Darrell

“ A slight, muscular figure flung itself forward like a diver taking the surf, and Darrell felt two arms gripping his right leg tenaciously, while eager hands clutched him on every side. A fierce kick ended in the crunch of leather against flesh. There was a gasping grunt, and the clinging hold relaxed. The secret-service agent grasped a wrist, and, with a practiced twist, a heave of his splendid shoulder muscles and taut biceps, he sent another little man spinning through the air to land a dozen feet away with a dull, bone-cracking thud. ”

“ If Darrell does not choose to marry and have sons of his own, he has no right to load a poor boy with benefits, and say: ‘There is but one way to prove your gratitude; remember my ancestors, and be miserable for the rest of your days!’ Darrell, forsooth, intends to leave to Lionel the transmission of the old Darrell name; and the old Darrell name must not be tarnished by the marriage on which Lionel has unluckily set his heart! I respect the old name; but it is not like the House of Vipont—a British Institution. ”

“ But what was the remembrance or the grief, Alban Morley, who knew everything, was quite persuaded that Darrell would never suffer him to know. Could it be in any way connected with those three young ladies to whom Darrell’s attentions had been so perversely impartial? The Colonel did not fail to observe that to those young ladies Darrell’s letter made no allusion. Was it not possible that he had really felt for one of them a deeper sentiment than a man advanced in years ever likes to own even to his nearest friend—hazarded a proposal, and met with a rebuff? ”

“ Such things are not of Darrell Standing's experience in the world. Yet I, Darrell Standing, found these things within myself in solitary in San Quentin by means of mechanical self-hypnosis. No more were these experiences Darrell Standing's, than was the word "Samaria" Darrell Standing's when it leaped to his child lips at sight of a photograph.
One cannot make anything out of nothing. In solitary I could not so make thirty-five pounds of dynamite. Nor in solitary, out of nothing in Darrell Standing's experience, could I make these wide, far visions of time and space. ”

“ For here it was not Darrell’s taste that was delighted; it was Darrell’s heart that, ever hungry, had found food. His heart was connecting those long-neglected memorials of an ambition baffled and relinquished—here with a nation, there with his father’s grave! How his eyes sparkled! how his lip smiled! Nobody would have guessed it—none of us know each other; least of all do we know the interior being of those whom we estimate by public repute;—but what a world of simple, fond affection lay coiled and wasted in that proud man’s solitary breast! ”

“ One Saturday evening in the latter part of April Darrell was, as usual, descending the canyon road on his way to The Pines. For weeks the winter had lingered as though loath to leave, and Darrell, absorbed in work and study, had gone his way, hiding his loneliness and suffering so deeply as to be ofttimes forgotten even by himself, and at all times unsuspected by those about him. Then, in one night had come the warm breath of the west winds, and within a few hours the earth was transformed as though by magic, and the restless longing within his breast awoke with tenfold intensity. ”

“ Lionel, however, was not perhaps sorry to be thus compelled to trust to writing his own and Sophy's cause. Darrell was one of those men whose presence inspires a certain awe—one of those men whom we feel, upon great occasions, less embarrassed to address by letter than in person. Lionel's pen moved rapidly—his whole heart and soul suffused with feeling, and, rushing over the page, he reminded Darrell of the day when he had told to the rich man the tale of the lovely wandering child, and how, out of his sympathy for that child, Darrell's approving, fostering tenderness to himself had grown. ”

“ Darrell, the grand advocate, felt he could not have produced on a jury, with those elements, the effect which that boy-narrator produced on his granite self.
“And, oh, sir!” cried Lionel, checking his horse, and even arresting Darrell’s with bold right hand—“oh,” said he, as he brought his moist and pleading eyes in full battery upon the shaken fort to which he had mined his way—“oh, sir! you are so wise and rich and kind, do rescue that poor child from the penury and hardships of such a life! If you could but have seen and heard her! She could never have been born to it! ”

“ Does he know who listens yonder? Old members think so,—smile; whisper each other, and glance significantly where Darrell sits.
Sits, as became him, tranquil, respectful, intent, seemingly, perhaps really, unconscious of the sensation he excites. What an eye for an orator! how like the eye in a portrait; it seems to fix on each other eye that seeks it,—steady, fascinating. ”

“ Losely had for him his vast physical strength, his penury, despair, and vindictive purpose. Darrell had in his favour the intellect which gives presence of mind; the energy of nerve, which is no more to be seen in the sinew and bone than the fluid which fells can be seen in the jars and the wires; and that superb kind of pride, which, if terror be felt, makes its action impossible, because a disgrace, and bravery a matter of course, simply because it is honour. ”

“ She found herself whirling around the room in Darrell’s arms. For a wonder, although an Englishman, he knew how to dance, and Elizabeth was [19] intensely susceptible to rhythm and music. She felt when she began to waltz with Darrell, as if she would like to waltz forever with him. He was so strong, so supple, so graceful,—so susceptible, like herself, to that charm of dance music in which two people dancing together are conscious of that sensuous counterpart of real love which makes a man and a woman feel as if they constituted one being with a single heart and a single soul. ”

“ And, though every muscle was tensed with horror at the touch of the thing, not a tremor showed in his impassive face.
A man stepped forward and thrust the cord through the hole with deft fingers. The silky thing slid loosely across the secret-service agent's throat, feeling to his raw, quivering nerves like the touch of a snake. For a second it dangled there, and then began slowly to tighten. Darrell's eyes were fixed on the smooth water of the bay, rippling in the morning sun. In another moment the whole picture would vanish. ”

“ Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man, after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial, that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his young day,—and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a more cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of encouragement or assent.
Colonel Morley continued. "But when did you arrive? whence? How long do you stay here? What are your plans?" ”

“ Dig but deep enough, and under all earth runs water, under all life runs grief.
Alone in the streets, the vivacity which had characterized Darrell’s countenance as well as his words, while with his old school friend, changed as suddenly and as completely into pensive abstracted gloom as if he had been acting a part, and with the exit the acting ceased. Disinclined to return yet to the solitude of his home, he walked on at first mechanically, in the restless desire of movement, he cared not whither. ”

“ A little later, as Darrell in the early twilight passed up the driveway to The Pines, he was conscious only of a dull, leaden weight within his breast; his very senses seemed benumbed and he almost believed himself incapable of further suffering, till, as he approached the house, the sight of Kate seated in the veranda with her father and aunt and the thought of the suffering yet in store for her thrilled him anew with most poignant pain. ”

“ HONORIA.—"Is Mr. Darrell so fond of music, then?"
COLONEL MORLEY.—"One would not have thought it. He keeps a secretary at Fawley who plays the flute. There's something very interesting about Darrell. I wish you could hear his ideas on marriage and domestic life: more freshness of heart than in the young men one meets nowadays. It may be prejudice; but it seems to me that the young fellows of the present race, if more sober and staid than we were, are sadly wanting in character and spirit,—no warm blood in their veins. ”

“ The calmness of Darrell, so supremely displayed in this irony, began to tell upon the ruffian—the magnetism of the great man's eye and voice, and steadfast courage, gradually gaining power over the wild, inferior animal. Trying to recover his constitutional audacity, Jasper said, with a tone of the old rollicking voice, "Well, Mr. Darrell, it is all one to me how I wring from you, in your own house, what you refused me when I was a suppliant on the road. Fair means are pleasanter than foul. I am a gentleman—the grandson of Sir Julian Losely. ”

“ Who need ever know that George Darrell, digger, of Red Shirt Rush, Vaal River, was the same man as Darrell of the Lancers, who like a fool made his good old name shameful by giving it to the woman he had married. He cursed his folly as he remembered himself little more than a boy marrying a woman years older than himself, who, wild as he was then, was as much his inferior morally as she was socially. ”

“ The silvery radiance crept upward over the deep blue dome; the stars dwindled to glimmering points of light, then faded one by one; a roseate flush tinged the eastern sky, growing and deepening, and the first golden rays were shooting upward from a sea of crimson flame as Darrell rose from his knees. He walked to the window, but even the sunlight seemed to mock him—there was no light for him, no rift in the cloud darkening his path, and with a heavy sigh he turned away. ”

“ He found Darrell alone, pacing his floor to and fro, in the habit he had acquired in earlier life, perhaps when meditating some complicated law-case, or wrestling with himself against some secret sorrow. There are men of quick nerves who require a certain action of the body for the better composure of the mind; Darrell was one of them. ”

“ At length Darrell perceived, sitting aloof in a corner, an excellent man whom indeed it surprised him to see in a London drawing-room, but who, many years ago, when Darrell was canvassing the enlightened constituency of Ouzelford, had been on a visit to the chairman of his committee—an influential trader—and having connections in the town—and, being a very high character, had done him good service in the canvass. Darrell rarely forgot a face, and never a service. At any time he would have been glad to see the worthy man once more, but at that time he was grateful indeed. ”

“ And from some cause or other, Guy Darrell was more unquiet and perturbed in his present than in his past seclusion. Science this time failed even to distract. In the midst of august meditations— of close experiment—some haunting angry thought from the far world passed with rude shadow between Intellect and Truth—the heart eclipsed the mind. The fact is, that Darrell's genius was essentially formed for Action. His was the true orator's temperament, with the qualities that belong to it—the grasp of affairs—the comprehension of men and states —the constructive, administrative faculties. ”

“ And amidst all his just scorn and anger, the large human heart of Guy Darrell was for the moment touched. He was silent—his mind hesitated; would it not be well—would it not be just as safe to his own peace, and to that of the poor child, whom, no matter what her parentage, Darrell could not but desire to free from the claim set up by so bold a ruffian, to gratify Losely's wish, and let him remain in England, upon an allowance that would suffice for his subsistence? ”

“ Darrell's View of Our Land Laws. Of all the horrible tortures that the human mind is capable of conjuring up with which to torment itself, none was greater to William Darrell than the consciousness of being ridiculous—the conviction that people were laughing at him. He had seen Victoriano and his own Everett so convulsed with laughter, laughing at him, laughing in his presence, laughing so heartily that they could scarcely stand up. This laughter of the two boys was the most vivid picture in the panorama of living scenes which he himself had evoked. ”

“ The first pale streaks of dawn, sifting into the tent, fell upon a face in which the lines of mental and physical pain had been replaced by dogged inflexibility of purpose. Darrell had determined that his captors should have no satisfaction from him. He would play the game to the bitter end; striving to implant in the mind of their leader a carking, nagging doubt as to whether, after all, there might not be some truth in his story. ”

“ Even in the dim twilight, Darrell could feel that penetrating glance reading his inmost soul.
"I am well and doing well," he answered; "my physical health is perfect; as for the rest—your coming is the very best thing that could have happened. Are you alone?" he asked, eagerly, "or did Mr. Underwood come with you?"
"I came alone," Mr. Britton replied, with quiet emphasis, linking his arm within Darrell's as they ascended the road together. ”

“ The face was neither especially fine nor strong, but the winsome smile lurking about the curves of the sensitive mouth and in the depths of the frank blue eyes rendered it attractive, and it was with a sigh for the young life so suddenly blotted out that Darrell turned to enter the second room.
He paused at the doorway, feeling decidedly out of place, and glanced about him with a serio-comic smile. The furnishings were as unique as possible, no one piece in the room bearing any relation or similarity to any other piece. ”