapped in his cloak, hat pressed down over his brows, Mr. Bradbury went up the road, leaving Tim to curse, since justice and an overdue vengeance on our skins had been taken arbitrarily from his hands. ”

“ Bradbury for his assistance.—Thirdly, that Mr. Bradbury undertook to make him a ready writer for the sum of one guinea; and also to teach him how to make a pen, without any additional charge.—Fourthly, that he went through his six lessons in writing, when Mr. Bradbury demanded his guinea.—Fifthly, that he gave Mr. Bradbury a sovereign and a half-crown, desiring him to take his guinea therefrom.—Sixthly, that Mr. Bradbury, instead of returning him one shilling and sixpence, returned him a sixpence only, stating that he retained the extra shilling for stationery ”

“ For justice, to be wise and efficacious, must include justice to oneself. The farm had come to Miss Bradbury in payment of a debt; she could not prove that it had come to her from other than its legal owner. And her plans for the future made it well for all concerned that the Ark should belong to upright, big-hearted Keren-happuch Bradbury. ”

“ Bradbury chuckled to himself happily on thinking of the many women he had known in his fifty years.
He looked around the plane. No passengers, except for a pleasant looking young man sitting across the aisle from him, a young man thoroughly engrossed in a small, paper-bound book, the title of which Mr. Bradbury could not discern.
He wished he had his glasses, for he was getting a slight headache. The lawyer leaned back in the soft seat and closed his eyes. Well, headache or no headache, life was good, and he was glad he was alive. Then Mr. Bradbury fell asleep. ”

“ His worship desired him to describe the nature of his complaint more minutely; whereupon the gentleman went into a long and rather melancholy story, from which it appeared—
Firstly, that Mr. Bradbury lives in the Strand, and is [Pg 145] famous for teaching grown gentlemen to write a fine free hand in six lessons, for the trifling sum of one guinea, though they might previously be only capable of scrawling "pot-hooks and links."—Secondly, that the applicant being in this unfortunate predicament, applied to Mr. ”

“ Bradbury, to understand my wishes. I do not welcome your visit. I felt bound only to receive you and hear you. Why have you come?”
Mr. Bradbury, standing forward, sought his snuff-box, and made play with it; the cold jewels shining white upon his fingers, his eyes hard and keen as his diamonds. “Mr. Craike,” p. 130he said, “our interview with you should surely be in private. Is there any need for Thrale to remain?”
“Set chairs, Thrale, and I’ll ring for you—if I need you. Is Mr. Charles in the house?”
“No, sir,” answered Thrale, his malignant look marking resentment against Mr. Bradbury. ”

“ A life of Watts would be quite incomplete which did not give some account of his very eminent but now almost forgotten assailant and enemy, Thomas Bradbury. Born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, he had all the characteristics of a typical Yorkshireman; he was a bold and hearty, and possibly, whatever that may be worth, well-meaning man; he possessed a considerable amount of natural genius, especially for doubtful drollery and expletive. ”

“ But the body of thirteen trustees who held the property of the four Exeter meeting-houses appealed to London for further advice. After much negotiation the whole body of London dissenting ministers of the three denominations was convened at Salters' Hall to consider a draft letter of advice to Exeter. Bradbury put himself in the front of the conservative party; the real mover on the opposite side was the whig politician John Shute Barrington, viscount Barrington, a member of Bradbury's congregation, and afterwards the Papinian of Lardner's letter on the Logos. ”

“ Bradbury, and now stood leaning against the chimney-piece, his face revealing nothing of the rage which surely racked him.
“I beg to take my leave of you, Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, bowing to my grandfather. “Come, lad!”
But as I started up, glad enough to be away, p. 144the old man’s cane smote heavily upon the hearth. “The lad,” he growled, “stays here, Bradbury!”
“Mr. Craike, were you alone in this house,” said Mr. Bradbury, swiftly, “nothing could give me keener pleasure than that your grandson should remain with you. But Craike House is Craike House, and the lad goes with me.” ”

“ At the date of this occurrence, Richard Carr was twenty years of age, and Zerubabel Endicott a lad of of fifteen.
It is not to be wondered at that there was "some difference between" George Carr and Mrs. Bradbury, if he was in the habit of indulging in such talk about her as he took the leading part in on this occasion. He evidently encouraged in his "boys" the absurd imaginations with which their credulity had been stimulated. They were prepared by preconceived notions to witness something preternatural about the premises of Mrs. Bradbury ”

“ Neither was in time to do good or harm, for the Exeter trustees had taken the matter into their own hands by formally excluding Peirce and his colleague from all the meeting-houses. Bradbury had his share in the ensuing pamphlet war, which was political as well as religious, for a schism in dissent was deprecated as inimical to the whig interest. ”

“ Before Watts had received his invitation to become the co-pastor or successor of Dr. Chauncy, the congregation had heard Mr. Bradbury; it is easily understood that the courtly, polished, and perhaps fastidious people would scarcely appreciate an eloquence like that of “bold Bradbury”—a term by which Queen Anne designated him. Then, at the first signal of his hostility to Watts, one of his own most distinguished people, Watts’ friend, Lord Barrington, forsook him ”

“ But the sailors from the forecastle demurred, and Bradbury's explanation to the captain was accepted as satisfactory. Bradbury considered that he, no less than officer, was a man, and claimed a man's treatment. The final fate of "Red Gills" illustrated the soundness of this principle. He afterwards ran a ship with a crew of negroes, whom he treated inhumanly, until they turned upon him, a husky darkey taking the chance to fall upon him from the rigging, and the whole crew then setting upon and beating him severely. ”

“ There appeared ‘An Appeal to the Dissenting Ministers, occasioned by the Behaviour of Mr. Thomas Bradbury,’ 1722, 8vo; and Thomas Morgan (the ‘Moral Philosopher,’ 1737) , who had made an unusually orthodox confession at his ordination [see Bowden, John] in 1716, but was now on his way to ‘Christian deism,’ wrote his ‘Absurdity of opposing Faith to Reason’ in reply to Bradbury's 5th of November sermon, 1722, on ‘The Nature of Faith.’ He had previously attacked Bradbury in a postscript to his ‘Nature and Consequences of Enthusiasm,’ 1719, 8vo. ”

“ Bradbury, and saw it in its cobweb of ivy and the black pines at its back. I’ve no cause to remain here, and I’ll not remain.”
He muttered, “Yet you’ll remain.”
“I’m gaoled here, then. Is that it?”
“You’ll remain,” he repeated, “though you’ll be free to ride abroad with the young cub Oliver. You’re safe here; there’s naught in the house to fear. There’s none dares do you hurt.”
“None of those old men, your servants?” said I. “Those old brown men with the evil eyes, and the rings in their ears, and the tattoo-marks on their arms? I’m afraid, maybe, of Blunt and his crew—not of these old men.” ”

“ In consequence, a large proportion of the crew of the Sally Ann who got leave to go ashore forgot to come back, and prospects of obtaining other men to fill the vacancies were not encouraging. Bradbury, therefore, rather than stay with a ship that might be detained long, and might at last return to New Bedford half empty, concluded that he also would try life for a while in rural Australia, making the adventure with a companion nicknamed "Long Charlie." ”

“ As we descended, I heard voices muttering in the hall; and saw the gleam of lanterns, and made out it might be half-a-dozen stout fellows. I saw, as we passed by them, that every man was armed with cutlass, pistol or bludgeon. Sir Gavin Masters, emerging from the doorway, cried out jovially, “Ah, John Craike! So your throat’s not cut yet, and ye’re not kidnapped. Where’s the old man, Bradbury? The devil of a time you’ve been!” ”