Lawson

“ Lawson, despite his strong and unchanging convictions, was absolutely just to friend and foe alike, and his justice was tempered by a tenderness which had its root in a singularly humane disposition. He always claimed for others the same freedom of opinion and expression which he claimed for himself. ”

“ But, the easy hospitality of the supper over, Lawson's discomfiture began again. In the morning he would have sworn it was happiness to sit before the glowing fire which the chill evenings of the mountains demanded, and to have Frances Holloway so near that one could watch the color flicker in her clear cheek and catch each tone of her round low voice and note the curve of white shoulders and dimpled arm. ”

“ For your own self’s sake, strike hard!
Lawson himself has struck often and dexterously, but with a somewhat uncertain aim, a wavering objective. He realises now that success is won only by a striking hard and relentlessly at the one thing in front of you; by striking also at the heads of all who happen to get in the way. ”

“ It is not easy finding such places in the crowded, native streets of the [81] Concession, and he had stumbled upon it by a piece of sheer luck. And the proprietor had been heavily fined and heavily warned, yet here he stood to-night, silent, respectful, hands up his sleeves, waiting. For once in his life, Lawson's imagination worked. He foresaw something portentous looming in the background of that impenetrable mind, revealed in the steady, unblinking stare of those slanting Chinese eyes, fixed steadily and fearlessly and patiently upon his. ”

“ Lawson turned to talk to the young women behind him; so, he could watch furtively Frances' face and her cheek where the rose hue flickered, the white in the midst of it.
The streets were filled with the afternoon crowd, students in groups or alone, young women, older women, children; fancy turnouts and farmers' wagons, high carts, and heavy low ones filled with cordwood, young women in short skirts and heavy boots, young women in all the finery of new fall clothes and furs, loitering by the houses set flush upon the street, or by box-hedged gardens, the houses far back, or by smooth lawns. ”

“ Lawson rode with Frances home. The whole field followed. Never had he seen a madder frolic. For many a beast and many a rider crowding the country road, the noon sun shining down on them hotly, he had learned a wholesome respect. Some stiff jumping and hot riding he had seen on those rough mountain fields, and he was inordinately proud of himself for so holding his own and proud of the spirit of the girl by whose side he rode.
They went straight to the stables. Mr. Carver stood speechless at the remnant of the turnout he had sent to the professor's home early in the morning. ”

“ One day last week I spent several hours with him at his rooms in Young's Hotel, and it surely was a stimulating and enjoyable time. Everybody now knows how exceedingly well Mr. Lawson can write, and he talks as he writes—boldly, vividly, audaciously. He thinks out loud, pouring forth a flood of speech, breaking off in the middle of sentences, going into long parentheses, touching on a dozen incidental things by way of illustration as he goes, but always coming back to the main point. He may confuse you, but he does not confuse himself. ”

“ Poor Lawson, who had so early lost his chance, whose youth had been poisoned at the start! In that grave where he lay, drunkard and reveler, part of the youth of her, Dosia Linden,—once his promised wife, to whom she had given herself in her soul,—must always lie too, buried with him; nothing could undo that. To die so causelessly! ”

“ Lawson painted very low in tone, and they both saw the emerald of the grass like dark velvet, while the brilliance of the sky turned in their hands to a brooding ultramarine. Through July they had one fine day after another; it was very hot; and the heat, searing Philip's heart, filled him with languor; he could not work; his mind was eager with a thousand thoughts. Often he spent the mornings by the side of the canal in the shade of the poplars, reading a few lines and then dreaming for half an hour. ”

“ The young fellow leaning against the mantel, though he was clad in full toggery of padded trousers and sweater and socks showing the University colors gaudily, was yet no comparison for Lawson, and they both knew it. Lawson was far and away the best-looking man on the eleven. ”

“ Lawson described with gusto the filth, the untidiness, the litter.
"And the stink nearly blew your head off."
"Not at dinner, Lawson," expostulated one of the others.
But he would not deny himself the pleasure of giving picturesque details of the odours which met his nostril. With a fierce delight in his own realism he described the woman who had opened the door for him. She was dark, small, and fat, quite young, with black hair that seemed always on the point of coming down. ”

“ When at length a cable came offering him a post in a bank in Kincardineshire she was beside herself with joy.
When, their long journey over, they were settled in the little Scots town with its granite houses Lawson realised how much it meant to him to live once more among his own people. He looked back on the three years he had spent in Apia as exile, and returned to the life that seemed the only normal one with a sigh of relief. ”

“ He, however, escaped, and lived in different places in England under the name of Lawson. In 1678 he opened a small office in London, where he gave legal advice at half fees, his clerk meeting the clients and transmitting their statements to the invisible Steuart. ”

“ She rose gently and put the alarm on two hours. 'He can rest now,' she whispered to herself.
Presently Arvie sat bolt upright, and said quickly, 'Mother! I thought the alarm went off!' Then, without waiting for an answer, he lay down as suddenly and slept.
The rain had cleared away, and a bright, starry dome was over sea and city, over slum and villa alike; but little of it could be seen from the hovel in Jones's Alley, save a glimpse of the Southern Cross and a few stars round it. ”

“ But God hasn't forgotten the old woman; and when he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?"
"You have got hold of the true medicine, Mrs. Lawson; better than any herb tea which you can concoct."
"Nae!" said the widow, in a rather controversial tone. "They all help! It's the three P's that does it, say I—Prayer, Patience, and Pennyroyal."
"Well, well," replies the schoolmaster; "give me the first two and you may keep the third. But where's my scholar, Mat?"
"Mat was off to the Scar after the sheep, hours ago," said Alice. ”

“ Lawson spoke on serious subjects, she dropped unconsciously into the language of Scripture: for she had been a close student of only one book; and after Miles was taken from her, that book had been the household lamp which had lightened the darkness that had fallen upon The Yews. She has that old family Bible on her lap now, as she sits beside the large open hearth; and the look of settled repose on her brow is a fine commentary on the words which she is now reading: "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." ”

“ Lawson, the widow, was a mild, lady-like person, whose face bore the marks of recent affliction, and whose whole appearance and manners were those of a loving, gentle, unenergetic, and helpless woman, whom sorrow could well crush beyond all power of resistance. The boy was a tall, thin youth, with a hectic flush and a hollow cough, eyes bright and restless, and as manifestly nervous as his mother was the reverse in temperament—anxious and restless, and continually taxing his strength beyond its power, making himself seriously ill in his endeavors to save his beloved mother some small trouble. ”

“ Her face was as sparkling as her own Scarf Beck, until some twelve months ago, when, after a long and painful talk with Miles Lawson, that care-worn expression took up its settled abode on her lofty brow, and in her deep shadowy eyes.
On that summer evening, a year ago, she had said to him, "No, Miles, you must give me back my promise; for I will never be the wife of a man that I cannot trust out of my sight for half-an-hour." ”

“ The native women are not unused to blows. What he had done did not outrage her. When she looked at herself in the glass and arranged her hair, her eyes were shining. There was a strange look in them. Perhaps then she was nearer loving him than she had ever been before.
But Lawson, driven forth blindly, stumbled through the plantation and suddenly exhausted, weak as a child, flung himself on the ground at the foot of a tree. He was miserable and ashamed. He thought of Ethel, and in the yielding tenderness of his love all his bones seemed to grow soft within him. ”

“ Lawson, with great earnestness, "our daughters were converted; I should have a larger portion of happiness than I [242] now have, and should look forward to the grave with much more composure. But, alas! all their attention is devoted to the follies of the world—dress, music, painting, and visiting, consume the greater part of their time. I see the children of other religious families decidedly pious, but I see no signs of piety in mine; I begin to think that we have neglected the means, and therefore God withholds his grace." ”

“ While thus religiously seeking knowledge, I became acquainted with a good old colored man named Lawson. This man not only prayed three times a day, but he prayed as he walked through the streets, at his work, on his dray—everywhere. His life was a life of prayer, and his words when he spoke to any one, were about a better world. Uncle Lawson lived near Master Hugh’s house, and becoming deeply attached to him, I went often with him to prayer-meeting and spent much of my leisure time on Sunday with him. ”

“ Many good stories are told of old Dr. Lawson, a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, who was so absent-minded that he sometimes was quite insensible of the world around him. One of his sons, who afterwards became a highly esteemed Christian minister, was a very tricky boy, perhaps mischievous in his tricks.
Near the manse lived an old woman, of crabbed temper, and rather ungodly in her mode of living. ”

“ Lawson's too old a han'. He ain't got his equal at shootin' ur lawin.' The whole country couldn't rake up a better one.” After speaking in this manner she would stifle a giggle by holding her hand over her mouth until she was livid in the face, and escape from her mystified parent, leaving him to vent his spleen on the empty air. ”

“ Lawson has himself made little effort in the field of literary labor, but is distinguished for his zeal and liberality in the good cause. He is by birth a Scotchman, but few men have more ardently at heart the welfare of American letters. ”

“ Lawson also loved the birds, as did the Scotch poet king, and Chaucer, and, in the early nineteenth century, Shelley and Keats. He wrote lovingly of a brood of nightingales that turned his orchard into a paradise. “The voice of the cock bird,” he declared, “did bear him company, both day and night.”
Then I should have liked to have visited Gerard in his physic garden in Holborn, overlooking the Fleet, and how delightful it would have been to have had a chat with the old man, or to have brought him some new plant or flower. ”

“ There is no influence so little regarded for the young by those in authority as the tremendous influence of propinquity.
Among all the social comings and goings at the Leverichs’, the excitement of Lawson’s presence held its place with Dosia. The sudden sight of his olive profile and his lithe figure, his cool, appraising gaze, his “Well, young lady?” ”

“ For hours her guest was allowed to roam at his own desire, and felt not the pressure of conventional restriction.
Mr. Lawson was gallant in the true sense of the word, but he was no empty-headed fop, paying that amount of overdue attention to the fair, which, at times, becomes a bore and a pest. ”

“ She leaned over his chair and put her arms about his neck.
[Pg 172]
"Are you?" there was a sparkle of joy in the professor's dark eyes; "so am I!" He slipped his arm about her and pulled her down on the arm of the chair. "You mustn't run away again; I don't know what to do without you; you must never run away again, too far!"
Lawson, though he was not given to poetical comparisons, was remembering with keen pain the first hour when he stood beneath the balcony and Frances had talked with him. ”

“ Lawson devoted much time to promoting the scientific pursuits of young people, and dispensed liberal and unostentatious charity. He died at Bath in his eighty-second year, a few weeks after his wife, on 22 Aug. ”

“ Frances looked laughingly at the young man beside her. That other opportunity and this were all she could have wished to put them on a commonplace footing. The [Pg 177] old position and power and knowledge to hold her own, were all she wished for. Lawson looking into the clear, gray eyes felt a thrill of gratitude for the fortune which had befriended him.
Still, her answer may have held some hidden meaning for him, for he flushed a little when he heard it. "I prefer to hold my own reins myself," she said carelessly; "you know I never would stand much managing." ”

“ It had always been the highest ambition of John Lawson that his family should grow up industrious men and women and that they should each receive all the benefits of education that lay within his power. ”

“ Lawson was a hot-headed Louisianian of French extraction; a man, evidently, who had never been crossed in anything, and who was strong, brutal, passionate, which qualities in the face of a situation like this made him simply a fool.
“I'm saying again, you used your ranger bluff just to get near Ray Longstreth,” Lawson sneered. “Mind you, if you come up there again there'll be hell.”
“You're right. But not the kind you think,” Duane retorted, his voice sharp and cold. ”