Hartfield

“ The passionate love had been at fever point; the passionate grief must have its fever too, and burn itself out.
'Do all you can to cheer her,' said Lord Hartfield to Maulevrier, 'and bring her to Fellside as soon as ever she is strong enough to bear the journey. You and Kibble, with your own man, will be able to do all that is necessary.'
'Quite able.'
'That's right. I must be in the House for the expected division to-night, and I shall go back to Grasmere to-morrow morning. Poor Mary is horribly lonely.'
Lord Hartfield went off in the boat to catch the Southampton steamer ”

“ I have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have Emma's account, I hope you will be satisfied.” ”

“ Elton were most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing but good. It will give you every thing that you want—consideration, independence, a proper home—it will fix you in the centre of all your real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in either of us. ”

“ Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young farmer out of Harriet's head. She thought it would be an excellent match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet's coming to Hartfield. ”

“ POOR 'Lile Hartley'—little Hartley, as the neighbours called him—is one of the most pathetic figures in English literature. Undersized in body, of promising intellect from childhood, of child-like simplicity in character, devoid of self-control, and overmastered by the alcoholic habit, as his father was by the opium habit, he is at once pitiable, excusable, and lovable. As you ride from Ambleside to Grasmere you pass a low cottage on your right, just beneath Nab Scarr, where the young farmer and his wife lived who cared so unselfishly for him and for his comfort and welfare. ”

“ I went from Kneller to spend a breezy week at Brighton with Captain Frank Grissell, to whom his brother, my old Oxford friend, had left practically all his possessions and collections, and who had just purchased a pretty villa in Preston Park in which to house them. No brothers were ever more dissimilar or more devoted than Hartwell, whose whole interests in life had been ecclesiastical and Roman, and his brother Frank, ex-cavalry officer, to whom horses and hunting, racing and coaching, were the salt of life. ”

“ Lord Hartledon hardly heard the words, as he stood leaning against the open casement, gazing into the dark and misty past. No man ever shrank from a prison as he shrank from Hartledon.
"I cannot leave London at all just yet. Thomas Carr is remaining here for me, when he ought to be on circuit, and I must stay with him. I wish you would go anywhere else, rather than to Hartledon." ”

“ Robin went forward to see what was going on. The youth had not gone many steps when he suddenly stopped short with an exclamation, his whole soul in his eyes,—looking like a man who beholds an apparition. Before him, in the yellow torch-light, stood Harold Hartley, clad in snowy Oriental garments, looking even more startled than himself, for Harold recognised in the form before him, dressed in Persian costume, the brother for whose supposed death he had so bitterly mourned! ”

“ Shall the energetic men of earth look on difficulties as 'things to be overcome,' whilst God's servants magnify them into impossibilities."
Harold's reflections were interrupted by Miss Petty's meeting him as he passed out of the shop. She looked flustered, excited, and eager.
"Oh! Dear Mr. Hartley, I'm so delighted to see you; you are the very person whom I wanted to meet!" she exclaimed. "Do just lend me twelve shillings at once, for I've spent my last sixpence already in lace. Malta, with its shops full of beautiful things, is the place to empty the purse of a Crœsus!" ”

“ Hartford became every day a better horseman, or rather camelopardist. He in fact rejoiced in opportunities to leap-frog into his saddle, fit his feet and legs into the leather gambadoes, and go hailing off into the hills to recruit men and material. He carried with him the radio he'd salvaged from his safety-suit, and could from time to time pick up First Regiment transmissions. The bitcher from his suit was useful in training large numbers of recruits on the blowgun range, and would be used when the Kansan guerrillas took the field against the troopers. ”

“ The conversation then took another turn. "If I can in the least, judge of character by face, I think that there is one of our fellow-passengers whom we shall like," observed Harold, glancing in the direction of a lady, past middle age, who—clad in deep mourning—was sitting on the other side of the deck, engaged in reading.
"What a beautiful chastened expression is hers!" exclaimed Robin. "That is a face that can never grow old; it has the stamp of heaven's loveliness on it. Do you know who the lady is?"
"One of our people," replied Harold Hartley. ”

“ A people that have no history are the happiest, therefore we may assume that Hartford was a happy and flourishing town during the remainder of the colonial period, and even{521} during the Revolution there is but little to tell of Hartford. Its situation, so far removed from the seacoast, secured it from the attacks of the British troops, and it was for that very reason a safe and desirable place for the meetings of Generals Washington and Rochambeau, when they wished to arrange the plans for the campaigns that ended with the surrender of Yorktown. ”

“ A day or two after we came to England they crossed over, and went straight down to Calne. There—don't say any more."
"The longer you keep away from Hartledon the greater effort it will cost you to go down to it; and—"
"I won't go to Hartledon," he interrupted, in a sort of fury; "neither perhaps would you, in my place."
"Sir," cried Mr. Carr's clerk, bustling in and addressing his master, "you are waited for at the chambers of Serjeant Gale. The consultation is on."
Lord Hartledon rose.
"I will not detain you, Carr; business must be attended to. Will you come and dine with us this evening? ”

“ Half-way up a low hill rise on the far side of the Mangadone Cantonment was the bungalow of Hartley, Head of the Police. It was a tidy, well-kept house, the house of a bachelor who had an eye to things himself and who was well served by competent servants. Hartley had reached the age of forty without having married, and he was solid of build and entirely sensible and practical of mind. He was spoken of as "sound" and "capable," for it is thus we describe men with a word, and his mind was adjusted so as to give room for only one idea at a time. ”

“ Hartwell had succeeded in completing the operation of informing himself generally. Having reached this point, he felt that the only thing remaining to be done was to align his information, crush Firmstone beneath the weight of his accumulated evidence, and from his dismembered fragments build up a superintendent who would henceforth walk and act in the fear of demonstrated omniscient justice. He even grew warmly benevolent in the contemplation of the gratefully reconstructed man who was to be fashioned after his own image. ”

“ Sounds of drumming on the door, and the countess-dowager's voice, stopped Lord Hartledon.
"I had better face her," he said, as he unlocked it. "She will arouse the household."
Wild, intemperate, she met him with a volley of abuse that startled Lady Hartledon. He got her to a sofa, and gently held her down there.
"It's what I've been obliged to do all along," said Thomas Carr; "I don't believe she has heard ten words of my explanation."
"Pray be calm, Lady Kirton," said Hartledon, soothingly; "be calm, as you value your daughter's memory. We shall have the servants at the doors." ”

“ But first I must tell you what I think of Harold’s father, though I have seen but little of him as yet. Mr. Hartley is tall, but stoops slightly, as if from weakness. He is pale and thin and somewhat wrinkled—less from age, I think, than from toil. Harold has certainly a likeness to his parent; but, oh! I trust that my noble-looking husband, whose form is so erect, whose step so elastic, may never have such a worn-out appearance, such a faint voice, as the veteran worker. ”

“ The descent safely accomplished, he presently returned, accompanied by a short, stout officer, whose appearance seemed more suited to the wine shops of The Hague than to the rocky cliffs of Devon.
“This is Major Verbrughen!” the lieutenant said curtly.
I held out my sword to the man at his side.
“Then to you, sir,” I said quietly, “I surrender myself [281] on parole. I trust that you have not been put to inconvenience in satisfying my honour?”
“To great inconvenience,” he answered bluntly; “for which I, for one, see no necessity. But you—you English are so proud! What a country! What a road! ”

“ Evendale, fly!" he gasped. "Take Shelah; I will look after Miss Petty. There is not a moment to lose; the Bedouins are upon us!"
But the precious time in which escape might have been made had already been lost! Harold had just succeeded in floating the second boat (the small one was on its way to the steamer) when he saw that the English party was surrounded. The report of Robin's gun, which accidentally went off from his arm being suddenly snatched at by Shelah, alarmed Harold for his brother's safety, and made Hartley hasten off to his aid, but only to share his fate. ”

“ Shedding plenteous tears, he exclaimed, “My daughter! my daughter! she will never survive the shame of being uncovered before the eyes of strangers. O your highness! O dispenser of justice! spare me and my house this terrible disgrace.”
The Hartleys felt pity for the humbled chief. Harold stepped forward, and addressing the commissioner said: “Might it not be sufficient, sir, for my wife to see and identify this lady?”
“Let Mrs. Hartley ascertain that the person in court, who from her feebleness appears to be of great age, is really identical with the young widow in question,” said Mr. Thole. ”

“ The man had mistaken the meaning of the question, and thought that Harold was inquiring whether he himself had brother or wife in the place.
"I will seek them out," said Harold; and he was about to try to make his way amongst tent-pins and over tent-ropes, when he was caught in the grasp of Miss Petty. It was a desperate grasp.
"Oh, don't leave me, Harold; for pity's sake don't leave me," she cried. "I am almost dead; I cannot walk a single step; my poor head is splitting with pain. Robin is sure to look after Mrs. Evendale—he always does. ”

“ CHAPTER XII AGNES' STORY AND HARTFORD "We must not stay," the girl said, as soon as she had greeted her brothers. "The Indians will surely come back, and we must reach the other side of the river. I am glad you are here. Oh, how good the Lord is! I prayed for your deliverance ever since I was captured, but did not believe that the good Lord would hear my prayers and grant my request so soon."
"What do you want to do?" asked Fred.
"Tie the horses together, and swim the river. There are no Indians on the other side, and we can make Hartford easily."
"How do you know that?" Matthew asked. ”

“ Hartford itself has greatly altered—I might say improved—for it has been beautified and adorned by many magnificent buildings, and the population has increased. These I see and appreciate; but I feel more sensibly than these, other changes which come home to my heart. A new and different people seem to move in the streets. ”

“ Tourville, with the French fleet, is in the channel. Parliament is distracted. Spies everywhere. Burn me!” he cried with sudden rage, “they shall not complain of my remissness, and I will begin here. I would that I had to deal with this woman!”
“In that case, my lord,” I said, “your wish may be speedily gratified, for Lady Ingram is herself in Exeter for the express purpose of waiting upon your lordship.”
“Say you so?” he replied with an ugly frown. “Then I will see her. And curse me! she shall have cause to remember it.”
“But not here,” Mistress Maddon cried suddenly. ”

“ A pity, indeed, if a dozen men cannot order a parcel of beer-swilling clowns, who would scuttle to their burrows fast enough at the snapping of a pistol. But who the devil have we here?”
I looked up quickly at the words. We were approaching the steps in a body when the door of the inn suddenly opened and a man came hastily out.
He was dressed in riding costume, and as he halted in surprise at sight of us, I saw that it was the young baronet, my lady’s cousin.
“Permit me, colonel,” I said, stepping forward, “to bring to your acquaintance Sir Rupert Courtenay, of Clevedon Hall.” ”

“ I stammered. “I—I do not understand!”
“When you leave this house, sir,” she said in the same low tone, “what do you intend to do?”
“I shall cross to France, madam,” I answered, “and from thence to Flanders! There is always work there for a good sword—there is always fortune to be won there—or a nameless grave!” With a quick movement she rose to her feet.
“You go to France,” she said in a voice that thrilled me—“to France, whither my brother has already gone! Ah, Mr. Cassilis, will you not take me too?” ”