Danby

“ A merry heart wags all the day. Who wouldn't be happy among the golden corn, in touch with Nature, with the field-bugs gambolling over one's back!"
"Eh?"
Danby laughed.
"You find me a little flowery; I am flying too high for you. I am indulging in aeroplanics. I'll come down to the good red earth. Marnin', matey. How's t'crops?"
The imitation of the country accent was ridiculously exaggerated. The farm-hand examined the town man searchingly and suspiciously.
"Eh?" he said again.
"Beat again!" said Danby, with a shriek of laughter.
Pippard went closer, but slowly. ”

“ Danby will turn the clothes to good account; and Mrs. Danby always has complied.
Talking of the Danbys, perhaps this is a fitting time to explain the commotion that Ben heard in Mr. Reed's sleeping-room.
A moment before, and in the midst of certain lively planning, a middle-sized boy, named Thomas Budd, had strayed from the candy-pulling scene and appeared at the threshold of this apartment, where Charity Danby, little Isabella Danby, Fandy, and three or four others were assembled.
"All right!" shouted Fandy, excitedly, as Master Budd entered; "come along, Tommy Budd, you can play too. ”

“ Strong's hatred of Danby never ceased, but he began to think of him less often.
One day, when he least expected it, the subject was brought to his mind in a manner that startled him. He was in Galveston ordering supplies for the ranch, when in passing a shop which he would have called a draper's, but which was there designated as dealing in dry goods, he was amazed to see the name "Danby and Strong" in big letters at the bottom of a huge pile of small cardboard boxes that filled the whole window. ”

“ Ten minutes of following this trail brought them to a long, low, broad-roofed building that, in the gathering darkness, seemed gloomy and forbidding.
“Fine place for a murder,” Danby Force whispered to Rosemary.
“Don’t say that!” She shuddered.
Stamping their feet on the broad veranda, they pushed the door open and entered. Danby Force struck a match. Directly before him, at the opposite side of the room, was a fire all laid in a broad fireplace. The young man’s second match set a mellow glow of light from the dancing flames searching out every dark corner. ”

“ My Lord Danby gaped in an amaze, and Old Rowley, lifting his eyebrows, humorously glanced upon it with a rueful air, and surveyed Madam out of the tail of his eyes.
“Take it, Danby,” says he, “and forgive the varlet.”
But my lord, who was regaining his composure, raised the jewels gingerly on his finger, and then, with a sudden assumption of gallantry, very ludicrous to witness in him,
“Nay,” he says, “Here is no trinket for a man,” and with a bow presents it to my lady. ”

“ Danby kept it up.
“Do you find the glare of the electric light too much for you? Shall I complain about the orchestra?”
“One must endure these things in these places, your lordship. Were you riding in the Row this morning?”
“Yaas.” Danby twirled an imaginary moustache. “I had a canter. My mare cast a shoe—sixteen buttons. I rode her so hard that she strained her hemlock. She’s a good little mare. Has fourteen hands, and plenty of action. She’s a bit of a roarer, but then her mother was ridden by a Cabinet Minister.”
“You haven’t taken to a car, then?” ”

“ Danby followed him up to the gate, and stood watching him curiously and admiringly, and as he watched he spoke his thoughts aloud.
“Good day, giant,” he said. “Good day, simple son of the soil, who eats 87hearty, drinks like a fish, and digests everything. Good-bye, man who knows nothing, and doesn’t want to know anything. I’d give ten years of my life for five of yours any day. Well, well.”
He turned with a sigh, took off his hat and hung it on a twig of the hedge, and then divested himself of his knapsack. ”

“ On the east side of the monument are engraved some curious lines written by his kinsman, George Herbert, who paid a long visit at Dauntsey in 1629, when threatened with consumption. As Herbert died in 1633, the epitaph must have been written many years before Danby's death. He never married, and upon his death the barony of Danvers and the earldom of Danby became extinct. On 12 March 1622 he conveyed to the university of Oxford five acres of land, opposite Magdalen College, which had formerly served as a burying-place for the Jews, for the encouragement of the study of physic and botany. ”

“ Mr Arbuthnot strove to bear his wife from the apartment, but she would not be forced away, and kept imploring with frenzied vehemence that Robert—that her boy should not be taken from her.
'I have no wish to do so—far from it,' said Danby with gleeful exultation. 'Only folk must be reasonable, and not threaten their friends with the hulks'——
'Give him anything, anything!' broke in the unhappy lady. ”

“ When lord Orrery came from the audience of his Majesty, he was met by the earl of Danby, who asked him, whether he had closed with the King's proposals; to which lord Orrery answered, no. Then replied the other statesman, "Your lordship may be the honester man, but you will never be worth a groat." This passage is the more remarkable, because Danby was of the same opinion with Orrery, and temporized purely for the sake of power, which cost him afterwards a long imprisonment, and had very near lost him his life: So dear do such men often pay for sacrificing honour to interest. ”

“ Danby, however, and a small knot of Tories supported the Whigs, and the proposal was rejected. Danby had, indeed, a plan of his own. James, he held, had really abdicated, and the crown had therefore passed to the next heir. That heir was not, according to him, the supposititious infant, but the eldest daughter of James, Mary Princess of Orange, who was now in her own right queen of England. It was an ingenious theory, but two circumstances were against its being carried into practice. In the first place, Mary scolded Danby for (p. 647) daring to set her above her husband. ”

“ Danby, a conveyancer, who, in some way not very consonant with the usual etiquette of his profession, has been mixed up with her father's affairs—a man middle-aged, apparently dry as his own parchments, and quite unversed in society. ”

“ Beyond these last-quoted virtues Ralph Danby had few. He was rather lethargic and decidedly clumsy. His six-feet-three of flesh and blood was knotty with muscle, but, in the garments of the polite, the muscularity showed like adipose tissue and spoilt him. In feature he was pronounced perfect.
"Perfect as regenerate man can well be," raved a lady artist, who, before he had been in Hampstead a week, had implored him to pose for a painting of early Scandinavian classicism. ”

“ The Major had been gathered to his fathers, and Mrs Cameron, with her baby girl, to the great regret of the regiment, had returned to the vicinity, if not to the care, of her parents in Maida Vale.
It was this departure, though it would have surprised him had he been told so, that inspired Ralph Danby with the notion that Army doctoring was a bore. He came to the conclusion that real work was all he wanted. What a field was open in metropolitan life with its suffering and pain for a man's labours—a man who was otherwise good for nothing! ”

“ Achison regarded the spectacle with jaded eyes. These were the usual passengers of the usual fast ocean liner.
“Given a certain environment,” he murmured, “the types which animate it remain constant; costumes and customs may alter, people never.” He yawned slightly. “Nothing distinctive yet that I can see. The same old bacon-and-eggs crowd.”
“Well, here comes a touch of caviar for you.” There was a faint thrill of triumph in Danby's apathetic drawl. “Joe Snaith. Know him?” ”

“ To come to the point, without any circumlocutory delay, I am a young man with aspirations far above my station in life. This declaration is perfectly true in some senses, but not in every sense. My parents and my ancestors are and were highly respectable people. My name, as you will see when you come to my signature, is Reginald Danby. ”

“ Danby, "and she ain't all. Our children, if I do say it, seem to have more brains than they've a fair right to—bein' poor folks' children, as you may say. It don't tire 'em one bit to learn: their Pa says every study they tackle gets the worst of it,—they use it up, so to speak. I dreamed th' other night I see the four English branches, 'rithmetic, writin', readin', and hist'ry, standin' exhausted, waiting for them children to get through with them. But I see you're shifting yourself, sir, for going, and I ought to be ashamed to detain you this way clacking about my own flesh and blood. ”

“ The House of Lords sent Shaftesbury and three other peers to the Tower for their pains, and the Commons contemptuously rejected a (p. 613) similar argument put forward in their own House. Danby found himself triumphant. The Commons granted 600,000l. for increasing the navy. Danby then carried a Bill through the House of Lords for securing the Protestant religion in the event of a Catholic—James being, of course, intended—coming to the throne, though the Bill did not pass the Commons, apparently from a feeling that its provisions were insufficient. ”

“ I am Barbara Knollys, and my father wishes me to marry a man I hate, so I determined to run away to my aunt Aspasia, because, though I fear my father, my father fears aunt Aspasia more. Captain Danby offered to escort me to aunt's house at Sevenoaks, but once I was in his chaise I grew afraid of him and instead of following the high road he drove by desolate lanes and—oh, he was hateful and so at last we came here. And now you say that Captain Danby has gone?" she enquired of Anthony. ”

“ His brother Henry, lord Danby, an enthusiastic royalist, died early in 1644, and left his property to his sister Lady Gargrave. Still in pecuniary difficulties, Danvers resisted this disposition of his brother's property, and his influence with the parliamentary majority led the House of Commons to pass a resolution declaring that he was deprived of his brother's estate 'for his affection and adhering to the parliament' (14 June 1644) , and that Danvers's eldest son Henry was entitled to the property. ”

“ In foreign affairs Danby showed a stronger grasp of essentials. He desired to increase English trade, credit and power abroad. He was a determined enemy both to Roman influence and to French ascendancy. He terminated the war with Holland in 1674, and from that time maintained a friendly correspondence with William; while in 1677, after two years of tedious negotiations, he overcame all obstacles, and in spite of James’s opposition, and without the knowledge of Louis XIV., effected the marriage between William and Mary that was the germ of the Revolution and the Act of Settlement. ”

“ Danby, now talking to Daniel David, "but she's a beauty! Not that my own are humly, either. Charity's no fright, by no means, and there's your sister Amanda—why, only last summer Master Donald's teacher drew a picture of her, because she was so picturesky, which I'll keep to my dying day. There, Dan Dave, you don't need no more slats on that side; take this broken one out here, that's a good child; it scrapes the old hen every time she goes under. Look out! You'll break the whole thing to pieces if you ain't careful. ”

“ The Wentworth and Gascoigne pedigrees occupied him for a long period. As a pedigree-maker he charged high fees, which he often found a difficulty in obtaining after the work was done. He complains bitterly in his will of the failure of Sir Thomas Danby to pay him 100l. for a pedigree, but he kept Danby's evidences as security till he pawned them to his landlady for 30l. Dugdale met him in early life in London, and always writes in the highest terms of his learning and industry. ”

“ Danby acquiesced with his usual lack of enthusiasm. “I've already wirelessed the boss to let Snaith and Adelbron have the full program, and on your tip I'll send a further message regarding the girl. Have no fear; old Eagle-eye Cameron will be on hand, and they've got to be wizards if they get anything through under his eye.
“But at that,” he added with a cynical twist of the lips, “I'm gambling that it's all lost motion. All the bulls in Paris can't make me believe the Kreminoff jewels were ever on the Albertic.” ”

“ He burrowed like a mole most industriously, regardless of people's toes, their ribs, their dark looks, and even angry expressions of strong disapproval, and when he gained the green sward of the lawn, hurried to his friend's box.
“Did you get it on?” queried the latter.
“No; I don't like the look of it. Faust is holding out Lauzanne, and stretched me half a point about the mare. He and Langdon are in the same boat.”
“But that won't win the race,” remonstrated Danby. “Lauzanne is a maiden, and Porter doesn't often make a mistake about any of his own stock.” ”

“ Danby respread his napkin and arranged his things on it. A sudden unexpected sensation of high spirits infected him.
He adopted what he considered to be the manner of a man of the world.
“Waitah, waitah!” he called, shooting his cuffs. “Great heaven, where’s that waitah! I shall really have to lodge a complaint with the manager. Hi! you in last week’s shirt, her ladyship and I have been waiting here for five minutes and no one’s been near us. It’s a disgrace. Don’t stand gaping there, sir, with a Swiss grin. Alley-vous ang. ”

“ I never meant anything so seriously in my life. Dick Danby and Fanny Ives at ten o'clock nightly. That's what I mean, my dear. You've done it. You've helped a lame dog over a stile. In future, I won't work only for myself. I'll work for you too. Little Dick Danby's on his feet again. Little Dick Danby's believed in. He's come face to face with Miss Fanny Hope Faith Charity Ives, and he won't let her go. ”