McHale

“ The lugger’s crew were stout, hardy looking young men, with the air of having braved danger many times and not fearing to look it in the face. True to Captain McHale’s word, they had cast off the lines, towed the vessel into the stream and had the sails drawing within a very short time after he came aboard.
“You are right,” said Ethan as he noted the little vessel’s progress with satisfaction. “The Erin has speed.” ”

“ The Irish sailor turned toward the shop, and his face took on a broad grin as he caught sight of the fat French chandler who had spoken.
“Monsieur Dubois, good-day,” he cried. “Yes, we ride hard because our business is urgent.”
The chandler elevated his plump hands.
“Oh, this war!” he exclaimed, “it makes all hurry. Did not a carriage almost run down my eldest son an hour ago, because its passenger was in a very great hurry to see La Tour.”
[268] McHale pulled in his horse, sharply, as did Ethan.
“La Tour—a carriage!” he ejaculated. “Did you notice the man, particularly?” ”

“ They followed the direction of his outstretched finger, and saw a carriage drawn up, with horses tied up by the bridles behind it.
“Fochard!” exclaimed Longsword exultantly.
“It can be no one else,” said Ethan.
“It’s the carriage that I spoke to ye of, I feel sure,” said Captain McHale. “The lame horse must have broken down entirely at this point.”
Ethan put his horse into a run and the others followed his example. When they reached the fire they halted; and with his hand upon the butt of a pistol, Ethan cried out:
“Stand forth, Monsieur Fochard. We have a small matter of business with you.” ”

“ But I hardly think you can do so, for there is no other ship owner in Brest who would risk his vessels putting to sea at this time. The English are as thick as herrings in the channel.”
“No ship!” said Ethan, blankly.
“No, not one,” answered La Tour.
“You are mistaken there,” spoke Captain McHale; “there is a small bit of a lugger wid eight four pounders in her and as much speed as can be found anywhere.” He turned to Ethan and continued, eagerly, “If ye want the Erin, Mister Carlyle, she’s at your service, and welcome.” ”

“ That was terrible, terrible, what you did to McLaughlin. The way you flung him across the rail, there, and then to the deck, and—kicked him, when he was down—kicked him in the face—”
“It’s all right, I tell you!” Hal asserted, vigorously. He laughed, with glad remembrance. “When I fight a gentleman, I fight like a gentleman. When I fight a ruffian, I use the same tactics. That’s all such cattle understand. My motto is to hit first, every time. That’s the one best bet. The second is, hit hard. If you’re in a scrap, you’re in it to win, aren’t you? ”

“ Such connections as this man add even a higher luster to the genealogy of Elizabeth Strong Hale, and lessen our wonder that a son of hers, while hardly more than a boy, could face the duty and calmly accept the responsibility that he felt rested upon him.
As may easily be inferred, the Hale boys, Enoch and Nathan, were not forgotten by their home friends while making honorable records in college, and forming pleasant friendships outside the college walls—then the happy lot of all the best men in college—among the cultured families of what was then a small New England city. ”

“ Hale however had at first many scruples concerning the propriety of acting under a commission from an usurper; and it was not without much hesitation, that he at length yielded to the importunity of Cromwell and the urgent advice and entreaties of his friends; who, thinking it no small security to the nation to have a man of his integrity and high character on the bench, spared no pains to satisfy his conscientious scruples. ”

“ That pamphlet alcove, narrow, musty, yet busy, a composite of the stage-coach days and our electric era, gave me a graver suspicion of Doctor Hale’s cosmopolitan interests than any word he had uttered or anything I had hitherto seen in the temple.
When I came back Doctor Hale was again stretched upon the lounge. He began almost fiercely upon his favorite topic, and I can do no better than to give his own words:
“I have written twenty-five books, but I’m not an author; I’m a parish minister. I don’t care a snap for the difference between Balzac and Daudet. That isn’t important in life. ”

“ Haley hammered vigorously for order; old Kelly and his friends were gathered in a clump, shouting their observations in each other’s ears; Larry stood near the platform, frantically endeavouring to attract the chairman’s attention, and turning every moment to swear at his friends for their uproar. He saw that the moment for action was at hand; the surprise had been sprung and had given his faction heart, and he determined to strike again while they were white hot. ”

“ Young Hale entered Yale College when in the sixteenth year of his age. His brother Enoch, the grandfather of Rev. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston, and two years the senior of Nathan, entered Yale at the same time. The students then numbered about sixty. His course of col [Pg 5] lege-life was eminently praiseworthy; and he was graduated with the highest honors in September, 1773. Popular with all the students, the tutors, and the faculty, he was always a welcome visitor in the best families of New Haven.
In the autumn of 1848 I visited the venerable Eneas Munson, M.D., at New Haven. ”

“ It is to-day a recognized fact that no life worthy of our reverence, or even a life calculated to awaken our fear, is the result of accident. Whatever may be the character, its basis has been the result of long-developing causes. This the life of Nathan Hale well illustrates. He was born at a time and under influences that were sure to develop the best qualities in him. He was an immediate descendant of the best of the Puritans on both sides of the sea. His great-grandfather, John Hale, was the son of Robert Hale, who came to America in 1632. ”

“ This much for the athletic life of Hale in his student days. It was only natural to such a man that whatever he was—friend, student, teacher, or soldier—he should carry zest and earnestness to all his work, even as he carried his manliness, his courtesy, and his unquenchable spirit. ”

“ Now, to the mountain eye, Hale appeared no more than the ordinary man, and even a close observer would have seen no more than that his face was clean-cut and thoughtful, that his eye was blue and singularly clear and fearless, and that he was calm with a calmness that might come from anything else than stolidity of temperament—and that, by the way, is the self-control which counts most against the unruly passions of other men—but anybody near Hale, at a time when excitement was high and a crisis was imminent, would have felt the resultant of forces emanating from him that were beyond analysis. ”

“ On studying the career of Nathan Hale, who, with Major André, owes his historicity to the American War of Independence, one is conscious of being in touch with a character at once dangerous and difficult, to quote the words in which an eminent English statesman has described the mystic who is at the same time a practical man. In Hale, as his private correspondence clearly shows, there was every indication that an otherwise reasonable and lovable disposition was supplemented by a deep-running current of that hard fanaticism which has ever marked your descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers. ”

“ I went out with a party of friends to play at hare-and-hounds. I was hare, and ran away over hedges and ditches. At last, just as I jumped over a hedge, Macphail caught me, and we sat down to take breath. Just then Hoare ran up breathless and panting, and threw himself into the hedge crying out, ‘We are pursued by navvies.’ The next minute, before I could climb back over the hedge, I found myself clutched by the arm, and turning round, saw that a great fellow had seized me, and that another had got Macphail and another Hodgson Junior. ”

“ It was a boy, and one of twelve children, whose father, Richard Hale, had emigrated in early life from Newberry, in Massachusetts, to Coventry, and there married Elizabeth Strong, a charming maiden eighteen years of age. He was a descendant of Robert Hale, or Hales, who settled in Charlestown, in 1632, and who seems to have been a scion of the Hales of Kent, for he bore their coat-of-arms—three broad arrows feathered white, on a red field.
Both Richard and Elizabeth Hale were of the strictest sect of the Puritans of their day. They revered the Bible [Pg 4] as the voice of God ”

“ The old man's eyes lighted up like a leaping flame.
“Will you let Dave out and give him a Winchester and help us fight 'em?” he said eagerly. “We three can whip 'em all.”
“No,” said Hale shortly. “I'd try to keep both sides from fighting, and I'd arrest Dave or you as quickly as I would a Falin.”
The average mountaineer has little conception of duty in the abstract, but old Judd belonged to the better class—and there are many of them—that does. He looked into Hale's eyes long and steadily.
“All right.”
Macfarlan came in hurriedly and stopped short—seeing the hatted, bearded giant. ”

“ Old Briggs, nerved to sudden action, ran forward.
“Hal! For God’s sake, Hal!”
“You stand back, grandad! He’s my meat!”
Hal raised McLaughlin high above his head, with a sweep of wonderful power. He dashed the Scot to the bare planks with a horrible, dull crash, hauled back one foot and kicked the senseless man full in the mangled, blood-smeared face.
A communal gasp of terror rose up then. Men shrank and quivered, stricken with almost superstitious fear. All had seen fights aplenty ”

“ When she had gone, Larry followed the others into the house, Mrs. Clancy embraced Annie and sobbed; then Annie and Rosie began to sob also, while Goose and Jimmie looked uncomfortably at one another, each with a feeling of guilt heavy upon him.
“Here is yez raysate, Mister Clancy,” said O’Hara, handing the grocer a slip of paper. “It’s a man av me word I am.”
“Youse’ll get your cash, as soon as the fortune [299] comes along, O’Hara,” McGonagle informed him reassuringly. ”

“ To his disgust only Logan, Macfarlan, the Hon. Sam Budd, and two or three others seemed willing to go, but when the few who would go started, Hale, leading them, looked back and the whole town seemed to be strung out after him. Below the hill, he saw the mountaineers drawn up in two bodies for battle and, as he led his followers towards them, the Hoosier owner of the plant rode out at a gallop, waving his hands and apparently beside himself with anxiety and terror.
“Don't,” he shouted; “somebody'll get killed. Wait—they'll give up.” So Hale halted and the Hoosier rode back. ”

“ Samuel Budd that night while he sat with Hale on the porch overlooking the mill-pond—and then he groaned a little.
“Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they'd fight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years hence!”
He puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing.
“Yes, sir,” he added cheerily, “we're in for a hell of a merry time NOW. The mountaineer hates as long as he remembers and—he never forgets.”
XV
Hand in hand, Hale and June followed the footsteps of spring from the time June met him at the school-house gate for their first walk into the woods. ”

“ The Scot’s long, wiry arms wrapped round him, hampering his fist-work. Hal could do no more than drive in harmless blows at the other’s back. They swayed, tripped over a hawser, almost went down. From the crew and from the wharf ragged shouts arose, of fear, anger, purely malicious delight, for here was battle-royal of the finest. The sound of feet, running down the wharf, told of other contingents hastily arriving.
“By gum!” approved the helmsman, forgetting to chew. He had more than once felt the full weight of McLaughlin’s fist. “By gum, now, but Mac’s in f’r [140] a good takin’-down. ”

“ McEwan, whose face is the shape of a mutton chop. He is sure to be there, for he spends half his time with James. Do you like him?”
“Yes, I do,” said Mary; “increasingly.”
“He's one of the best of souls. Have you heard his story?”
“No, has he one?”
“Indeed, yes,” replied Constance. “The poor creature, who, by the way, adores you, is a victim of Quixotism. When he first came to New York he married a young girl who lived in his boarding-house and was in trouble by another man. Mac found her trying to commit suicide, and, as the other man had disappeared, married her to keep her from it. ”

“ With this view, he placed men distinguished for their learning and high judicial character upon the benches of the different courts. Amongst other eminent lawyers, who had forsaken their profession during the latter period of the Commonwealth, he determined to recall Hale from his retirement, and offered him the appointment of Lord Chief Baron. But it was not without great difficulty that Hale was induced to return to the labours of public life. ”

“ After assisting the rest of the party to restore the young man to his senses, in which they at length succeeded, though he still remained in a state of great danger, Hale, who was deeply impressed with the circumstance, retired into another room, and falling upon his knees prayed earnestly to God that his friend’s life might be spared ”

“ Hale’s literary fame now rests on an anonymous study in the “Atlantic Monthly,” called “The Man without a Country,” a sketch of such absolutely lifelike vigor that I, reading it in camp during the Civil War, accepted it as an absolutely true narrative, until I suddenly came across, in the very midst of it, a phrase so wholly characteristic of its author that I sprang from my seat, exclaiming “Aut Cæsar aut nullus; Edward Hale or nobody.” ”