Harry West

“ I hope not for life, Sir Harry. I long for death; and have only one wish that I venture to indulge, which is, that I might see once more him whose love has cost me so much misery, though I would not lose that love, if I might win a long life of happiness in exchange."
Sir Harry West made her no reply, but turned the conversation to another theme; and, aided by Ida Mara, who now never left Arabella night nor day, he contrived to wile away another hour of the poor captive's time, without any return of that sad wandering, which she dreaded more herself than even the approach of death. ”

“ But it was a boy-like error, Sir Harry. The first rumour that met me showed that time, as well as fortune, changes favour; and all that I have seen this night, makes me think that everything on earth is, as the Jewish King has said, lighter than vanity."
"Something like your own complaint, sweet lady," said Sir Harry West; "a moment ago you were painting the world in the same gloomy colours."
"I said," replied Arabella, "that there is nothing on earth worth sighing for--and, in truth, I think so still; for the events we long for most eagerly, generally end in disappointment or anguish." ”

“ Lay hands on them, my men; and you, sir, come along with us too; for we must have proof against them."
"That man's face is proof enough," replied Sir Harry West, hesitating, "and I was going with this gentleman on business of importance."
"See, see!" cried one of the men, who had been holding Ida Mara; "he is afraid to make good his charge. He knows he cannot do it."
"Well, I will go," answered Sir Harry West. "Rodney, you must proceed and finish the business alone. You can speak my sentiments to the other gentlemen concerned, and explain to them the cause of my absence. ”

“ To Sir Harry West she would frequently speak of that painful wandering of thought, that want of control over her own mind, which now too often came upon her.
"In those moments," she said one day, "when there is, as it were, a cloud upon me, and all my ideas seem misty and indistinct, the weight of my sorrow is the most burdensome. I cannot refrain from wishing for death; and a voice, like that of a fiend, appears to urge me on to seek the calm and tranquil resting-place, where no tyrant's hand can reach, no persecution trouble my repose. ”

“ If a lover would please me, he fixes on my fine points, as a jockey describing his horse. My eyes are certain to put out the stars. It is my lip that makes the roses blush with envy. Pearls have quite lost their price, since my teeth came to court; and sculptors are quite ruined in alabaster, trying to imitate my skin. Fie, fie, Sir Harry! If she be beautiful, she must be an angel."
"She has not made her husband think so," replied Sir Harry West. "But here comes another to join us--my young friend, William Seymour. Will you fly from him, too, lady? ”

“ Harry was an orphan. To have one feel an interest in his moral welfare, to have one wish him to be a good boy, had not grown stale by long continuance. He had known no anxious mother, who wished him to be good, who would weep when he did wrong. The sympathy of the little angel touched a sensitive chord in his heart and soul, and he felt that he should go forward in the great pilgrimage of life with a new desire to be true to himself, and true to her who had inspired his reverence.
Even a child cannot be good without having it felt by others. ”

“ There are hundreds of epochs in the experience of every person, boy or man—events which raised him up or let [70] him down in the scale of moral existence. Harry West had now reached one of these epochs in his pilgrimage.
To meet a little girl in the woods, to kill a black snake, and thus relieve her from a terrible fright, to say the least, was not a great event, as events are reckoned in the world ”

“ Notwithstanding the urgent necessity for his presence in London, he sat talking with her for nearly an hour, and whither passion hurried him on, matters not; but at the end of that time a loud scream and cry for help rang along the lane, and reached the ears of a party of horsemen coming slowly from the side of Salisbury.
"Ha! there is some violence going forward," cried Sir Harry West, putting his horse into a gallop. ”

“ The paupers in the poorhouse lived sumptuously, compared with those who gathered around the board of Jacob Wire.
The keeper knew this from experience, for years ago, before he had been appointed to his present situation, he had worked for Wire; and age and prosperity had not improved him. The more he got, the more he wanted; the [11] fuller his barn and storehouse, the more stingy he became to those who were dependent upon him.
Harry West was a good boy, and a great favorite with the keeper of the poorhouse. He was always good-natured, willing to work, and never grumbled about his food. ”

“ She is no longer the little angel, though I cannot tell her height or her weight; but her husband thinks she is just as much of an angel now as when she fed him on doughnuts upon the flat rock in the garden.
Ah, here comes Harry! He is a fine-looking man, rather tall; and though he does not wear a mustache, I have no doubt Mrs. West thinks he is handsome—which is all very well, provided he does not think so himself.
"This is a capital day, Julia; suppose we ride over to Redfield, and see friend Nason," said Mr. West. ”

“ Harry helped him unharness the horse, and as he led him into the barn the keeper opened the subject.
"I have been to see the other overseers, Harry," he began, in tones which seemed to promise nothing hopeful.
"I thought likely you had gone."
"As I supposed, they are all afraid of Squire Walker. They daresn't say their souls are their own."
"Then I must go to Jacob Wire's."
"The other overseers declare, if the squire says so, you must."
"It is a hard case, Mr. Nason," replied Harry, not much disappointed at the result. ”

“ She smiled. "I shall ask my friend, Mr. Harry West," she said, "to find out who it is."
And then, suddenly, she turned away, so that her father should not see that she was blushing. The thought, not in the least disagreeable, had occurred to her for the first time, that perhaps Mr. Harry West himself was anonymously going down into his pocket for her sweet sake.
XVI
The legless man was not in the habit of waiting for things that he wanted, when the chance to take them had come. ”

“ Here was a dilemma for Harry. He had determined to restore the pocketbook; but he could not do so without exposing himself. Besides, if there had been any temptation to keep the treasure before, it was ten times as great now that he knew it belonged to his enemy. It would be no sin to keep it from Squire Walker.
"It would be stealing," said the voice within.
"But if I give it to him, he will carry me back to Jacob Wire's. I'll be—I'll be hanged if I do."
"She hopes you will be a good boy." ”

“ Harry never spoke a saucy word in his life," interposed the friendly keeper.
"He should know his place, and learn how to treat his superiors. You give these boys too much meat, Mr. Nason. They can't bear it. Mush and molasses is the best thing in the world for them."
If any one had looked closely at Harry while the functionary was delivering himself of this speech, he might have seen his eye snap and his chest heave with indignation. He had evidently conquered his timidity, and, maugre his youth, was disposed to stand forth and say, [8] "I, too, am a man." ”

“ For she knew then perfectly what Richard was going to be like. She knew she was going to have a son; she knew that he would have black, devout and sensitive eyes. She knew that he would be passionate and intractable and yet held to nobility by fastidiousness and love of her. She imagined how some day in a wood like this, but set in a kinder countryside, Harry would kneel in a sunlit clearing, his special quality of gaiety playing about him like another kind of sunshine, while there staggered towards him their beautiful dark child. ”

“ Why couldn't he be a great man like Squire Walker. Squire West wouldn't sound bad.
"One has only to be rich in order to be great," thought he. "Why can't I be rich, as well as anybody else? Who was that old fellow that saved up his fourpences till he was worth a hundred thousand dollars? I can do it as well as he, though I won't be as mean as they say he was, anyhow. There are chances enough to get rich, and if I fail in one thing, why—I can try again."
Thus Harry mused as he walked along, and fixed a definite purpose before him to be accomplished in life. ”

“ There were no locks on the poorhouse doors, for burglars and thieves never invaded the home of the stricken, forsaken paupers.
The door opened with a sharp creak, and Harry was sure he was detected. For several minutes he waited, but no sound was heard, and more carefully he opened the door wide enough to permit his passage out.
He was now in the open air, and a sensation of relief pervaded his mind. He was free. No man was his master in this world, and he had not learned to think much of the other world. ”

“ His father did not live long after his return to his native land, and when he was twenty-one, Harry came into possession of a handsome fortune. But even wealth could not tempt him to choose a life of idleness; and he went into partnership with Mr. Wade, the senior retiring at the same time. The firm of Wade and West is quite as respectable as any in the city. [148]
Harry is not a slave to business; and he spends a portion of his time at his beautiful place in Rockville; for the cars pass through the village, which is only a ride of an hour and a half from the city. ”

“ Harry felt the spirit of a man stirring within him. He felt that the world had cast him off, and refused him a home, even in the poorhouse. He was determined to push his way through life like a hero, and he nerved himself to meet whatever hardships and trials might be apportioned to him. ”

“ The reward of all his struggles with trial and temptation was lavishly bestowed in her commendation, and if fidelity had not been its own reward, he could have accepted her approval as abundant compensation for all he had endured. There was no silly sentiment in Harry's composition; he had read no novels, seen no plays, knew nothing of romance even "in real life." The homage he yielded to the fair and loving girl was an unaffected reverence for simple purity and goodness; that which the True Heart and the True Life never fail to call forth whenever they exert their power. ”

“ Harry took his money and went to a bookstore in Washington Street, where he purchased an appropriate present for Julia, for which he gave half a dollar. On his return, he wrote her name in it, with his own as the giver. Then the safety of his money came up for consideration; and this matter was settled by raising a loose board in the floor and depositing the pill box in a secure place. He had scarcely done so before Edward joined him.
Our hero did not sleep much that night. He was not altogether satisfied with the step he was about to take. [121] It was not doing right by his employers ”

“ It was the real Harry, within the other Harry, that spoke, and he was a very obstinate fellow, positively refusing to let him keep the pocketbook, at any rate.
"What am I about? She hoped I would be a good boy, and the evil one is catching me as fast as he can," resumed Harry.
"Be a good boy," added the other Harry.
"I mean to be, if I can."
"The little angel will be very sad when she finds out that you are a thief." ”

“ No time, I'll warrant; your courtiers are always as busy as a merchant.--Well, you must come in at least, and let me introduce you to the ladies. You must break bread and taste a cup of wine; to that there is no denial."
Feeling that, in courtesy, he could not refuse, Sir Harry West accompanied the worthy justice to another part of the house, while the servants and Ida Mara were taken to the buttery, and treated with true old English hospitality. ”

“ He is a miserable fellow," thought Harry; "he would have led me into all manner of wickedness. I ought not to have gone with him, or had anything to do with him. He might have made a thief and a robber of me. I know I ain't any better than I should be; but I don't believe I'm as bad as he is. At any rate, I wouldn't set a barn afire. It is all for the best, just as the parson says when anybody dies. By this scrape I have got clear of Ben, and learned a lesson that I won't forget in a hurry." ”

“ Harry took his hat off, and made his manners, not very gracefully, it is true; but considering the boy's perturbation, the squire was graciously pleased to let his "manners" pass muster.
"How old are you, boy?" asked the overseer.
"Most twelve," replied Harry, with deference.
"High time you were put to work."
"I do work," answered Harry.
"Not much; you look as fat and lazy as one of my fat hogs." ”

“ It was no wonder that even when a solicitor came to see her and told her that Harry had settled on her and Richard a sum so large that she knew he must be deeply concerned for her, since, like many men of his type, he had such an abundant sense of the pleasures which can be bought with money that to part with it unnecessarily was a real sacrifice, she thought of him with only such casual pity as she had felt when the yard-dog howled. ”

“ In vain Harry urged Ben to increase his speed; his progress was very slow, and it was soon apparent to Harry that they were wasting their breath in running when they would need it for the fight.
"Now, Ben, we can easily whip this man, and save ourselves. Be a man, and let us stand by each other to the last." ”