Hayes

“ Hayes of New York had more than once looked at her husband—only, up to now, with a stolen glance, with eyes it hadn't been easy to detach from the remarkable countenance by the aid of which their entertainer held them. At present, however, after an exchange less furtive, they ventured on a sign that they hadn't been appealed to in vain. "Charming, charming, Mr. Gedge!" Mr. Hayes broke out. "We feel that we've caught you in the mood."
His wife hastened to assent—it eased the tension. "It would be quite the way; except," she smiled, "that you'd be too dangerous. You've really a genius!" ”

“ In a word, Governor Hayes is square-built, solid and sound, mentally, morally, and physically. His integrity is a proverb; his fidelity to his convictions is recognized by political enemies; his record is of unassailable soundness; and there is absolutely nothing vulnerable in his character. He has a Lincoln-like soundness of judgment, and is as inexorably just as old John Marshall. He is a man absolutely free from eccentricities and affectations; he neither walks nor talks on stilts. ”

“ Mr. Hayes was prompt. 'Hesslegrave, go for a policeman.'
That curt sentence brought the rogue on his marrow-bones at once. He clasped his hands and debated inwardly. 'If I tell you all I know,' he said, at last, looking about him with an air of abject terror, as if he thought Lord Southminster or Higginson would hear him, 'will you promise not to prosecute me?' His tone became insinuating. 'For a hundred pounds, I could find the real will for you. You'd better close with me. To-day is the last chance. ”

“ I think some of us, who are of the same way of thinking, ought to get together as soon as possible to consider whether we cannot ourselves, or induce Hayes to, do something to avert such a danger. Unfortunately, I cannot leave my family just now. But will you not come this way one of these days? I should be most happy to speak with you. Do come if you can. Hayes, I fear, just permits things to drift. Can you not meet him somewhere? I have letters from many of our friends, especially from New England, full of apprehension. ”

“ After a while, however, Hayes and the white traders began to quarrel, and dreadful bloodshed would have followed; for the Pleasant Islanders, who were all devotedly attached to their white masters and were all armed with Snider rifles and cutlasses, were eager for their white men to make an assault upon Hayes and the crew of the Leonora. One night they gathered in front of their houses and danced a war-dance, but their white leaders discreetly kept in the background when Hayes appeared coming over toward them. ”

“ In those days the most respected storekeeper in Apia was a retired mariner—a Captain Turnbull—a stout old man, slow of speech, and profoundly, but not obtrusively, religious. People used to wonder how it was that "Misi Pulu," the shrewdest business man in the group, would supply Hayes with 1,000 or 2,000 dollars' worth of trade, and merely take his I O U, while refusing to give credit to any other soul. Spoken to on the matter, the gruff old man replied, "That's my business, but I'll tell you why I trust a man like Hayes and won't trust any one here. ”

“ Hayes is a tall, fierce, sharp-spoken man, of manners so very rough and bearish that his wife and children quailed when he spoke as if they expected an instant blow. We don’t know that it ever will be possible for a man to garrote his guardian angel for the sake of her golden crown, but the idea occurred to Johannes that if that amiable feat is ever accomplished, it will be by such another man as this. He seemed as unable to speak a kind or gentle word as to pull his boots off over his ears. ”

“ Most of them had large quantities of oil and copra—this also was shipped. After the last island had been visited, Hayes called them together in the cabin and addressed them: "Now, boys, I've promised to give you all passages to Samoa, and I will—if you do what I want. Now you've all got money belonging to the German firm. Well, each of you must give me 50 dollars, and if you take my advice you'll stick to the remainder. One thing you all know as well as I do, and that is, that the Dutchmen will take your souls out of their cases if you owe them anything. ”

“ Hayes has on several occasions spoken to me very highly of you as one of his most valued friends, and I suppose there would be no impropriety in your approaching him directly. I feel even as if you ought to do it. He is in a very perplexing and somewhat dangerous position. I mean morally dangerous, and dangerous also as to his standing as a man before the country. He ought not to be left without the advice of just such a friend as you are to him. ”

“ B. D. Hayes, New York"—one of those American labels that were just like every other American label and that were, precisely, the most remarkable thing about people reduced to achieving an identity in such other ways. They could be Mr. and Mrs. B. D. Hayes and yet they could be, with all presumptions missing—well, what these callers were. It had quickly enough indeed cleared the situation a little further that his friends had absolutely, the other time, as it came back to him, warned him of his original danger, their anxiety about which had been the last note sounded between them. ”

“ Fremont of course is justly proud of the name and fame of Rutherford B. Hayes. Two years before he returned to his home, after refusing Grant's offer of an Assistant Secretaryship, but the people of Ohio were not satisfied with this. Their feelings were probably voiced by the words of a personal friend of Hayes, who said: "With your energies, talents, education, and address, you are green—verdant as grass—to stay in a country village." ”

“ Hayes, he is a man who will hold to what he says. We do not conceal from ourselves the possibility that he may underrate the difficulties of his position. But as things stand, we must trust somebody, and we are forced to the conclusion that Mr. Hayes rather than Mr. Tilden is the man to walk in the path which to the reformers seems the right one. ”

“ Hayes has invented a way to shake hands which ought to be known to the official world, as it saves this useful member from crushing annihilation. Never give your fingers to the crowd, and, instead of allowing your own hand to be seized, grasp the unruly enemy by the hand as far as the unfortunate thumb will permit you to go, one vigorous squeeze, and the torment is over. ”

“ Chapter 94 - Hayes - Garfield - Arthur In l877 Rutherford B. Hayes became President. Ever since the Civil War a great part of the South had been in constant turmoil. Soldiers were still stationed in the capitals of the various states, and the carpet-bag government still continued. But Hayes wished to put an end to this. So he got the principal white people in the South to promise that they would help to keep law and order. Then he withdrew all the troops. Without their aid the carpet- bag government could not stand, and the white men of the South once more began to rule in the South. ”

“ Three of his immediate ancestors—Elias Birchard, Israel Smith, and Daniel Austin—gave proofs of valor and patriotism in the War of Independence. Another characteristic of the Hayes stock is the almost uniform tendency toward longevity. It is a robust race, presenting an extraordinary number of large families. The divine injunction to increase and multiply has been obeyed with religious fidelity. Upon the whole, the stock is good, and bids fair to become better. As men suffer discredit from disreputable progenitors, they ought to enjoy credit from reputable ancestors. ”

“ A man with a battery of Gatling guns might have attacked the harvester safely from a distance. Hayes possessed only a puerile pitchfork. With the Hawkins Harvester plunging wildly toward the bars of the young fruit orchard, Hayes made a wide détour for the barn—and for another short space I forgot him. ”

“ I saw him last in the hour of those tremendous adieux which were paid him in New York before he sailed to be minister in Germany. It was one of the most graceful things done by President Hayes, who, most of all our Presidents after Lincoln, honored himself in honoring literature by his appointments, to give that place to Bayard Taylor. There was no one more fit for it, and it was peculiarly fit that he should be so distinguished to a people who knew and valued his scholarship and the service he had done German letters. ”

“ His example was quickly followed by the rest of his countrymen; which so enraged Hayes that, seizing the first offender, he tore the crucifix from his hand, and, rolling it into a lump, thrust it into his month and made him swallow it.
“You'll kill the man, sir,” cried Hussey, his American mate, who, being a good Catholic, was horrified.
Hayes laughed savagely: “If that bit of lead is good externally it ought to be a darned sight better when taken internally.”
He was a humorous man at times, even when he was cross. And he was one of the best sailor-men that ever trod a deck. ”

“ Hayes, of whose piratical exploits I have heard many a highly seasoned yarn from the older residents in Fiji, where he occasionally appeared, as he did in all the other groups, as a very erratic comet, coming, and especially vanishing, when least expected, each time in a different ship, of which by some means he had contrived to get possession; always engaged in successful trade with stolen goods; ever bland and winning in manner, dressed like a gentleman, decidedly handsome, with long silky brown beard ”

“ Hayes had pushed out to sea, but not finding the Boston, and observing l’Ambuscade under weigh, he was obliged to tack and stand in shore again, by which means alone he could possibly hope to save his people from being captured. ”

“ All the men at these isolated villages were away at Leassé or elsewhere in the vicinity of Coquille Harbour, and the women and young girls pretended to be very much frightened at being left by themselves for a couple of days. They were afraid, they said, that Captain Hayes's wild Pleasant Island natives might come up the lagoon and harry their villages—wouldn't we stay with them till their husbands and brothers came back? ”

“ Hayes' last diplomatic reception, when thousands of elegantly dressed people thronged it, and music and lights made it, for that evening at least, the handsomest room in the country. There were no lights now. The great spaces were gloomy with what seemed to be the gloom of [Pg 234] coming death. Through the open windows on the south side the summer air stole lazily, and the shadows of the draperies seemed to add to the darkness. ”

“ It seems that in returning through the Kingsmill and Gilbert Groups he found a number of the German firm's traders in terror of their lives, the natives having warned them to clear out or be killed, they would have no white men on their islands. Hayes consented to give them all passages to Samoa—for a consideration, of course, and they agreed on behalf of their firm to pay him each 50 dollars passage money—a reasonable enough sum. ”

“ Hayes, but I believe him and most of those immediately about him to have been high-minded men who thought they were doing for the best in a situation unparalleled and beset with perplexity. What they did tends to show that men will do for party and in concert what the same men never would be willing to do each on his own responsibility. ”

“ Among his fellow-citizens of Boston and vicinity, Senator Hayes is well recognized as an uncompromising adherent of Home Rule principles in the affairs of Ireland, his native land. These come naturally to him. His father, Mr. John Hayes, now of Manchester, N. H., was a devoted supporter of O'Connell and, though young in years, was in turn warmly appreciated by the great liberator. From the most steadfast patriotism he has never swerved, and the blood in his children's veins, with the teachings he inculcated, impels them to tread in the same path of patriotic purpose as their worthy sire. ”

“ At this time Hayes made his appearance at one of the Treaty Ports in a ship named the Old Dominion. On the way out from New York his crew had mutinied, headed by the steward, a Greek. In the fight that ensued Hayes killed the Greek outright by a blow of his fist, and threw another with such violence against a deck-house that he died in a few hours. An inquiry was held, and Hayes, so it was stated, came out of it well. The Old Dominion was sold, and Hayes entered the Imperial Chinese service as commander of a gunboat. Another gunboat was commanded by one Ben Peese. ”

“ I don't know who you are, but you can tell your employers from me, that I will see them roasted before I will give my good money for their filthy and disgusting Sydney trade goods, and when I drop across you, you will get a head put on you that will teach you not to again presume to interfere in my domestic affairs. Yours very sincerely, Wm. Henry Hayes. ”

“ At this time Charles Hayes was the near neighbour of Sam Butler. He was united to one who, like himself, was serving God with a humble heart, and a cheerful, contented spirit. If Charles’s home was lowly, it was peaceful; if he had little of this world’s goods, he had few of its cares: labour and 196poverty might be his lot, but piety and love sweetened all.
But affliction, from which even the most faithful servants of God are not exempted, was sent to the cottage of Charles Hayes. ”

“ We are all getting on in years, and are, I hope, setting our faces homewards. My life is, at the very most, more than half over, even supposing that I should live to be old. And how many chances there are against that! This time thirty-seven years ago I was a small thing. How much smaller in one sense shall I be thirty-seven years hence! How much greater, we may hope, in another!'
In 1838, Richard being then sixteen, the Hayes family went abroad for a couple of years. The first year they spent in Paris, the tutor and governess living as usual in the house. ”