Charleton

“ Charleton. "You can't shoot a man's dog, at least this man's dog and go
unpunished. You and Dad have bullied this valley long enough, Charleton.
Put up your hands and take your punishment."
He struck the six-shooter from Charleton's hand and the battle was joined. Douglas' only advantage over his adversary was in point of youth, for Charleton was as lean and powerful as a gorilla. But youth was a powerful ally and eventually it was Charleton who lay in the snow, blinking at the moon. ”

“ Charleton looked from one young man to the other. Doug with his long face entirely expressionless, sitting easily sidewise in his saddle; Scott, face flushed, eyes angry, standing tense in the stirrups. There came an ugly twist to Charleton's lips, but after a moment he spoke coolly.
"You fellows help me up on Democrat and we'll beat it for home."
"But you don't believe the Moose—" began Doug. But Charleton interrupted. ”

“ LITTLE SWIFT CROSSES THE DIVIDE
"Ride 'em till they drop, then break another. That's what Nature does and that's what I do."
-John Spencer. THE following afternoon when Douglas rode after the mail he went round by the west trail to call on Charleton. He found the crippled philosopher propped up in bed, reading the Atlantic Monthly and smoking a pipe. Mrs. Falkner and Little Marion were in the corral doing the chores.
"Well, how's the Moose after his disappointment?" asked Charleton.
"Going strong! Any news of Scott?" ”

“ He was continued in his office of physician at the Restoration, and published in 1661 a eulogium on Charles II, which describes the profligate king as one to whom no interest is so dear as religion; a man in whom clemency, justice, piety, fortitude, and magnanimity are found in perfect union. Charleton was one of the first elected fellows of the Royal Society in 1662 (Thomson, History of Royal Society, 1812, p. 3) , and on 23 Jan. ”

“ THE LOG CHAPEL
"Don't take any responsibility that you don't have to. That's my idea of a happy life."
—Young Jeff. BY eight o'clock the next morning they had broken camp and had started homeward, with their kicking, squealing herd of wild horses. The little black mare alone led docilely. It was a difficult trip back to the valley and Douglas was grateful for this, for it kept Charleton from airing the cynical comments Douglas knew he was evolving in regard to the preacher. And Douglas was filled with a new purpose fulness that was almost happiness. ”

“ Oxon.) , but soon returned to London, and was senior censor in the College of Physicians from 1698 to 1706, and delivered Harveian orations in 1702 and 1706, and in the latter year was appointed Harveian librarian. He died 24 April 1707. Two portraits of Charleton are to be found in his works. The earlier (Immortality of the Human Soul, 1657) represents him as a slim young man with a high forehead, large eyes, flowing hair, a small moustache, and a shaven chin. ”

“ Corporal Charlton had proved himself a very invaluable man. As a soldier he was wonderfully resourceful and active; in action he was intense, energetic and decisive. With his intelligence and good, horse sense, he would, even without the complete education which some men have without sense—have made a good all round commissioned officer—a credit to the regiment and to the Army— It is a pity that we did not have more of his type with which to build up the army with practical men of his caliber—instead of having so much over educated material. ”

“ Charlton took his cue at once, and replied: “They were excellent people, and I’m sorry they’ve gone. What was the matter? Were the slave-catchers after them?”
“I don’t know,” sighed Petticum; “I shouldn’t wonder. Poor Flora! That was all she worried about. I’d like to have got my hands in the hair of the man that would have carried her off. Where’ll you find the white folks better and decenter than they was?”
“Not in New York, ma’am,” said Charlton, stealthily looking about the room, examining every article of furniture, and opening the drawers. ”

“ Charlton. “’T is too bad to keep her waiting so!” And the next moment she joined her daughter in the carriage.
Meanwhile Charlton, as his wife left him, had groaned out, in soliloquy, “What a devil of a woman! How different from my first wife!” Then he sought consolation in the quotations of stock. While he read and chuckled, there was a knock. It was only Pompilard returned for his Prospectus. As the old man was folding it up, the white-gloved footman laid a card before Charlton. “Vance!” exclaimed the latter: “I’m acquainted with no such person. Show him up.” ”

“ Charley had looked upon him with the pitying contempt of strong youth for weak youth. He considered that the stranger's hands were soft and effeminate, he disliked his little trimmed mustache, and especially the cool, mocking, appraising glance of his eyes. But as the day, and the night, and the day following wore away, Charley revised his opinion. The slender body possessed unexpected reserve, the long lean hands plied the tools unweariedly, the sensitive face had become drawn and tired, but the spirit behind the mocking eyes had not lost the flash of its defiance. ”

“ I found Charlton sitting lonely in a sort of library scantily furnished with books. A well-formed man, but with a face haggard and anxious as if his life-blood were ebbing irrecoverably with every penny that went from his pockets. On my mentioning your name, his eyes brightened; for he inferred I had come with your semiannual remittances. He was at once anxious to know if rents in New Orleans had been materially affected by the war. ”

“ Charlton's house was as secure as a convent; he had no fear that either English or American soldiers would molest a dwelling full of schoolgirls. And John Bradley could keep the door of his mouth; and he believed that a man who could do that might pursue a trade so necessary as his, with an almost certain degree of safety.
In appearance he was a short, powerful-looking man with tranquil, meditating eyes and a great talent for silence; an armed soul dwelling in a strong [Pg 52] body. Some minds reflect, shift, argue, and are like the surface of a lake ”

“ The title of Charlemont descended from Sir Toby Caulfeild (1565–1627) of Oxfordshire, England, who was given lands in Ireland, and created Baron Charlemont (the name of a fort on the Blackwater) , for his services to King James I. in 1620, and the 1st viscount was the 5th baron (d. 1671) , who was advanced by Charles II. Lord Charlemont is historically interesting for his political connexion with Flood and Grattan; he was a cultivated man with literary and artistic tastes, and both in Dublin and in London his amiable character gave him considerable social influence. ”

“ It was with no little satisfaction, therefore, that I called to communicate the state of his affairs in New Orleans.
“He lives on one of the avenues in a neat freestone house, such as could be hired for twenty-five hundred a year. There is a stable attached, and he keeps a carriage. Soon after he burst upon the fashionable world as a millionnaire, there was a general competition among fashionable families to secure him for one of the daughters. But Charlton, with all his wealth, did not want a wife who was merely stylish, clever, and beautiful; she must be rich into the bargain. ”

“ Besides the military subjects in which he peculiarly delighted, and which found an energetic response in the popular heart, and kept alive a feeling of regret for the recent past of the French nation and discontent with the present,—a feeling which increased upon the artist himself towards the close of his career,—Charlet designed many subjects of town life and peasant life, the ways of children, &c., with much wit and whim in the descriptive mottoes. ”

“ Charlton nodded. He was a man of few words. He said nothing when Lawrence gave him a pair of goloshes to put over his boots, and in silence the two set out for Raven Street. The place was practically deserted as they came to the house, so that to enter without being seen was a matter of no difficulty.
"We are in time," Lawrence whispered, "in good time. I felt sure I could trust the one I picked out to assist me. If I had not been detained I should have been here before. There is not much for us to do."
"Are we waiting for somebody?" Charlton asked. ”

“ Huge and innocent primitive man was Charle' Charette. He could sleep under snow-drifts like a baby, carry double packs of furs, pull oars all day without tiring, and dance all night after hardships which caused some men to desire to lie down and die. The summer before, at nineteen years of age, this light-haired, light-hearted voyageur had been married to 'Tite Laboise. Their wedding festivities lasted the whole month of the Mackinac season. His was the Wabash and Illinois River outfit, almost the last to leave the island ”

“ To be patronized by the son of such a person poor Charley considered “a very fine thing.”
“Wasn’t Phillip Redgill one of the sparks of fashion? Did not fair dames (of doubtful virtue, perhaps) smile bewitchingly upon him? Was he not nodded to by this lord and that one? Could he not handle a sword with almost any man?” said Charley, and many others. “And was it not a ‘great thing,’ therefore, to be known to, and to be hand and glove with such a person when I am only a chief clerk in the India House, and nought to depend upon but my own advancement and old Sir Richard’s generosity?” ”

“ Sometimes in his rides along the lonely bush tracks he would meet Mrs. Charlton and go as far as the plantation gates with her. She was a small, slenderly built woman, or rather girl, with dark, passionate eyes, in whose liquid depths Lester could read the sorrows of her life with such a man as Henry Charlton. Once as he rode beside her through the grey monotone of the lofty, smooth-barked gum-trees she told him that her father was an Englishman and her mother a Portuguese.
“I married Captain Charlton in Macao. ”

“ It is Charle' Charette who leads on the trail or breaks a road where there is none, and carries the heaviest pack of furs, and pulls men out of the water when they are drowning; it is Charle' Charette who can best endure fasting when the rations run low, and can hunt and bring in meat when other voyageurs lie exhausted about the camp-fire. I am no little lard-eater from Canada, brother to a man with a stomach having no lid. ”

“ The Charltons and Charlton’s lawyer, Mr. Detritch, had arrived. The ladies were removing their bonnets and shawls. Hyde drew near to Vance, and the latter threw open the door. Charlton entered first. The prospect of recovering his New Orleans property had put him in the most gracious of humors. His dyed hair, his white, well-starched vest, his glossy black dress-coat and pantaloons, showed that his personal appearance was receiving more than usual attention. He would have been called a handsome man by those who did not look deep as Lavater. ”

“ Charlton, with the prompt manliness and humanity which characterized him, at once volunteered his services. These were gratefully accepted, and his devotion was so pronounced and so successful that after a short incarceration in Fort Warren, Massachusetts, the enemy treated him as the British had his great grandfather under similar circumstances and turned their backs while he walked out, with the understanding that he would not return south. ”

“ It is all good and picturesque in its way, but tuneful Charley is more to our liking when he gets into an English corn-field, strolls down an English lane, or sits at the door of an English cottage. He is then as natural as Moreland treating the same subjects on canvas. The fragrance of the fields comes on the wings of his song, and his English home and peasant are still more truly English than his English ships and sailors. ”

“ Heaven; perhaps you will have one too!"
"It would be worth while," rejoined Charley musingly. Charley wondered bitterly if he had made an irreparable error in saying those ill-chosen words. This might mean a breach between them, and so make his position in the parish untenable. He had no wish to go elsewhere—where could he go? It mattered little what he was, tinker or tailor. He had now only to work his way back to the mind of the peasant; to be an animal with intelligence; to get close to mother earth, and move down the declivity of life with what natural wisdom were possible. ”

“ He bores everybody to death with his locomotive as artlessly as grown people do with their hobbies.
Our Charley.
When the blaze of the wood-fire flickers up and down in our snug evening parlor, there dances upon the wall a little shadow, with a pug nose, a domestic household shadow—a busy shadow—a little restless specimen of perpetual motion, and the owner thereof is “our Charley.” Now we should not write about him and his ways, if he were strictly a peculiar and individual existence of our own home-circle; but it is not so. “Our Charley” exists in a thousand, nay, a million families ”

“ We were, however, merry enough, and thought the leagues short. We arrived at Charenton about ten.
Charenton is prettily situated in a valley, through which the Seine flows, winding among banks variegated with trees. On looking at this scene, C*** exclaimed, “Oh! this is beautiful enough; let us live here.” This was her exclamation on every new scene, and as each surpassed the one before, she cried, “I am glad we did not stay at Charenton, but let us live here.”
Finding our ass useless, we sold it before we proceeded on our journey, and bought a mule, for ten Napoleons. ”