Jacob Tonson

“ Yea, although the squire despised Mr. Donaldson, his son, a youth of nineteen, became the boon companion of Jacob. They held midnight orgies together. Jacob initiated the squireling into the mysteries of Paris and Rome, of Naples and Munich, whither he was about to proceed. But I will not dwell upon their short career. Extravagance attended it, shame and tears followed it.
Andrew Donaldson no longer possessed the means of upholding his son in folly and wickedness. He urged him to settle in the world—to take a farm while he had the power left of placing him in it; but Jacob's sins pursued him. ”

“ Now, where is he?"
"I can't tell ye."
"Have you any choice between Josh's fist or my pistol?"
"What d' ye mean?"
"Just what I say."
"There was a young chap got supper here," began Jacob.
"Ah, I thought you would begin to recollect," said Russell quietly.
"He put out his own horse. I have n't got any man here now."
"Where is young Dorlon?"
"I did n't see him when he put his horse in the barn. He came into the house and Nancy cooked some supper for him, same 's she did for you. ”

“ What's that?"
"Going into the fight for our liberties. Every man of the Notts is in the army, and even Hannah and her mother are not giving up. At least, that's what Joseph told me."
"Give up? Who's been talkin' 'bout givin' up, I'd like to know. I have n't."
"No, you have n't. That's so, Jacob," said Robert soothingly.
"I have n't said a word 'bout givin' up," continued Jacob. "I 've been thinkin' an' thinkin' ever since th' men went away what I should do. You went away with 'em, did n't ye? How does it happen that ye 're back here?" ”

“ Nobody hereabouts ever calls me Jacob."
"Then you 're the man I'm after," laughed Robert. "Read that, will you?" he added, holding forth the letter which he had taken from the pocket of the helpless man in the bushes near Hannah Nott's home.
"Read it to me yourself," said Jacob. His voice was deep and guttural, but there was nothing in it to imply any interest in the letter or the stranger. ”

“ Here Jacob, as if by sheer force of habit, stopped and peered first down and then up the road by which Robert had come. Suddenly he started and gazed long in the latter direction, and Robert, startled by the landlord's manner, also looked anxiously up the road. A little cloud of dust could be seen in the distance, and in a moment out from it there emerged the forms of five horsemen, who were riding swiftly.
"Into the barn! Up into the mow! Cover yourself up good with the hay!" exclaimed Jacob, in a low voice. ”

“ However strong their suspicions, they could not proceed against him with any chance of success. They were in the same difficulty in regard to Tonkin, whom none could swear to, his face having been blackened. Nor could it be proved even that it was his lugger which had brought the cargo. When the Isaac and Jacob came into the harbour next day and was boarded by the revenue officers, it contained nothing but a few hundredweight of fish; and though grappling operations were conducted in St. Cuby's Cove, and for some distance on each side of it, no discovery of sunken tubs was made. ”

“ As Russell started toward the well, Jacob quietly entered the house. In a moment his manner had changed completely, and instead of the lazy appearing, lawless man that he had been a moment before, he was now alert and the expression of his face had become keen and eager. Stepping softly from his hiding-place, Robert held up his hand warningly as the landlord approached, and Jacob quickly nodded his head in token that he understood.
"They 'll see yer horse, but Josh is such a lunkhead he may not know it," whispered Jacob. "They 're after you though, and no mistake." ”

“ Enter Jacob.
ANNA PÁVLOVNA [following Leoníd Fyódoritch with her eyes] He has been tricked like a fool, and he sees nothing! [To Jacob] What do you want?
JACOB. How many persons am I to lay the table for?
ANNA PÁVLOVNA. For how many?... Theodore Ivánitch! Let him give up the silver plate to you. Be off, at once! It is all his fault! This man will bring me to my grave. Last night he nearly starved the dog that had done him no harm! And, as if that were not enough, he lets the infected peasants into the kitchen, and now they are here again! It is all his fault! Be off at once! ”

“ You'd do the same, wouldn't you, Jacob Vannote?"
"That I would," replied Jacob, "and so would Barzilla Giberson here, too. All we want is that some good man like you, Benzeor, should tell us how to do it."
"I can tell you," said Benzeor quietly. "I've made up my mind that I've held off just as long as I am going to. I'm going in, [13] and if you have a mind to join, I'll let you in, too."
"Tell us about it," said Jacob eagerly. "What about the boy?" he added in a low voice, glancing toward the fourth member of the party as he spoke.
"What? Tom Coward? ”

“ My wife always keeps track o' those things better'n I do. She seems t' have a better head for such things 'n I have."
"Josh, we 'll stop here and get some supper," said Russell sharply, turning to his companion as he spoke. "Jake can't tell us much, but the fellow has been here and we 'll get him before it's light. He won't go on very far in the night."
"That suits me," roared Josh. "I 'll put out the horses an' you can go in an' get ready for supper. I'm all ready now," and the roaring voice seemed to boom throughout the house.
"I 'll go in an' tell Nancy ye 're here," suggested Jacob. ”

“ He had never dreamed of the silent band which had been yielded up by the misty stretches of the Basin.
James leaned over the vessel’s side towards the Venture, and thought of Captain Hall. He had seen him in a tavern of the town, and had been as little impressed by his looks as was Flemington. He had noticed the uncertain eye, the restless fingers, the trotting gait, and had held him lightly as a force; for he knew as well as most men know who have knocked about this world that character—none other—is the hammer that drives home every nail into the framework of achievement. ”

“ In a moment Jacob Gunning appeared, coming from the barn at the boisterous summons, and, almost fascinated by what he saw, Robert still peered forth from behind the door and listened intently to what was being said.
"Well, Jake, got a bite for us?" roared Josh.
"I never turned ye away empty yet, did I?" replied the landlord.
"Jake, we 're looking for a man," broke in Russell. "Have you seen him?" ”

“ Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty—the world of the elderly—thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable—"I am what I am, and intend to be it," for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself. The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it. ”

“ He liked to be employed, and to prove himself useful. With Tony it was the reverse. He adopted all sorts of schemes and maneuvers to avoid the performance of any duty. When he had reason to suppose that any work was to be done in which his aid was to be required, he would take his fishing-line, immediately after breakfast, and steal secretly away out of the back door, and go down to a brook which was near his father’s house, and there—hiding himself in some secluded place among the bushes, where he thought they could not find him—he would sit down upon a stone and go to fishing. ”

“ It was soon evident that, though the guns on the hill commanded the Venture, their shot was falling short of her. As the sun heaved up from beyond the bar, the quays over the water could be seen filling with people, and the town bells began to ring. An increasing crowd swarmed upon the landing-stage of the ferry, but the boat herself had been brought by James to the shore of Inchbrayock, and nobody was likely to cross the water whilst the island and the high ground seaward of the town was held by the invisible enemy which had come upon them from heaven knew where. ”

“ We saw rude piles of stones standing near the roadside, at intervals, and recognized the custom of marking boundaries which obtained in Jacob’s time. There were no walls, no fences, no hedges—nothing to secure a man’s possessions but these random heaps of stones. The Israelites held them sacred in the old patriarchal times, and these other Arabs, their lineal descendants, do so likewise. An American, of ordinary intelligence, would soon widely extend his property, at an outlay of mere manual labor, performed at night, under so loose a system of fencing as this. ”

“ Old and young rejoiced, when the new lamp let its light shine over the whole land, and bed-rooms and sitting-rooms were filled with it. The dwarfs came forth from their caves in the rocks, and the tiny elves in their little red coats danced in rings on the meadows. ”

“ An Esquire, clothed in gold and scarlet, rides gallantly along, proudly waving his sword; a Chariot bears in triumph an officer in full armour; a Fool places his cap and bells under his arm that he may count upon his fingers. ”

“ Before we went to bed, Jake and Otto were called up to the living-room for prayers. Grandfather put on silver-rimmed spectacles and read several Psalms. His voice was so sympathetic and he read so interestingly that I wished he had chosen one of my favourite chapters in the Book of Kings. I was awed by his intonation of the word ‘Selah.’ ‘He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.’ I had no idea what the word meant; perhaps he had not. But, as he uttered it, it became oracular, the most sacred of words. ”

“ Tonty paid small heed to their silence; for in his mind was the one great thought that La Salle was alive and might reach the fort at any time. Four years before, his beloved leader had gone from the fort on the Illinois to Canada and across to France; and three years before, he had sailed from France for the mouth of the Mississippi. In all that time, alternating between hope and the gloomy despair which lately had so often fallen upon his soul, Tonty had waited hoping each day for news from his lost chief. ”

“ When you approach the Gothic church, when you stand beneath its lofty roof, it is as if a new country were receiving you, possessing you, casting around you an atmosphere of subduing reverie in which you feel your wretched servitude to worldly interests vanishing away, and you become conscious of more solid, more important ties, springing up in you. The Deity whom our finite nature can figure to ourselves seems in fact to inhabit this immense building, to be willing to put himself in direct communion with the humble Christian who approaches to bow down before Him. ”

“ As the chaise drives away, Mary stands bewildered and perplexed on the door-step, her mind in a tumult of excitement, in which hatred of the doctor, distrust and suspicion of her mother, disappointment, vexation, and ill humor, surge and swell among those delicate organizations on which the structure and development of the soul so closely depend—doing perhaps an irreparable injury. ”

“ I can’t say to Lewis, ‘Your niece is not good enough,’ can I?”
“There is nothing of that sort necessary. The money question [Pg 258] alone is sufficient. Why not write to-morrow, Edward? We ought to do something.”
“I must go to Presteign to-morrow. I shall have no time for letters. I think it would be the best plan if you went over to Crishowell in the phaëton, for then you could see Lewis yourself. Yes, that will do very well.”
And Mr. Fenton took up his candle and went into his dressing-room.
While her husband was on his way to Presteign next day Lady Harriet ordered the phaëton. ”

“ Jacques never remonstrated with Toni, never contradicted him, never wanted any share of the candy which Toni abstracted under his mother’s nose and ran down in the meadow to munch. There were some things Toni could say to Jacques that he could not say to any human being in the world, not even to Paul Verney, and Jacques never showed the least surprise or disgust. It is a great thing to have a perfectly complaisant, unvarying friend always close to one, and such was Jacques to Toni. ”

“ Where the gean-trees glowed carmine and orange, touches of quickening fire shot through the interstices of their branches, and coloured like a tress of trailing forget-me-not, the South Esk wound into the Basin of Montrose, where the tide, ebbing beyond the town, was leaving its wet sands as a feasting-ground for all sorts of roving birds whose crying voices came faintly to Archie, mellowed by distance. ”

“ At the same time, local tradition is positive that Tonty came back, poor, to the Rock to die, in 1718.
Death had stripped him of every tie. He had helped to build that city near the Mississippi’s mouth which was La Salle’s object, and had also helped found Mobile. The great west owes more to him than to any other man who labored to open it to the world. Yet historians say the date of his death is unknown, and tradition around the Rock says he crept up the stony path an old and broken man, helped by his Indian and a priest, died gazing from its summit, and was buried at its west side. ”

“ The Tonquin was soon surrounded by them; its single ladder was quickly crowded with dusky warriors, who, pouring upon the deck in a steady stream, also produced skins, offering to trade with the captain on his own terms now, and implying, though not expressing, regret at the obstinacy of their representatives the day before. The chief things the natives wanted instead of their costly peltries were knives; and with an almost foolhardy recklessness, Thorn allowed them to appropriate a large number, in spite of the repeated warnings of his officers and the interpreter that treachery was intended. ”