Hastings

“ Leaping on his palfrey, Hastings rode back to the Tower, dismounted at the gate, passed on to the little postern in the inner court, and paused not till he was in Warner’s room. “How now, friend Adam? Thou art idle.”
“Lord Hastings, I am ill.”
“And thy child not with thee?”
“She is gone to her grace the duchess, to pray her to grant me leave to go home, and waste no more life on making gold.”
“Home! Go hence! We cannot hear it! The duchess must not grant it. I will not suffer the king to lose so learned a philosopher.” ”

“ Hastings replied, profanely.
"Why don't you try to get something to do?" asked Earle of the sad-visaged husband, a day or two after.
"What is there to do? Everything is flat; there is neither business nor money in this cursed country. I've stayed here trying to sell my mine, until I'm dead broke; nothing to live on here, and nothing to get out with. What I'm to do with my wife there, I don't know. Let her die, perhaps, and throw her bones up that ravine to bleach in the sun. ”

“ Hastings. 'Tis better using France than trusting France: Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas, Which he hath given for fence impregnable, And with their helps only defend ourselves; In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.
Clarence. For this one speech, Lord Hastings well deserves To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.
King Edward. Ay, what of that? it was my will, and grant; And, for this once, my will shall stand for law.
Gloucester. And yet, methinks, your grace hath not done well, To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales Unto the brother of your loving bride ”

“ The powerful Hastings, the ambitious lord, the accomplished libertine—what a fate for poor Sibyll, if for such a man the cheek blushed and the bosom heaved!
“Well, Master Warner,” resumed Hastings, “thou art still silent as to thy progress.”
The philosopher uttered an impatient groan. “Ah, I comprehend. The goldmaker must not speak of his craft before the goldsmith. Good Alwyn, thou mayest retire. All arts have their mysteries.” ”

“ Hastings did not contest the point. He was so very practical a man (in contradistinction to an imaginative one) that he saw little use in “last” interviews, unless they produced actual good. Turning away, he walked home at a brisk pace. Maria was alone when he entered. Mrs. Hastings and Grace were out of the room, talking to some late applicant: a clergyman’s house, like a parish apothecary’s, is never free long together. Divested of her travelling cloaks and seated before the fire in her quiet merino dress, Maria looked as much at home as if she had never left it. ”

“ They came at last, with a shuffle of feet and click of bayonets, the word was passed, the relief fell out, and away they went, crunch, crunch, across the gravel.
A mellow chime floated from the clock-tower of the palace, the deep bell of St. Sulpice, echoed the stroke. Hastings sat dreaming in the shadow of the god, and while he mused, somebody came and sat down beside him. At first he did not raise his head. It was only when she spoke that he sprang up. ”

“ There have always been men of the Hastings name in the village. They came in the days of its first settlement. There are a score of them living here at this very minute. And, like the most of them in the early years of the republic, Donald Hastings followed the sea. Holiest, impetuous, young, as were so many of those sea captains in that golden era of the early nineteenth century, he left but one shadow on his memory—perhaps not altogether a shadow. Therein lies the story.
Above the junk the masts and spars of a ship loomed in the moonlight. ”

“ That gold he shall honourably win! Nor is this all. Thou wilt see the Lord Hastings: he is less learned, perhaps, than Worcester, less dainty in accomplishments and gifts than Anthony Woodville, but his mind is profound and vast; all men praise him save the queen's kin. He loves scholars; he is mild to distress; he laughs at the superstitions of the vulgar. Thou wilt see the Lord Hastings, and thou mayst interest him in thy father's genius and his fate! ”

“ Hastings and his eloquent accusers, there are many very obvious reasons to be assigned. Success, as I have already remarked, was the dazzling talisman, which he waved in the eyes of his adversaries from the first, and which his friends have made use of to throw a splendor over his tyranny and injustice ever since. ”

“ I don’t suppose that life at Hastings is the most exciting or the most gratifying in the world, but it must certainly have its advantages. If I were a quiet old lady of modest income and nice habits—or even a quiet old gentleman of the same pattern—I should certainly go to Hastings. ”

“ Hastings began well and ended ill." "Will ye yield you to King Charles?" asked Hastings. "We yield," was the answer, "to none; all that we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Go and tell this, if thou wilt, to the King, whose envoy thou boastest to be."
Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and Rollo prepared to march on Paris. Hastings had gone back somewhat troubled in mind. Now there was among the Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault) , who greatly coveted the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings: "Why slumberest thou softly? ”

“ In short, Hastings, by her own showing, is one of those favoured (not to say miraculous) places each of which has the better climate than any other, where the sun shines just so long and so brilliantly as you please, where the winds are never rude and the air never stagnant, and there are four hundred fine days (at the very least of it) to the three hundred and sixty-five of every year.
When Hastings really did begin to rise it grew quickly, and speedily overspread, not merely the old-time site, but brought into existence the twin town of St. Leonards as well. ”

“ Before such ancient settlements as Rye and Winchelsea were dreamed of, while yet Hastings was the merest collection of barbarian huts, Pevensey, or rather its Roman predecessor, Anderida, was a fortified place with all the ebb and flow of a flourishing life. ”

“ Just alighted from the toils of the chase, Harry Hastings, then in his eightieth year, would partake of a substantial dinner, tipple his tankard of ale dry, take his customary nap, wake up, rub his eyes, and behold the "Anatomy of Melancholy" seated before the fire, his visage buried in an opened folio! A rare old boy must have been this Hastings. He is described as low of stature, but strong and active, of a ruddy complexion, with flaxen hair. His clothes were always of Lincoln green. His house was of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with game. ”

“ If men truly great knew their own interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds to be portrayed.
Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illustrious race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree can be traced back to the great Danish sea-king, whose sails were long the terror of both coasts of the British Channel, and who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last to the valor and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendor of the line of Hastings needs no illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, in the fourteenth century, the coronet of Pembroke. ”

“ With Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimilarity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly dissolve. It does not appear that they ever met after they had grown to manhood. But forty years later, when the voices of many great orators were crying for vengeance on the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded poet could image to himself Hastings the Governor-General only as the Hastings with whom he had rowed on the Thames and played in the cloister, and refused to believe that so good-tempered a fellow could have done anything very wrong. ”

“ Marry, thus: when William Hastings was but a squire, and much favoured by Richard, Duke of York, he lifted his eyes to the Lady Katherine Nevile, sister to the Earl of Warwick, and in beauty and in dower, as in birth, a mate for a king's son. ”

“ I am the younger son of Sir Charles Hastings, Baronet, a general in the army, and who was educated in his youth with the Marquis of Hastings, governor-general of India; so that I could surely find a more lucrative, less dangerous, and more respectable employment in India than that of a spy in Greece. I quitted England because I considered the government treated me with injustice, in arbitrarily dismissing me from the navy, after more than fourteen years of active service, for an affair of honour, while I was on half-pay. ”

“ Go, good Lord Hastings,
And, ere they be dismiss’d, let them march by.
[Exit Hastings.]
LANCASTER.
I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.
Enter Westmoreland.
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
WESTMORELAND.
The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
Will not go off until they hear you speak.
LANCASTER.
They know their duties.
Enter Hastings.
HASTINGS.
My lord, our army is dispersed already.
Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses
East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place. ”

“ And Lady Hastings took them both by the arms and addressed them thus:
“You know how fond I have grown of you two boys. You have been away long and I have missed you. This time, I shall keep you with me.”
As Frank and Jack blushed and bowed and scraped uncomfortably, Lord Hastings only smiled and nodded.
“Yes,” said Lady Hastings quietly, “you have done much for England, all three of you boys,” and she glanced affectionately at her husband. “Now, for a time, you shall take orders from no one but me. You shall all stay here and rest!”
THE END.
SAVE THE WRAPPER! ”

“ Hastings regarded the countenance of Edward, changed from affable beauty into terrible fierceness, with reflections suggested by his profound and mournful wisdom. “How little a man’s virtues profit him in the eyes of men!” ”

“ Hastings had imprudently avowed an interest in the prosperity of the house of Palmer & Co. in a letter to Sir William Rumbold, who had married his ward, and was one of the partners of the firm. In consequence of this the motives of Hastings were mistrusted by the directors, and, justly indignant at their suspicions, he sent in his resignation in 1821. ”

“ Stung by the coldness even more than by the disdain of the Lady Bonville, and enraged to find that no taunt of his own, however galling, could ruffle a dignity which was an insult both to memory and to self-love, Hastings had exerted more than usual, both at the banquet and in the revel, those general powers of pleasing, which, even in an age when personal qualifications ranked so high, had yet made him no less renowned for successes in gallantry than the beautiful and youthful king. ”

“ Pardon me if I have presumed on matters on which each man judges for himself. But as, despite all obstacle, one day or other Anne Nevile shall be mine, it would have delighted me to know a near connection in Lord Hastings. ”

“ And the sad and gifted and erring intellect of Hastings, rapt from its little ambition of the hour, had no answer when his heart asked, "What can courts and a king's smile give me in exchange for serene tranquillity and devoted love?"
CHAPTER II. THE MAN AWAKES IN THE SAGE, AND THE SHE-WOLF AGAIN HATH TRACKED THE LAMB. From the night in which Hastings had saved from the knives of the tymbesteres Sibyll and her father, his honour and chivalry had made him their protector. The people of the farm (a widow and her children, with the peasants in their employ) were kindly and simple folks. ”

“ After he had gone, the Stroke looked up from his book for some time, while a tender smile softened his strong mouth. He had found a girl who could understand, and he hoped the same good fortune for his friend.
When the train passed through New Haven, Hastings wore a hang-dog air, fearing recognition. A runaway from New London the day before the race, his college town was the last place on earth in which he wished to be seen. As he neared New York he braced himself for the meeting with his mother, blindly fearing that she would be sorely disappointed in him. ”

“ Hastings. The opinion coincided precisely with what he had expressed to the agent.
“I know of nothing else wrong with the Bank,” spoke George. “Were you to ask my brother, I am sure he would tell you that business was never more flourishing. I wish to goodness people could be compelled to concern themselves with their own affairs instead of inventing falsehoods for their friends!”
Mr. Hastings rose. “Your assurance is sufficient, Mr. George: I do not require your brother’s word to confirm it. I have asked it of you in all good faith, Maria being the link between us.” ”

“ He hath heard of your father’s labours; he desires to learn their nature from his own lips. He is allowed to receive, by an order from King Edward’s chamberlain, the visits of those scholars in whose converse he was ever wont to delight. Wilt thou so far aid the charitable work as to seek the Lord Hastings, and crave the necessary license? Thou seest that thy father has wayward and abstract moods; he might forget that Henry of Windsor is no longer king, and might give him that title in speaking to Lord Hastings,—a slip of the tongue which the law styles treason. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.
"Now that we have so kindly been permitted to enter," said Lord Hastings, "I don't believe it would be half a bad idea for us to go ashore; or at least two of us."
"I speak to go with you, sir," exclaimed Frank.
"So do I, sir," said Jack.
"Well, all three of us can't go," Lord Hastings decided. "We'll draw straws to see who are the fortunate—or unfortunate—two. I'll draw with you. The one who gets the short one loses." ”

“ His grandfather, William Hastings (d. 1226) , took part with the barons against King John, and in 1216 his lands were forfeited; he was taken prisoner at Lincoln in 1217, and was one of William of Aumale's supporters at Biham in 1221. Henry Hastings the elder fought in Poitou in 1242 and was taken prisoner at Saintes, he served in Scotland in 1244 (Report on Dignity of a Peer, iii. 20) . In 1250 he was one of the nobles who took the cross, but died in July of the same year. Matthew Paris calls him ‘a distinguished knight and wealthy baron’ (iv. 213, v. 96, 174) . ”