Marsten

“ I should like to be one thing or the other if I were in your place, Marsten.”
“I am one thing. I am entirely with the men.”
“Perhaps in that case you are afraid to be seen talking with me. Some of the men might happen to pass this way.”
“I am not afraid to be seen speaking with anybody, Mr. Sartwell.”
“Ah, you are young; therefore you are brave. I have known a smaller thing than this conversation to cost a man his life, but perhaps times and methods have changed since my early days. It is a pity you are on the wrong side for your bravery to be appreciated. ”

“ When did a woman ever waver without the man in the case taking instant advantage of her indecision, turning her own weapons against her?
“Don’t you see,” said Marsten, eagerly, “that Mr. Sartwell has already as much on his mind as a man should bear? Why, then, add to his anxiety by telling him that I have been here or at Surbiton? The explanations which seem satisfactory to you might not be satisfactory to him. He would then merely worry himself quite unnecessarily.” ”

“ Yes, I am sorry for Marsten myself, but the lesson will do him a world of good. He is thoroughly unselfish, and Gibbons is as thoroughly selfish. The unselfish man almost invariably goes to the wall in this self-seeking world. Now let us get back, my girl. ”

“ I’ll look after my daughter.”
Marsten said bitterly:
“Gibbons, ass as he is, is right when he says that no one is so hard on a workman as one who has risen from the ranks. You were no better off than I am, when you were my age.”
Sartwell sprang to his feet, his eyes ablaze with anger.
“Pay attention, young man,” he cried. “All the things you have done, I have done. All the things you intend to do, I have already done. I have, in a measure, educated myself, and I have worked hard night and day. I have attained a certain position, a certain responsibility, and a certain amount of money. ”

“ I had a crazy idea of running out of there with the cards. Then it would be my fault that Marsten had failed. I didn't believe in Marsten then. I wanted to. I'd worked with him, knew his greatness, his integrity and sincerity. I knew he might be emotionally unstable. I wanted to believe, but I wasn't convinced at all. Man is ever credulous in the wrong place, at the wrong time, about the wrong things. We swallow the emotional screamings of demagogues, reject the quiet discoveries of great men who only do not know the techniques of salesmanship, of propaganda. ”

“ Then, lad, ye can have enough to live on, and ye can put the pieces o’ th’ Union together ta suit ye.”
“I should like that,” said Marsten, eagerly.
“It shall be done. The men will go in for it when they hear ye’ve got the sack. They still feel sore over the defeat, as if it wasn’t all their own fault; and now their fear of Sartwell’s packing some o’ them off is over, they’ll like to show a little independence by electing you, to prove to the manager that they’re not afraid, which they are. Ah’ll have to convince them that Sartwell won’t strike back or take your appointment as a defiance.” ”

“ He was doing his best, Marston was, and he was having trouble—as every man should. And that trouble I knew even better than he, for I had once known a Southern girl who was so tender of heart that she could refuse no man who really loved her she accepted him and sent him to her father, who did all of her refusing for her. And I knew no man would know that he had won the Blight until he had her at the altar and the priestly hand of benediction was above her head. ”

“ My father was a very firm man. I am not Sir Matthew Marston's son, and I do not scruple to describe him as an obstinate man. But in this world the people who say "yes" generally beat the people who say "no"—hence comes progress or decadence, which you will—and although both Sir Matthew and my father insisted that the acquaintance between Miss Marston and myself should not continue, the acquaintance did continue. ”

“ But Charles Marston and I are certainly the two rudest people in the world: do you not think so, Colonel Middleton, now that you know us both?"
"No, indeed," replied Henry; "I do not think the term applicable in either case. Marston is certainly not a man of ceremonies, and I have not yet----"
"Oh! fine speeches! fine speeches!" exclaimed Lady Anne; "when will men have done with fine speeches? ”

“ Marston rose, throwing, as he did so, a guilty and furious glance at the young Frenchwoman, and walked a step or two toward the door; he hesitated, however, and turned, just as mademoiselle, bursting into tears, threw her arms round Mrs. Marston's neck, and passionately exclaimed, "Protect me, madame, I implore, from the insults and suspicions of your husband."
Marston stood a little behind his wife, and he and the governess exchanged a glance of keen significance, as the latter sank, sobbing, like an injured child into its mother's embrace, upon the poor lady's tortured bosom. ”

“ Miss Marston was, in fact, a mere name to me; and since consequently she held no place in my thoughts, it had not occurred to me to connect her in any way with this chance acquaintance of the gaming-table. Now, however, the relationship struck me with a peculiar and even menacing significance. It recalled to me the few words Marston had spoken in the window; and, lo! not half an hour after their utterance, here was, as it were, a guarantee of their fulfilment. ”

“ He and his men had stolen a woman and her babe away to their lair at Marston. The Devil of Marston made the woman serve him in his cups while the babe cried to her from the ground. For fear of his threats to the babe she did it, weeping, white-faced. Foul oaths and fouler laughter rang loud about her; at last they began to heed her less. They were jeering at a man whose head was weaker than the rest, who was madly drunk, and that man staggered to his feet suddenly and cried—
"Why—Captain— Captain Devil—you be going round and round!" At that the Devil of Marston laughed, and his men with him. ”

“ I began to Marston.
"But at this time of the year," interrupted the Countess immediately, "Lukstein has no rival. Cornfields redden below it, beeches are marshalled green up the hillside behind it, gentian picks out a mosaic on the grass, and night and day waterfalls tumble their music through the air. Yet even in winter, when the ice binds it and gags its voices, it has a quiet charm of silence whereof the memory makes one homesick." ”

“ Marsden did not laugh. He was full of kindly pity and regrets for the wretched object before him, and hurried me on to a cottage, where a good old woman took me in hand, and insisted on my undressing and getting into her bed, until a change of clothes came to me from the farm.
Shall I make a confession? Every other girl will feel that what I did was exactly what she would have done herself, under the circumstances. ”

“ Marston was still standing as if concrete had set in his backbone.
“Sit down, Major,” I told him, and I’ll swear the “Major” just slipped out naturally.
He relaxed, but did not subside on the tool chest next to him. His eyes, which popped out so far they could have been knocked off with a stick, met mine steadily. We had instinctively hated each other, I think, from the first time we met.
“Well, this is a rather peculiar situation, Marston,” I told him as I ignited a cheroot. “The man that tried to break me is now under me.”
“And about to be broken himself,” Marston interrupted me. ”

“ It was Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet—Marsden, of whom he had thought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in the world between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity ”

“ I stammered.
"Not so strange now that Hugh Marston has returned. Had he been no more than the discarded suitor we imagined him, then yes--you might expect her to boast to you of his devotion. 'Tis a way women have. But it seems rather that you are rivals."
Rivals! The word was like a white light flashed upon my memories. I recalled Marston's half-forgotten prophecy. Was this the contest, I wondered, which he had foretold in the chill dawn at the tavern? Were we to come to grips with Ilga for the victor's prize? On the heels of the thought a swift fear slipped through my veins like ice. ”

“ For as I waked that morning at a somewhat late hour, I perceived Marston sitting patiently on the edge of my bed. He was in riding-dress, with his boots and breeches much stained with mud, and he carried a switch in his hand. For a while I lay staring at him in silent surprise. He did not notice that I was awake, and sat absorbed in a moody reverie. At last I stirred, and he turned towards me. I noticed that his face was dirty and leaden, his eyes heavy and tired.
"You sleep very well," said he. ”

“ A queer look leaped into his eyes, a sort of calculating gleam, as it were.
“Don’t get excited, Marston,” Fernald advised him in his equable way. “You weren’t supposed to stay up all night, anyway, with the ship after the usual sightseers had left. Nobody’s hurt much. Don’t lose your shirt or go wild.”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled the sergeant, and relapsed into his brooding.
When we reached shore I gave the orders.
“Go to town with Bailey, Marston, and get a doctor for him. Both of you go to bed at the hotel. You’re still feeling bad. My orders are that you spend the day in bed.” ”

“ I had always been too busy upbraiding myself upon that very score. Yet I could not but realise now how plausible the notion appeared. 'Twas plain that Marston believed I had been carefully playing a part; and I wondered: Would Ilga imagine that, too, when I told her my story? Would she believe that my deference and hesitation had been assumed to beguile her? I gazed at Marston, horror-stricken by the conjecture.
"Ay!" said he, nodding an answer to my look, "we have found each other out. Come, let us be frank! We are just a couple of dishonest scoundrels, and preaching befits neither of us." ”

“ Marston was a generous fellow, beloved by those who knew him, but quarantined by his morbid reserve from wide acquaintanceship. Temperament—ah, that is a wonderful thing! It is to a man what clouds and mists are to a land! Without them, there is only arid desert—with too many, there are storm and endless rain and dreary winds. He had the storms and rain and winds in his life—but over all he had the genius! The masters knew that before they had criticized [Pg 232] him six months. In a year, they stood abashed before him.”
“Go on, please!” prompted Duska, in a soft voice of sympathetic interest. ”

“ Marston, although she sometimes rebuked these artful affronts by a grave look, a cold tone, or a distant manner, yet had too much dignity to engage in a petty warfare of annoyance, and had, in reality, no substantial and well-defined ground of complaint against her, such as would have warranted her either in taking the young lady herself to task, or in bringing her conduct under the censure of Marston. ”

“ Gloss declared he had never found any man so open to conviction, and Sir Walter vowed that old Marston was the only Radical that ever listened to reason.
When I visited Marston Hall two months ago, on my road to Penzance, matters were strangely altered in the establishment. I found the old gentleman sitting in his library with a huge bundle of printed placards before him, and a quantity of scribbled paper lying on his table. The County Meeting was in agitation; and Mr. Marston, to the astonishment of every one, had determined to take the field against bigotry and persecution. ”

“ As I was about to turn the corner of the cabin, I heard my name called; peering out cautiously, I saw them standing with bent heads, only a few feet away.
Marsden was speaking, his thin, piping voice lowered to a whisper.
"We have been out three months, and thou still dost hesitate; dost thou call thyself a man, and yet fear to attack one lone mortal?"
"He is the devil himself," grumbled his companion, "and he will have with him, not only White, but his shadow, the savage. ”

“ Marston one day met the village doctor, the very man whom we saw at the beginning of the book, putting out William (whom we then supposed to be Charles) to nurse. Marston asked him, "Was there any reality in this heart-complaint of Cuthbert's?"
"Not the very faintest shadow of a reality," said the doctor. "It is the most tiresome whimsy I ever knew. He has persuaded himself of it, though. He used to be very hypochondriac. He is as likely to live till eighty as you are." ”

“ Unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity, is it?" said Marston, sharply.
"No, truly, you have well said," replied Doctor Danvers. "True it is that man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I speak, however, of your servant, Merton—a most unhappy wretch."
"Ha! you have been with him, you say?" replied Marston, with evident interest and anxiety.
"Yes, several times, and conversed with him long and gravely," continued the clergyman. ”

“ He said that Marston exacted this promise—that he wanted to hide. Then came new pictures, which St. John handled as his son-in-law’s agent. Paris delighted in them. Marston travels about now, and paints. Whether he is mildly mad, or only as mad as his exaggerated genius makes him, I have often wondered.”
“What became of the poor girl?” Duska’s voice put the question, very tenderly.
“She, also, left Paris. Whether she let her love conquer her pride and joined him, or whether she went elsewhere—also alone, no one knows but St. John, and he does not encourage questions.” ”

“ Marston, of whom Mr. Carmel and Laura Grey—each judging him, no doubt, from totally different facts, and from points of view so dissimilar—had expressed such singularly ill opinions.
"You know Mr. Marston pretty well, do you?" I asked.
"Yes, very well; I have been trying to do him a service," answered Mr. Blount. "See, see, there—see—those can't be wild ducks? Blessed are the peace-makers. I wish I could, and I think I may. ”