Chattaway

“ Chattaway, turning full upon George.
"Why?" echoed George. "I like it, for one thing. And a knowledge of the classics is necessary to a gentleman."
"Necessary to what?" cried Mr. Chattaway.
"To a gentleman," repeated George.
"Oh," said Mr. Chattaway. "Do you think of being one?"
"Yes, I do," repeated George, in tones as decisive as any ever used by his step-mother.
This bold assertion nearly took away the breath of Farmer Apperley. Had George Ryle announced his intention of becoming a convict, Mr. Apperley's consternation had been scarcely less. ”

“ Though not a good man, especially in the way of temper and covetousness, Chattaway would have started with horror had he supposed he could ever be so bad as that.
He rode swiftly along in the autumn morning, urging his horse to a hard gallop. Was his haste merely caused by his anxiety to be at Blackstone, or that he would escape from his own thoughts? He rode directly to the coal mine, up to the mouth of the pit. Two or three men, looking like blackamoors, were standing about.
"Why are you not down at work?" angrily demanded Mr. Chattaway. "What do you do idling here!" ”

“ Chattaway was na down the shaft; he is na one of the dead, more luck to him," she said, her words brought out brokenly, her bosom heaving. "Chattaway have this morning made me a widda and my young children fatherless. My man was stiff with rheumatiz, he was—no more fit to go to work nor I be to go down that shaft and carry up his poor murdered body. I knowed his errand as soon as I heerd his horse's feet. He made him get off the settle, and druv him out to work as he'd drive a dog; and when I told him of his hardness, he lifted up his whip agin me. Yes! ”

“ And I wish to tell Chattaway that if he'll act a fair part as a man ought, and let my wife and the boys stop on the farm, he'll stand a much better chance of getting the money, than he would if he turns them out of it. I don't say this for their sakes more than for his; but because from my heart I believe it to be the truth. George has his head on his shoulders the right way, and I would advise his mother to keep him on the farm; he will be getting older every day. ”

“ Every pulse of her heart beating with its sense of terrible wrong; every chord of love for Rupert strung to its utmost tension; every fear that an excitable imagination can depict within her, Mrs. Chattaway leaned against the palings in utter faintness of spirit. ”

“ A gentleman on horseback had reined in close to the gate: a spare man, rather above the middle height, with a pale, leaden sort of complexion, small, cold light eyes and mean-looking features. George ran down the path.
"Is your father at home?"
"No. He is gone to Barmester."
A scowl passed over Mr. Chattaway's brow. ”

“ George made no remark. To have explained how very different his ideas of a gentleman were from those of Farmer Apperley might have involved him in a long conversation. His silence was looked suspiciously upon by Mr. Chattaway.
"Where idle and roving notions are taken up, there's only one cure for them!" he remarked, in short, uncompromising tones. "And that is hard work." ”

“ Chattaway. "He is too young to do much on the farm. And there's John Pinder."
"John Pinder would do his best, no doubt," said Mr. Chattaway.
"The question is—if I do resolve to put George out, what can I put him to?" resumed Mrs. Ryle.
"My father thought it best I should remain on the farm," interposed George, his heart beating a shade faster.
"He thought it best that I should exercise my own judgment in the matter," corrected Mrs. Ryle. "The worst is, it takes money to place a lad out," she added, looking at Farmer Apperley. ”

“ As George rode by, he saw Rupert standing at the narrow entrance door, leaning against it, as if in fatigue or idleness. Ford, the clerk, a young man accustomed to taking life easily, and to give himself little concern as to how it went, was standing near, his hands in his pockets. To see them doing nothing was sufficient to tell George that Chattaway was not about, and he rode up to the office. ”

“ Chattaway. "Or come back myself when I have left the horse at home. Mr. Cris will hear more than he likes from me about this business."
"Such an untoward thing has never happened to Mr. Cris afore, sir," observed Mark Canham. "There's never a better driver than him for miles round. The young heir, now, he's different: a bit timid, I fancy, and——"
"Who?" burst forth Mr. Chattaway, taking his foot from the stirrup, for he was about to mount, and hurling daggers at Mark Canham. "The young heir! ”

“ Apperley proposes only a fair rate of interest; considerably less than I have been paying you."
"It is strange that you, a young and single man, should raise your ambitious eyes to the Upland Farm."
"Not at all. If I don't take the Upland, I shall take some other equally large. But I should have to go a greater distance, and I don't care to do that. As to being a single man—perhaps that might be remedied if you will let me have the Upland."
He spoke with a laugh; yet Mr. Chattaway detected a serious meaning in the tone, and he gazed hard at George. ”

“ Chattaway's suspicions were confirmed, and he determined when George Ryle again asked for the farm lease and for Octave, to accord both with rather more graciousness than he was accustomed to accord anything.
Things did not turn out, however, quite in accordance with his expectations. The best of us are disappointed sometimes, you know. George Ryle pressed for the farm, but did not press for Octave. In point of fact, he never mentioned her name, or so much as hinted at any interest he might feel in her; and Mr. Chattaway, rather puzzled and very cross, abstained from promising the farm. ”

“ If Herbert Dare was not guilty, who was? The family, quietly sleeping in their beds, were beyond the pale of suspicion; the household equally so; and no trace of any midnight intruder to the house could be found. It was a grave stumbling-block for the prisoner's counsel; but such stumbling-blocks are as nothing to an expert pleader. Bit by bit Mr. Chattaway disposed, or seemed to dispose, of every argument that could tell against the prisoner. The presence of the cloak in the dining-room, from which so much appearance of guilt had been deduced, he converted into a negative proof of innocence. ”

“ Jim Sanders. The windows, large, high, and guiltless of blinds, faced the south-east, and the warm autumn rays poured in, to the discomfort of those on whom they directly fell. They fell especially on the prisoner; his fair hair, his winning countenance. They fell on the haughty features of Miss Diana Trevlyn, leaning forward to speak to Mr. Peterby, who had been summoned in haste by herself, that he might watch the interests of Rupert. They fell on the sad face of Mrs. Chattaway, bent downwards until partly hidden under its falling curls ”

“ Nothing wears out a chap like a night without bed, and no breakfast at the end of it."
"It isn't that," said Rupert. "I'm sick of it altogether. There has been nothing but a row here all day, George—ask Ford. Chattaway has been on at all of us. First, he attacked me. He demanded where I slept, and I wouldn't tell him. Next, he attacked Cris—a most unusual thing—and Cris hasn't got over it yet. He has gone galloping off, to gallop his ill-temper away." ”

“ Think of one city which in the departments of literature, drama, philosophy, oratory, art, and public affairs could show more great men in two hundred years than all the rest of the world could show in two thousand!
We were treated during the season of 1913 to a sight new at that time, though common enough now. Mr. Engels brought to Chautauqua a Curtiss hydroplane, and day after day made flights, skimming over the surface of the lake, rising into the air, circling the sky and returning to the starting-point, to the amazement of the watching multitudes. ”

“ Chautauqua is a beautiful place in the woods, shut in from the world by a high fence all around it, with locked gates. It is on the shore of a lovely lake. [13] Many people come there every year, and they have meetings, and they sing beautiful songs about birds and flowers and sky and water and God and angels and dear little babies and stars. Men come there from all over this world, and stand up and talk high, grand thoughts, and the people listen and wave their handkerchiefs till it looks like an orchard full of cherry trees in blossom. ”

“ YOUNG PEOPLE AT CHAUTAUQUA. A BOY'S LETTER.
Dear Tom,—I last saw you waving your cap as our train rolled out of the station. That night I slept on a shelf in the sleeping-car, and the next morning we got breakfast at Hornellsville; and it was a good one, I tell you. About noon we got off the cars at Jamestown, and after dinner rode over the hill in a stage, and came to what looked like a narrow river winding among the trees.
This they said was the outlet of Chautauqua Lake. You would suppose that the water runs into Lake Erie, which is only seven miles away from Lake Chautauqua. ”

“ It dropped him down through the years at Chautauqua assemblies in almost half of the States of this Union. On Tuesday morning, August 3, 1875, I left the train at Jamestown, rode across the city, and embarked in a steamer for a voyage up the lake. As we slowly wound our way through the Outlet—it was on the old steamer Jamestown which was never an ocean-greyhound—I felt like an explorer in some unknown river. Over the old pier at Fair Point was the sign, "National S. S. Assembly," and beneath it I stepped ashore on what seemed almost a holy ground, for my first walk was through Palestine Park. ”

“ On the 18th, we discovered an island of more considerable extent than any island that has hitherto been discovered in the south; and as there were many collateral circumstances which might hereafter promise it to be a discovery of national importance, in honour of the first lord of the admiralty, it was called Chatham's Island. It is beautifully diversified with hills and dales, of twice the extent of Otaheite, and a hardy warlike race of people. The natives described a large river to us, which disembogued itself into a spacious bay, that promises excellent anchorage. ”

“ The moonlight shone brilliantly on the lake and at its upper end, two or three miles away, the lights of Mayville twinkled through the trees. Boats and canoes were drawing in toward the shore, for Chautauqua custom demands that every one be at home by ten o'clock, and that quiet reign so that the people who have studying to do or are obliged to rise early for their classes and so must go to bed early may not be disturbed. ”

“ In forty-six years more, old General Wayne, who used this region as the base of observations against the Indians of Michigan and Ohio, closed his eyes almost within sight of the Chautauqua hillocks, and, while his body was still lying in the fort where he breathed his last, Commodore Perry was building a crude navy to sweep Lake Erie of the British. Perry came through New York state to Lake Ontario, from thence went to Buffalo and took a sleigh on the ice for Erie, also passing within sight of the high knobs [518] of Chautauqua. ”

“ There little Charles passed some of the happiest years of his childhood, and received the most durable of his early impressions.
Chatham, on the river Medway, derives its name from the Saxon word Ceteham or Cættham, meaning “village of cottages.” It is anything but a “village” now, having since that remote age developed into a river port and a populous fortified town. Remains of Roman villas have been found in the neighbourhood, thus testifying to its antiquity. Chatham is one of the principal royal shipbuilding establishments in the kingdom. ”

“ We will not accept the votes of the [viii] thousands who beside the lake, in the Hall of Philosophy, or under the roof of the amphitheater, have been inoculated with the Chautauqua spirit. We will seek for the testimony of sane, intelligent, and thoughtful people, and we will be guided in our conclusions by their opinions. Let us listen to the words of the wise and then determine whether a book about Chautauqua should be published. We have the utterances by word of mouth and the written statements of public men, governors, senators, presidents; of educators, professors, and college presidents ”

“ In 1917, a thousand automobiles—many from Eastern Oregon, and from other states—entered the grounds for the change of scenery and environment, as well as for the remarkable programs presented by the best American talent. Hence the Willamette Valley Chautauqua has grown to be the largest Chautauqua west of the Rocky Mountains. Many enthusiastic towns have taken up the Chautauqua movement, and others will follow, until all Oregon can listen to die greatest speakers and the sweetest Singers. ”

“ Perhaps it was an advantage to the thousands at the Assembly to find only two miles away a place where the rules were relaxed.
One story of a later season may be told in this connection, for it was without doubt typical. There are staid fathers and mothers attending lectures on sociology and civics in the Hall of Philosophy who could narrate similar experiences if only they would. A youth and two young lasses went out at the pier-gate for a sail across the lake. They landed at Point Chautauqua, refreshed their constrained bodies by a good dance, and then sailed home again. ”

“ Thus the redskin, the voyageur, and the redcoat in turn dipped their paddles into the placid waters of Lake Chautauqua. They all passed away, and the American frontiersman took their place; he too was followed by the farmer and the vinedresser. In the last half of the nineteenth century a thriving town, Mayville, was growing at the northern end of the lake; the city of Jamestown was rising at the end of the Outlet; while here and there along the shores were villages and hamlets; roads, such as they were before the automobile compelled their improvement, threaded the forests and fields. ”