Manton

“ This impression had been consummately fixed upon the mind of Manton by her obstinate refusal to permit the presence, at their interviews, of any third person, not even that of her own child. She could thus, through his generous humanity, most effectually draw him to her side; and, when once in her reach, he was again in the power of those fearful arts, of which we have seen something.
The life of Manton became now a succession of the “to-morrows” of remorse. Each new sun arose upon its succeeding scene of wilful, self-degrading excess, such as we have witnessed. ”

“ An hour after the last scene, Manton returned to his room, and, seeming greatly hurried, lit his lamp, and throwing himself into a chair, seized his pen, muttering between his teeth, “It must be finished to-night! a man has no right to be tired!” ”

“ He was leaning towards Manton now; his mouth twitched, but there was a blaze in the old grey eyes.
"I know it, sir," said John quietly.
The Colonel drew in his breath slowly and sat erect.
"Ah, you know. And, having escaped that punishment, and knowing yourself to be guilty, you skulk in hiding! You fail to seize the one chance that is open to you to redeem the past!"
"What is the chance?" inquired Manton, forgetting himself for a moment. ”

“ Manton left the room with him, and when they reached the parlor, he was rapidly introduced to Mrs. Orne and her daughter, who sat upon a lounge awaiting him. The Doctor instantly darted out of the room; and Manton was left vis-a-vis with his ecstatic correspondent.
As the woman rose to meet him, the blood mounted to her very plain face, and square, compact, masculine forehead. ”

“ Instead of elevating that noble soul, Manton, whom I thought, through you, to rescue from the dominion of his appetites, and see set apart, with all his glorious powers, to the exalted priesthood of the Harmonies, you have steadily dragged him down from the beginning until now, when he is further removed than ever beyond our reach, and regards with contempt and disgust the very name of the system with which I had yearned to see him identified. ”

“ Manton watched all these phenomena with the sharpest attention, and then, as the lips began to move as if in inarticulate enunciation, he leant forward over her, and asked—
“What can you tell us of the soul, with which you are now in communication?”
After several preluding and spasmodic efforts to articulate sounds, the Clairvoyant at length said, in a voice only distinct above a whisper—
“I see light! all light!—pure, holy light. It fills the universe with a mild radiance! I can see no blurs, no clouds in the foreground. ”

“ Manton showed none of an older woman's usual prompt comprehension and pleasure in helping out a faltering love-tale. She listened in stolid silence, the most repellent of confidantes, and when it ended in an almost appealing cadence, she broke out with, "Margaret Parke, I am astonished at you!" ”

“ The frowning brow and the tightly compressed lips alone indicated the storm of anger which was in reality raging in the pirate's breast at what he deemed the obstinacy of his captain in running into such danger, and the folly of his men in having shown fight on shore when there was no occasion for doing so. But Manton was too much alive to his own danger and interests to allow passion at such a critical moment to interfere with his judgment. ”

“ Manton spoke in tender soothing to the gentle trembler, who continued, amidst bursts of hysteric laughter, and smiles of stormy joy, to moan—“Poor mother! how will she bear it?”
Manton, at length, gently released himself from her caress, and placing her head upon the cushion of the sofa, whispered, [Pg 201] “Be calm, Elna! She must bear it—she will bear it; it is a righteous retribution, that has overtaken her at last. ”

“ Manton, who never dreamed of suspecting her, and had been fully impressed with the belief that these attacks were fearfully dangerous, and that the magnetism of his touch, whether imaginary or otherwise, could alone suffice to restore her to the calmness necessary for the arrest of the hemorrhage, felt as if an awful responsibility had been suddenly devolved upon him, as he thus apparently held the very life of this singular woman in his own hands. ”

“ Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze of doubt, his gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day and in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror. In the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor - leading from the door by which they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of Manton’s crouching corpse - were three parallel lines of footprints - light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones those of small children, the inner a woman’s. ”

“ Manton's chest-lock; a noise which had saluted his ears, since leaving Australia more than once. Determined to ascertain the cause, he had emerged from his room in his stocking feet, and made his way to Manton's door as shown.
As he watched the old man counting his money; as he saw the glitter of those bright pieces, his mouth fairly watered, and a fearful purpose began to gather strength at his heart.
Having seen Manton return the little box to his chest, the third mate stole back to his berth, and lay a long time awake, endeavoring to plan a scheme for obtaining the money. ”

“ To look at her through the eyes of Manton, the uncouth and grotesque girl had become a fond and graceful plaything, that clung about him in soft caresses, that kept his heart warmed towards her, and caused him to regard the mother even with a modified sense of the growing disgust which was possessing him, and of which her shrewd insight made her fully aware. ”

“ Manton, whose excitement had continued, without the slightest diminution, to return upon him, in paroxysm after paroxysm, seized upon this last letter with the famishing eagerness of a man who looks for strength—for spiritual consoling. ”

“ Will Manton curled his lip into a sneer, and said, scornfully, "Why, Rodney, I didn't think you was so much of a baby. You are a more faint-hearted chicken than I thought you."
"Well, Will, the thought of it frightens me. I have a good mother and a good grandmother; and, though they make me learn a trade I hate, yet I do not think I should dare to run away." ”

“ I can see only angels, seraphs, and seraphim, and all forms of light revolving in the sphere of this mighty soul!”
“Is there no evil there?” said Manton.
“No, I see none; I see only white light.”
[Pg 126]
“But look close—perhaps you might find something dark. Look long and steadily into the world you visit—see if there be not clouds there.”
There was a pause. The lips moved without articulation again; and again Manton asked—“What do you see now?”
“I see, I see, the light is parting on either side; out in the far distance, between those walls of light, a giant form uprears itself in shadow. ”

“ Now that a dead calm had succeeded the blow, only the ceaseless mournful swish of the miniature breakers broke the profound silence of the sultry darkness, and Manton's whistle had sounded as though its author might well have been imagined within hand's grasp of the craft's stent, and the voice that called quietly held the same queer acoustic quality.
"It's all right, Haynes!" said the invisible speaker. "I ain't heard a thing since sundown. Keep right on the way you are; if I hear a sound I'll hail you." ”

“ O'Grady," said Lord Manton. "But come now, Miss Blow, be reasonable. If he has run away from you, he wouldn't be the only man that has. You can't deny that Mr. Goddard ran away from you. He did it twice. You said so yourself. In fact, you more than hinted that he was in the act of a third flight when you caught him. There's nothing inherently absurd in supposing that one man would do what another man has done several times. I needn't say I wouldn't do it myself. But that's another matter. It's far better for you to look facts straight in the face, however unpleasant they are." ”

“ In pleasure's inmost and most sacred field!
Who would not share the sunshine of your mirth,
Your god-like smile, your consciousness of worth,
The keenness of your wit in the world's ways,
Your heart so callous to its blame or praise!
Him I addressed, in pursuance of my doubt
How such a prodigy had come about.
Young Manton eyed me. "Every road," he said,
"Leads—well—to Rome." He laughed and shook his head,
As if in censure of a thought less sage.
"My lady's thirty is a dangerous age,
And of the three where most misfortunes come
Is the worst strewn with wrecks in Christendom." ”

“ Scraggs, who chanced to be standing by, seemed to be immensely delighted with the alarmed expression on Manton’s face. The worthy second mate hated the first mate so cordially, and attached so little value to his own life, that he would willingly have run the schooner on the rocks altogether, just to have the pleasure of laughing contemptuously at the wreck of Manton’s hopes. ”

“ Manton nodded and smiled. As he walked along the drive towards the grand old house, his pulse-beat quickened. After all, had he a right to act the part; was it honourable and fair that he should thus step into another man's shoes? The under-gardener had taken him for Bernard Treves; the whole world evidently was prepared to believe in the deception. But there was Treves's father to face. ”

“ He always used to show up about the closing time of the market.
"I've known him to get into the office of some one like Leigh or Phelps. Then he'll begin to talk about his brilliant prospects in the company he happens to be promoting at the time. If you listen to Manton you're lost. I know it—I've listened," he added, whimsically.
"Well," he continued, "the banker will begin to get restless after a bit—not at Manton, but at not getting away. 'My car is outside,' Manton will say. ”

“ His day labor at Manton's office, for all the years since he had graduated from High School, had been only a means to an end. No one had dreamed of his dream. Then the war had come and now his hope, if not his faith, was dead. Never before had the realization been so galling, so bitter. Endlessly and eternally he must be concerned with himself. He had driven that habit of thought away a million times, but it would return. All he had prayed for was to get home—only to reach home alive—to see his mother, and his sister Lorna—and Helen—and then.... ”

“ In short, as the Marshall town humorist explained in the columns of the Advance, “the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted is the only logical conclusion from the premises.” The fact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton thought it expedient one night some ten years ago to rise and cut the throats of his wife and two small children, removing at once to another part of the country, has no doubt done its share in directing public attention to the fitness of the place for supernatural phenomena.
To this house, one summer evening, came four men in a wagon. ”

“ Indeed, it did strike me that there were little knots of people here and there discussing the tragedy, but everything was overshadowed by the aquatic scene being filmed in the courtyard for some other Manton picture. The cramped space about the concrete tank was alive with people, a mob of extras and stage hands and various employees, a sight which held Kennedy and me for some little time. I was glad when Manton led the way through a long hall to the comparative quiet of the office building. ”

“ It was this tenacity of habits which had rendered him so easy to be imposed upon. Nothing was so difficult for him to throw off as a habit; for, from the intensity of his nature, it always cost him the suffering of a strong excitement before its chains could be broken.
Manton found, very soon after his return, that what he most dreaded now, was to be at once precipitated, which was a separation between himself and Elna. ”

“ The same evening, he visited Elna, who received him alone, in the warm, well-lighted, and neatly-arranged parlor. Manton had come in the most hopeless mood, for all the results of this separation had been most fully and painfully impressed upon him since the first indication of the rupture that had led to his quitting the house.
The young girl sprang eagerly to meet him, and with a bounding caress clasped his neck, exclaiming—
“Dearest one, you must not look so sad! We are to have the parlor thus every evening, when you shall come to see me; when we shall be very stately and proper folk. ”

“ Goddard thought hard for a couple of minutes.
"Do you mean to suggest," he said at last, "that he's run away from her?"
"In the absence of any other conceivable reason for his bolting," said Lord Manton, "I am unwillingly driven to the conclusion that he wants to escape from Miss Blow."
"But, hang it all! why should he? The girl's uncommonly good-looking."
"Good looks aren't everything," said Lord Manton; "when you come to my time of life, you'll understand that. Just put yourself in the doctor's place for a minute. You've had some little experience of Miss Blow. ”

“ About the end of 1644, or early in 1645, he was appointed by Colonel Alexander Popham, M.P., and lessee of the manor, to the living of Stoke Newington, on the sequestration of William Heath. Manton soon became ex tremely popular, and an acknowledged leader of the presbyterians in London. ”

“ Neither master nor man trusted anybody else to do this. It was a large crumple in Deb's rose-leaf, Manton's limpet-like attachment to Claud, who seemed unable to do anything without his servant's help, and the latter's cool relegation of herself to the second place in the MENAGE. It was all very well for HER to give her husband the premier place—she did it gladly—but for Manton to take possession of Redford as a mere appendage of his lord's was quite another matter. It was still the honeymoon, and he might do as he liked—or rather, as Claud liked ”