Colton

“ Campbell it was that spoke, but the gesture of his outstretched hand was unheeded. All eyes beheld the same object, and easily interpreted its meaning.
Sweeping round a timber island, a thrilling sight burst upon their gaze. A bright glare was rapidly ascending to the heavens, spreading and growing more and more vivid with each moment. One glance told them the meaning of this. A house was burning—the house of their friend and neighbor, Henry Colton! ”

“ Colton declared, when he had recovered himself. He nodded at Witherspoon.
"We are going to try," the great merchant replied. "By the way, I told Brooks that we'd have to press Bradley & Adams, of Atchison, Kansas. They are altogether too slow—there's no excuse for it."
"None in the world; none whatever," Colton agreed. He more than agreed, for there was alarm in his voice, and the alarm of an old miser is pitiable. "Gracious alive, can they expect people to wait always? Dear, what can the world be coming to when we are all to be cheated out of our rights? We'll have the law on them." ”

“ Colton. Didn't you know? Yes, sir, that's his car. He's come and so's his daughter and that young Carver feller. I believe they've come to take in the sociable. There they be! See 'em! See 'em!”
I saw them. Colton and Victor had already alighted and Miss Colton was descending from the tonneau. There were two other men in the car, beside Oscar, the chauffeur.
“Who are those other people?” I asked.
“I don't know,” whispered Sim, excitedly. “Stay where you be and I'll find out. I'll be right back, now. Don't you move.” ”

“ Colton felt helpless in this maze. Late in the afternoon Dolly Ravenden came to him. Her brilliant beauty was dimmed and softened by traces of tears, and to the man’s longing heart she never had appealed with so irresistible a charm.
“Dr. Colton,” she said, “I don’t know what to do about Helga. She is like a dazed person. Your brother and I have been with her constantly. She has not broken down once. The tears seem frozen within her. I am frightened for her reason. She seems to blame herself for this dreadful thing.”
“There is something I want her to know,” said Dick. “Will you tell her?” ”

“ It is difficult
entries in Colton’s country was then writer was an offor the twentieth
century American to get a clear vision of a people and a time so diametric to the feverish and selfish hurry of today. The kind, happy and hospitable people that Com
Comodore Sloat met at Monterey in 1846, and among whom Colton lived for more than two years, inhabited a little world of their own making into which had never entered the jealousies and rivalries born of selfishness and greed. ”

“ Colton exhibited all the singularities that only too often characterize genius, especially as regards improvidence and recklessness of habit. He lived unattended, in a single room in Princes Street, Soho, London, in a neglected apartment containing scarcely any furniture. He wrote very illegibly upon a rough deal table with a stumpy pen. He was finally so pressed with debts that he absconded to avoid his London creditors, though he held the very comfortable vicarage of Kew, in Surrey. ”

“ Colton. "You never could make me believe that child had any harm in her—"
"It isn't what one believes. It's what is. I know. I've studied human nature. If I don't know anything else I know that. She'll get out of Rosewater, or I'll hit her in her weak spot. I'll write her up for the San Francisco Illuminator. They'd give hundreds, and they can have it for nothing—"
"Why, Minerva Haight, I'm ashamed of you!" cried Mrs. Colton. "It's like persecution, and you have no proof. Why should you know more of the world than we do, I'd like to know?" ”

“ The [183] eccentricities and irregularities of Colton are almost too extravagant for belief, and certainly will not bear rehearsal. At one and the same time a clergyman of fair repute and the secret companion of sporting-men and gamblers, he was always playing a double part. He was the author of several important pamphlets and some excellent poetry, and, when abroad, the well-paid correspondent of the London press. ”

“ Colton rose and shook his head.
"The niggers need a lesson," he muttered as he unsteadily bade his host good-bye. Cresswell watched him uncomfortably as he rode away, and again a feeling of doubt stirred within him. What new force was he loosening against his black folk—his own black folk, who had lived about him and his fathers nigh three hundred years? He saw the huge form of the sheriff loom like an evil spirit a moment on the rise of the road and sink into the night. ”

“ Such persons should remember the words of Colton, that, 'Strong and sharp as our wit may be, it is not so strong as the memory of fools, nor so keen as their resentment; he that has strength of mind to forgive, is by no means weak enough to forget ”

“ And I don't think for a minute you'd back water on the Lane business a-purpose. But I do think you're takin' chances. I tell you, honest, I'm scart of old Colton, in a way, and I ain't scart of many folks. He's a fighter and he's smart. ”

“ He stood at the table, thus talking to himself, and turning over the letters, until his eye rested on one written in a delicate hand, and indorsed, 'Mary Colton to Henry Colton.' Harson opened it, mechanically, and ran his eye over it. It was very short, and breathed a heart broken by some grief which was only alluded to, but not mentioned. It ran thus:
'My dear Henry: With all others, hope has darkened into despair; but I will not give up yet; I cannot. It would kill me, if I did. Go on, my dearest Henry; make all efforts. ”

“ Your turn's comin', Miss Colton. All you got to do is be patient.”
“Joshua!” said Mrs. Atwood, in mild reproof. “You mustn't mind his talk, Miss Colton. He's a terrible joker.”
Miss Colton changed the subject. She did not so much as look at me again during the meal and, after it was over, she went to her room, explaining that she was very tired and would try to get a little sleep.
I had discovered that the lighthouse, being close to the mainland, was equipped with a telephone. Now I begged permission to use it. I called up Denboro and asked to be connected with the Colton home. ”

“ With a curse of rage Colton dashed aside his useless rifle and sprung after Morton. There was reason in his action, for he knew that his life would be in peril as long as the outlaw lived.
Twice he fired, but without apparent effect. The Night-Hawk leader sprung into a saddle, then urged his horse to rapid flight. Colton promptly imitated this action, and the two, pursued and pursuer, soon disappeared without the line of light shed by the blazing dwelling.
“Look to these devils, Ruel,” hurriedly uttered Campbell, as he looked around upon the scene. “If any are living bind them. ”

“ To insult a woman whom they have never seen! Why—why—Helga is as—— If I had a brother, and Helga Johnston was willing to marry him I should count it an honour to the Ravendens.”
All the imperious pride of a family who had been landed gentry in the South, while Colton’s sturdy forebears were wielding pick and shovel in the far West, who had signed the Declaration of Independence before the first American Colton had worked a toilsome passage across from his North Country hovel to the land of sudden riches, shone in her eyes. ”

“ Colton will be read with pleasure and profit by all classes of the Christian community who admire perspicuity, liberality, frankness, and unprejudiced inquiry. It is not our purpose to speak of the general accuracy of his data, or the soundness of his deductions. In style the work appears to us excessively faulty—even uncouth. ”

“ Colton. He knows I'm postmaster in this town and sort of prominent. All the smart folks ain't in the Board of Selectmen. I'll keep you posted; see? You just set back and pretend you don't want to sell at all. Colton, he'll bid and Jed and his gang'll bid. I'll tell each what the other bids, and we'll keep her jumpin'. When we get to the last jump, we'll sell—and not afore. Of course Mr. Colton 'll get it, in the end.”
“Oh, he will! What makes you think so?”
“What makes me think so? Don't be foolish. Ain't he a millionaire? How can Denboro stand up against a millionaire? ”

“ Colton, richer'n King Solomon and all his glory. He's got servants and butlers and bonds and cowpons and horses and teams and automobiles and—”
I rose from the wash bench.
“I know what he's got, Lute,” I interrupted. “And I know what he hasn't got.”
“What? Is there anything he ain't got?”
“He hasn't got me—not yet. If he wants to see me he may. I expect to be at home for the next day or two.”
“You don't mean you expect a millionaire like him to come cruisin' after YOU! Well, by time! I think I see him!”
“When you do, let me know,” I said. “I should like to be prepared.” ”

“ So a British force of some five thousand men, under Sir David Baird, was at once sent out, and on a sultry January day was marching from Leopard's Bay, over scrub and veldt, towards Capetown.
All this, however, was undreamt of by honest John Colton as he sat with his wife on the verandah of his house, watching the antics of a puppy that was playing with the children in front of them.
Suddenly the man's quick ears caught the sound of horses' hoofs in the distance. He strained his eyes across the veldt, and, after a minute or two, could make out a man riding at utmost speed. ”

“ This Clark Basset aforesaid registers wherever Colton marries in ye Fleet Register and gives him Certificates. Colton had a living in Essex till ye Bishop of London deprived him for this and other ill Practices. There is also one Mr. Nehemiah Rogers, he is a prisoner but goes at larg to his P. Living in Essex, and all places else, he is a very wicked man, as lives for drinking, whoring, and [Pg 338] swearing, he has struck and boxed ye bridegroom in ye Chapple, and damned like any com'on souldier; he marries both within and without ye Chapple like his brother Colton. ”

“ Say, Ros, what did you and Phin Cahoon and the Colton girl do yesterday?”
“Oh, we put through one of Mr. Colton's little trades for him, that's all.”
“That's all, hey! Well, whatever 'twas, he and I owe you a vote of thanks. He began to get better the minute he heard it. He's feeling so chipper that, if it wasn't that I swore he shouldn't, he'd have got out of bed by this time. You must go up and see him, I suppose, but don't stay too long. He's a wonder for strength and recuperative powers, but don't tire him too much. ”

“ The lawyer turned to Harson, and then said: ‘I promise; do you, Harson?’ Harry nodded.
‘Good!’ said Rust, abruptly. ‘You know my name, and much of my history. All the facts which you detailed to me at my office a short time since are true—true almost to the very letter. Michael Rust and Henry Colton are one. The plodding, scheming, heartless, unprincipled Henry Colton, who could sell his brother’s own flesh and blood for gold ”

“ Huntington’s letters to Colton, it seems as though the former was reasonably well satisfied with the way the business in the West was conducted after 1874. On his part, Colton cultivated the idea that the interests of the five associates, himself included, were inextricably bound together. “I have learned one thing,” he wrote in 1878, “we have got no true friends outside of us five.... People will profess friendship to one of us, just to either try to find out something, or when the time comes, lie about the rest of us. ”

“ I declared. “Look up 'send' in the code, Miss Colton.”
She was turning the pages of the little book when the butler knocked once more.
“He says he can't send any message until morning, Miss Mabel. The telegraph office closes at eight o'clock.”
The code book fell to the table. Miss Colton stared helplessly at me.
“What SHALL we do?” she breathed.
I rose to my feet. “Wait, Johnson,” I called. “Make that man wait a moment longer. Miss Colton, I have an idea. Would your father be willing to—but, that is silly! Of course he would! I'll see Cahoon myself.” ”

“ A truckman on top of a dray looked down and probably caught him smiling to himself, grinned, and shouted, "How goes it?" Here and there on the sidewalk, too, men called out to him. Every door and window here between Trinity and the Brotherhood was familiar, and the brick walls and shuttered windows of the Brotherhood were eloquent. He thought. "I'll go in another time, and see Francis and his sick flower-bed, and the school and Andrew. It would scare me into a relapse to see the Superior now. Nobody but the bonus Deus ever understood him, and the bonus Deus is in Hagar." ”

“ He could reach the game in time, anyhow.
“Just as I expected!” hissed Eggleston between his teeth: “‘Must decline the loan,’ he says. ‘Thank Mr. Colton for his frankness. Stockton, President.’ [Pg 188] Thanks Mr. Colton, does he! If you want my opinion I’ll tell you that by your confounded backing and filling you’ve thrown over the best operation we’ve had since this firm was formed. Find the money somewhere else, Mr. Colton, that I’ve put in, and I’ll draw out. This morning’s work convinces me that no sensible man’s interests are safe in your hands.” ”

“ JAMES W. COLTON.
“From Mr. Colton!” exclaimed Mother. “Why! what can he want of you?”
“I don't know,” I answered. “And I don't particularly care.”
“Roscoe!”
“Mother, did you ever hear such a cool, nervy proposition in your life? He wants to see me and he orders me to come to him. Why doesn't he come to me?”
“I suppose he didn't think of it. He is a big man in New York and he has been accustomed to having people come at his convenience. ”