John Dalton

“ Just before his death, he deeded his house to his son Tristram Dalton, who became a prominent figure in American history.
Tristram Dalton was graduated from Harvard in 1755. There is still seen in the house a portrait supposed to have been painted at about that time. One of his closest intimates was a classmate, John Adams, their friendship ending only with death. Young Dalton began studying law in Salem but afterwards entered business with his father ”

“ Thomas, with Schofield on his left, on the 7th forced the Confederates through Buzzard’s Roost Gap (the pass at Mill Creek) north-west of Dalton; at Dug Gap, 4 m. south-west of Dalton, on the 8th a fierce Federal assault under Brigadier-General John W. Geary failed to dislodge the Confederates from a quite impregnable position. On the 11th the main body of Sherman’s army followed M’Pherson toward Resaca, and Johnston, having evacuated Dalton on the night of the 12th, was thus forced, after five days’ manœuvring and skirmishing, to march to Resaca and to meet Sherman there. ”

“ She drove down to the City Hall, and greatly astonished Mr. Dalton by walking into his office and requesting a moment's private conversation with him. Dalton was a dapper young man, exceedingly glib and well dressed, making his way in political and official, as he had already made it in social life. He greeted Mrs. Belding with effusion, and was anxious to know how he might serve her, having first cleared the room of the half-dozen politicians who did their lounging there. ”

“ Dalton said, "I want to make it as easy as I can for you. Please wait a moment in your carriage." He went in and arranged that the face of Offitt, which was horrible, should be turned away as much as possible; the head, and shoulders and back being left exposed, and the hat placed on the head. He then brought Mrs. Belding in.
"That is the man," she said, promptly, "or at least some one exactly like him."
"Thank you," he said, reconducting her to her carriage. "The first charge against Sleeny will be dismissed, though of course he must be held for this homicide." ”

“ The third representative of forlorn humanity was a very tall, muscular man, whose jockey-cut green coat and wide-brimmed hat contrasted oddly with a pair of huge white moustaches, that would have done credit to a captain of the Old Guard. On features, originally handsome, time, poverty, and dissipation had left many a mark; but still the half-droll, half-truculent twinkle of his clear gray eyes showed him one whom no turn of fortune could thoroughly subdue, and who, even in the very hardest of his trials, could find heart to indulge his humor for Peter Dalton was an Irishman ”

“ Geo., 164 Mainwaring, Fredk., 164 Maitland, P., 5, 25 Makepeace, Chas., 243 Malcolm, John, 42nd Foot, 157 Maling, John, 231 Mallock, John McGr., 87 Mandilhon, Philip, 239 Manley, Chas., 132 Mann, Jas., 116 Manners, Lord Robt., 68 ——, Robt., 226 Manning, Wm., 153 Mansfield, R., 5, 24, 82 March, Earl of, 1, 11, 169 Marcon, Edw., 239 Marlay, Geo., 123 Marr, Chas., 243 Marschalk, H., 6, 27 Marshall, Wm., 189 Marten, Thos., 48 Martin, Benj., 120 ——, Hen., 51st Foot, 164 ——, ——, 44th Foot, 161 ——, John, 93 ——, Ric., 136 Massey, Hugh, 116 ——, Hon. ”

“ When a good ship is wrestling with such a sea, she does it almost like a living creature. She sways and settles, and rises and twists, and her beams groan and creak with the strain that is on them. But her joints hold, and she answers her helm ”

“ If I knew we were better than other people, it never made me unneighborly; I was always free and affable; my worst enemy could n't say other of me. I 'd like to have these poor devils to dinner, and give them a skinful for once in their lives, just to drink Kate's health, and Frank's; they 'd think of the Daltons for many a long year to come—the good old Dalton blood, that never mixed with the puddle! What a heavenly day it is! and an elegant fine market. There's a bit of roasting beef would feed a dozen ”

“ His proper name was “George Davis Willson.”
3. 2nd son of John Kirwan, K.C., by Anne, only child of Euseby Stratford, elder brother of 1st Earl of Aldborough. Entered the Army in 1804 and joined 4th Foot, 1st Batt.; served in the Pa. and was engaged in the Battles of Corunna, the disastrous Walcheren Expedition, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, St. Sebastian, Nive, Bladensburg, New Orleans, and Waterloo. After the Peace was appointed to the West India Rangers, but never joined the regt. Received the Par. and Waterloo medals. Md. twice; d. in 1852, leaving issue. ”

“ You are a good-natured old boy, Claud, and I am ashamed of myself. But, Prabu,” he said to our companion, “will you take us nest-gathering?”
“My young masters have been delicately reared; is it possible, then, that they can bear the hardships of a nest-gatherer’s life?” he replied, evasively.
“Oh, bother!” replied Martin, laughing; “you don’t take us Yankee boys for a couple of sugar-candy figures, or wax dolls, do you? Come, don’t keep us in suspense, but say, like a good fellow, whether you will or will not take us with you.”
“My young master is as brave as a lion: it shall be as he desires ”

“ They are not very frightful, are they? nor very romantic, either—only a little girl you know kept out of the way while her uncle-in-law could spend all her money!”
“Indeed, dear Marie, I fear it is but too true that he has spent it, for did he not confess that he had ruined you.”
[393] “Then, Martin, I shall have to work for my living, that is all. I will be a governess, or a companion, to one of the Dutch ladies in Batavia.”
“No, Marie,” replied my brother, impatiently, “Claud and I have money; you shall share it, as you have a right: it has been left to us by your father ”

“ The Daltons were remarkable for strong traits of family likeness, not alone in feature, but in character; and what a comfort Frank felt in fancying that the old general would be a thorough Dalton in frankness and kindliness of nature, easy in disposition, with all the careless freedom of his own father! How he should love him, as one of themselves!
It is a well-known fact, that certain families are remarkable above others for the importance that they attach to the ties of kindred, making the boast of relationship always superior to the claims of self-formed friendships. ”

“ The old families is dying out fast, and the properties changing hands. A set of English rogues and banker-fellows that made their money in dirty lanes and alleys.”
A sort of imploring, beseeching anxiety from his daughter Kate here brought Dalton to a dead stop, and he pulled up as suddenly as if on the brink of a precipice.
“Pray, go on, Mr. Dalton,” said Lady Hester, with a winning smile; “you cannot think how much you have interested me. You are aware that we really know nothing about poor dear Ireland; and I am so delighted to learn from one so competent to teach.” ”

“ What a noble service is that where merit can win its way self-sustained and independent, where, without the indignity of a patron, the path of honorable enterprise lies free and open to all! What generous promptings, what bold aspirations such a career engenders! He shall not be ashamed of me, he shall not have to blush for the Dalton blood,” said the boy, enthusiastically; and he revelled in a dream of the old Count's ecstasy on finding a nephew so worthy of their name, and in his fancy he saw pictures of future scenes in which he figured. ”

“ Dalton, it is here. By this will, signed, sealed, and witnessed in all form, Mr. Godfrey bequeathed to his brother-in-law his whole estate of Corrig-O'Neal, and, with the exception of some trifling legacies, names him heir to all he is possessed of.”
“Let me out of this,—leave me free!” shouted the prisoner, whose eyeballs now glared with the red glow of madness. “What brought me into your schemes and plots?—why did I ever come here? Oh, my Lord, don't see a poor man come to harm that has no friends. Bad luck to them here and hereafter, the same Daltons! ”

“ He lowered his voice. “The place has a bad name hereabouts. The contadini—rough, ignorant folk, signore—say she still walks in the garden at moonrise, waiting for the husband and son who never [287] came; and the women who go to wash their linen in the lake will not come back that way at night for fear of seeing her dead eyes peering at them through the bars of the gate.”
“Ah, that is very interesting,” Jean said appreciatively. He finished his coffee, paid for it with a piece of silver, and waited to light a cigarette before he went out. ”

“ There is a difference between a storm and a gale of wind. A storm is disagreeable enough, with the driving rain, the lead-colored sky, the sea covered with foam, and the wet decks all going up and down hill. There is not much pleasure while that lasts. But in a gale of wind, discomfort is not what you think of. After the tempest has grown and gathered strength for five or six hours together, it begins to look threatening and wicked. The sea is a black gulf around the ship; and the great waves come rolling at her, one after the other, like troops of hungry wolves furious to swallow her up. ”

“ And, since he was beginning life anew, it was shown in court, nothing of the old life should enter into this of Dalton. He buried his profession in the past, and undertook other labors,—labors like those of Uncle Elkins; he would abide on that level where he found himself on his recovery, and make no effort to lift his wife to that he had renounced. She was a child of Nature. He would learn life anew of her; but he failed of success in all his undertakings. Shall a man attempt to extenuate his failures? ”

“ At either side of him were seated a knot of his peculiar parasites, and neither was wit nor beauty wanting to make their society agreeable. There is a species of mock affection, a false air of attachment in the homage rendered to such a man as this, that makes the flattery infinitely more seductive than all the respectful devotion that ever surrounded a monarch. And so our old friend Peter Dalton—need we to name him?—felt it. “Barring the glorious burst of a fox-hunting chorus, or the wild 'hip, hip' of a favorite toast, it was almost as good as Ireland.” ”

“ Dalton had; and by the answering gleam in his eye, showed he was rewarded for the whim which had prompted him to be the bearer of the good tidings. It amused him to play with this pretty child-wife, and sound the depths of her nature—if there were any!
"What is your age?" he asked abruptly, with a doctor's licence to question a patient as he chose.
"I was nineteen in summer."
"You have no business with a baby when you are one yourself! Now for your tea," and he held the cup while she leant on her elbow to drink its contents, a shower of honey-gold hair falling about her face. ”

“ An Irish peer had come into the Saal leaning on his arm, and twice called him “Dalton” across the table. The waiter had apologized to a royal highness for not having better Johannisberg, as the “Schloss” wine had all been reserved for the “Count,” as Peter was styled. He had won four hundred Napoleons at roulette before dinner; and a bracelet, that cost a hundred and twenty, was glittering on a fair wrist beside him, while a murmur of his name in tones of unquestionable adulation, from all parts of the table, seemed to fill up the measure of his delight. ”

“ Dalton, in Baden Baden.
CHAPTER III. THE FOREST ROAD.
THIS dry epistle Dalton read and re-read, trying, if not to discover some touch of kindliness or interest, to detect, at least, some clew to its writer's nature; but to no use, its quaint formalism baffled all speculation, and he gave up the pursuit in despair. That “the Count” was his father's only brother, and a “Dalton,” were the only grains of comfort he could extract from his meditations; but he had lived long enough in the world to know how little binding were the ties of kindred when once slackened by years and distance. ”

“ Strong as was now Hugh Dalton's affection for his daughter, it is doubtful if it would have had force enough to make him relinquish so completely his wandering and ruthless habits, and adopt the design of serving for a little time under the banner of the Commonwealth, before he completely gave up the sea, had not his declining constitution warned him that at fifty-five he was older than at thirty. He had grown a wiser and a better man than when, in middle age, he ran full tilt with his passions at all things that impeded his progress or his views. ”

“ Nothing has such a mock resemblance to wisdom as utter heartlessness; with all the seeming of true philosophy, it assumes a port and bearing above the trials of the world; holds on “the even tenor of its way,” undeterred by the reverses which overwhelm others, and even meets the sternest frowns of fortune with the bland smile of equanimity.
In this way Dalton had deceived many who had known him in better days, and who now saw him, even in his adversity, with the same careless, good-natured look, as when he took the field with his own hounds, or passed round the claret at his own table. ”

“ Some recommended a school to Mr. Dalton, others a governess, but, still more, a wife. The owner of Dalton Park was however not a man to be advised, at least, if people desired that their advice should be taken. An impatient shrug of the shoulder and a still deeper silence was the utmost reply that the ingenious insinuation, or even the more direct attack, ever produced. Every time Mr. Dalton went from home, it was universally decided that he was gone to be married: still, though there is an old proverb stating that what everybody says must be true, yet there is no rule without an exception. ”

“ Dalton, seeing difficulties thickening and troubles gathering, suddenly bethinks him that he has a daughter, a young lady of such attractions that, in a society where wealth and splendor and rank hold highest place, her beauty has already established a dominion which nothing, save her gentleness, prevents being a despotism. ”