Miles Hendon

“ Hendon's lodgings were in the little inn on the Bridge. As he neared the door with his small friend, a rough voice said—
"So, thou'rt come at last! Thou'lt not escape again, I warrant thee; and if pounding thy bones to a pudding can teach thee somewhat, thou'lt not keep us waiting another time, mayhap"—and John Canty put out his hand to seize the boy.
Miles Hendon stepped in the way and said—
"Not too fast, friend. Thou art needlessly rough, methinks. What is the lad to thee?"
"If it be any business of thine to make and meddle in others' affairs, he is my son."
"'Tis a lie!" ”

“ No man of all those who sought Miss Henderson's favor had the godlike grace of Miles Dawson, combined with the strong intellectuality of Henry Webster, with the added virtues of wealth and amiability, steadfastness of purpose, and all that. It seemed sometimes to Miss Flora Henderson, as it had often seemed to Mr. Augustus Richards, that the standard set was too high, and that an all-wise Providence was no longer sending the perfect being of the ideal into the world, if, indeed, He had ever done so. ”

“ Take me up-stairs, and let’s have it out with Rich.”
“With Rich!” cried Hendon passionately.
“There, don’t you be so cocky, young man. I don’t call your Janet, Jenny. Yes, with Rich; my own dear darling Rich. There! How do you like that? Now then, let’s get it over.”
“My sister is not at home.”
“Then we’ll go up and see the old man; and let’s hear what he’ll say to it all. He won’t deny that he’s in my debt.”
“Poor old fellow, no,” groaned Hendon to himself.
“I say,” said Poynter, turning grave, “where’s Rich? She hasn’t gone to see that sailor chap?” ”

“ Hendon listened to no remonstrance, but catching the boy by the collar he thrust him back till he reached the door, which he opened with his latch-key, and, bundling the boy in, sent him staggering along the hall as he closed the door, and went on once more.
“Yah! who cares for you?” cried the boy angrily; and then his countenance changed, and he broke into a smile as he found himself face to face with Rich.
“Why, Bob,” she exclaimed, “what is the matter?”
“I couldn’t help it, Miss. Mr Hendon shoved me in like that. I meant to come in by the area.” ”

“ It must be confessed that concerning the amount of gossip talked about him and his household, John Calverley was very much deceived. The people of Hendon was not different from the people of any other place, and though they lived remote from the world, they were just as fond of talking about the affairs of their neighbours as fashionable women round the tea-table in their boudoirs, or fashionable men in the smoking-room of their clubs. ”

“ I am a man of family; and my wife and little ones— List to reason, good your worship: what wouldst thou of me?"
"Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may count a hundred thousand—counting slowly," said Hendon, with the expression of a man who asks but a reasonable favor, and that a very little one.
"It is my destruction!" said the constable despairingly. "Ah, be reasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides, and see how mere a jest it is—how manifestly and how plainly it is so. ”

“ Hendon despatched his ablutions with alacrity, then drew back the other chair and was about to place himself at table, when the boy said, indignantly—
"Forbear! Wouldst sit in the presence of the King?"
This blow staggered Hendon to his foundations. He muttered to himself, "Lo, the poor thing's madness is up with the time! It hath changed with the great change that is come to the realm, and now in fancy is he KING! Good lack, I must humour the conceit, too—there is no other way—faith, he would order me to the Tower, else!" ”

“ Now look here, Hendon, I’m a rich man. Suppose I say to you, my lad, look out for a snug little practice; I’ll lend you the money—can’t afford to give it—buy the practice, and marry Janet. Isn’t that being a friend?”
Hendon went on pacing the room.
“Sulky, eh? All right: answer me this, then. Shouldn’t I make your sister a better husband than this Mark Heath? Come, be sensible; take me up-stairs to see her. Now, at once. Let me make things pleasant for all of you. What’s the good of being enemies, when we might be friends?” ”

“ He mounted and rode off, followed by the King, the crowd opening with quiet respectfulness to let them pass, and then dispersing when they were gone.
Hendon was soon absorbed in thought. There were questions of high import to be answered. What should he do? Whither should he go? Powerful help must be found somewhere, or he must relinquish his inheritance and remain under the imputation of being an impostor besides. Where could he hope to find this powerful help? ”

“ The King was furious over these inhumanities, and wanted Hendon to break jail and fly with him to Westminster, so that he could mount his throne and hold out his sceptre in mercy over these unfortunate people and save their lives. "Poor child," sighed Hendon, "these woeful tales have brought his malady upon him again; alack, but for this evil hap, he would have been well in a little time."
Among these prisoners was an old lawyer—a man with a strong face and a dauntless mien. ”

“ For once in my life I became a knocker and said some unpleasant things—albeit they were true—about Henderson. She championed Henderson royally, and when, as a last card, I compared Whit's fine record with Henderson's, not only as a ball player, but as a man, particularly in his reverence for women, she flashed at me:
"What do you know about it? Mr. Henderson asked me to marry him. Can a man do more to show his respect? Your friend never so much as hinted such honorable intentions. What's more—he insulted me!" The blaze in Nan's black eyes softened with a film of tears. ”

“ The temperature lowered every moment. Henderson instinctively felt that this was but the beginning of the storm. He picked himself up without useless regrets for his pony, and made his way on.
The saffron hue turned to blackness, and then out of the murk shot a living green ball of fire, and ploughed into the earth. Then sheets of water, that seemed to come simultaneously from earth and sky, swept the prairie, and in the midst of it struggled Henderson, weak as a little child, half bereft of sense by the strange numbness of head and dullness of eye. ”

“ Hendon was touched. The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same time the grisly humour of the situation and circumstances so undermined his gravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign of his inward mirth from showing outside. To be suddenly hoisted, naked and gory, from the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and splendour of an Earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line of the grotesque. He said to himself, "Now am I finely tinselled, indeed! The spectre-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a spectre-earl—a dizzy flight for a callow wing! ”

“ Hendon had waited at the hut all day; hope of the King’s return died out, then, and he departed upon the quest again.
“And old Sanctum Sanctorum was truly sorry your highness came not back,” said Hendon; “I saw it in his face.”
“Marry I will never doubt that!” said the King—and then told his own story; after which, Hendon was sorry he had not destroyed the archangel.
During the last day of the trip, Hendon’s spirits were soaring. His tongue ran constantly. He talked about his old father, and his brother Arthur, and told of many things which illustrated their high and generous characters ”

“ The stillness that pervaded the place, when Hendon found himself once more in the stocks, was in strong contrast with the insulting clamour which had prevailed there so little a while before. The King came softly to Hendon's side, and whispered in his ear—
"Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men." He picked up the scourge from the ground, touched Hendon's bleeding shoulders lightly with it, and whispered, "Edward of England dubs thee Earl!" ”

“ A sorrowful misgiving clouded Hendon's new-born cheerfulness: would the boy be willing to go again to a city where, during all his brief life, he had never known any thing but ill usage and pinching want? ”

“ Hendon glared at him wildly.
“How’s the little angel—Janet?”
Hendon’s hands clenched, and he ground his teeth, while Poynter laughed at him.
“So the big brother’s out of the hospital; got over his D.T., and lodging with his sister, eh?”
Hendon made no reply.
“Come, old chap,” continued Poynter, “have a cigar, and do try and be sensible. I don’t want to do nothing hard, but of course a man must fight for his own hand. I haven’t come here to sell you up, but to bring you to your senses, like the friend I always was. ”

“ A deep, masculine voice, unmistakable in the peremptoriness of its command, sounded from the massed tangle of the hillside. It expressed itself in the single word "Begone!" and Henderson was not fool enough to search the underbrush for an identifying glimpse of his challenger.
"My name is Jerry Henderson and I was seeking to be shown my way," he said quietly, keeping his eyes, as he spoke, studiously on the face of the girl.
"Begone! I'm a-warnin' ye fa'r. Begone!" ”

“ He made me," babbled Jenkins as Neil, face set with determination, drew his revolver from a pocket. Before the astounded Mel could do more than gaze incredulously, there were two sharp cracks and Jenkins slowly placed his arms around his stomach and rocked back and forth in agony, before toppling over to the floor to lie motionless.
"Now you," said Neil, swinging his revolver towards Mel's tank. Mel frantically stabbed at his partner's mind but could feel no pressure. ”

“ Make Hendon a bit more civil to me. He is so jolly—so jolly—what do you call it?—soopercilious with me. Because I’m not a doctor, I suppose. There’s half a dozen good ones for him when he comes in. Now then, doctor, go ahead. Want to see my tongue?”
“No—no,” said the doctor; “the look of your eye is sufficient, Mr Poynter. It is much clearer. Felt any more of the chest symptoms?”
“No, not so much of them; but I don’t sleep as I should: feverish and tossy—spend half my nights punching my pillow.”
“Have you given up the suppers?”
“Well, not quite. You see a man can’t drop everything. ”

“ Hendon muttered—
"See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and fill his body with deadly rheums. Now what shall I do? 'twill wake him to take him up and put him within the bed, and he sorely needeth sleep."
He looked about for extra covering, but finding none, doffed his doublet and wrapped the lad in it, saying, "I am used to nipping air and scant apparel, 'tis little I shall mind the cold!"—then walked up and down the room, to keep his blood in motion, soliloquising as before. ”

“ The controlled boredom of his expression was deceptive. His face was in fact remarkably expressive, but each reaction seemed deliberately languid. He was, Hendley guessed, several years younger than Hendley's own thirty-three years, but he gave the impression of a sophisticated worldliness which Hendley could not approach.
"You call hurting people fun?" Hendley demanded.
The young man smiled lazily. "Some people do."
A sudden, vivid image of a golf club, glinting in the sun as it slashed down in a vicious arc toward a limp figure on the green, jolted Hendley. ”

“ Only Mills’s devotion to the daughter, whom Henderson had described in terms that did not conceal his own admiration for the girl, brightened the picture.
“What can such a man do with his time in a town like this?” asked Bruce meditatively. “No active business, you say. Shooting billiards and cutting coupons hardly makes an exciting day.”
“Well,” Henderson replied, “I’ve seen him on the golf links—usually alone or with the club professional. Frank’s not one of these ha-ha boys who get together after the game with a few good sports and sneak a bottle of unlawful Scotch from the locker. ”

“ This tribute of respect to thy name and virtues, my beloved Henderson! is paid by one, who was once proud to call thee tutor and friend, and who will do honour to thy memory, till his spirit rests with thine.
Those who were unacquainted with John Henderson's character, may naturally ask, "What test has he left the world of the distinguished talents thus ascribed to him?"—None!—He cherished a sentiment, which, whilst it teaches humility to the proud, explains the cause of that silence so generally regretted. ”

“ But there was never a chance, never a moment, when he might run free of a cage about him, of the walls of a room restricting him, of a chain shackled to the collar about his throat. In good weather, in the afternoons, Henderson often took him for a walk. But always it was at the end of a chain. And almost always the way led to some park, where Henderson fastened the other end of the chain to the bench on which he sat and browsed Swedenborg. Not one act of free agency was left to Michael. Other dogs ran free, playing with one another, or behaving bellicosely. ”

“ Henderson began moving restlessly up and down the room with irregular footsteps.
“There is that fellow,” he said, at length, “that is to be Mr. Temple of Woodlea’s heir, they say—well, I’ve seen May with him more than once. I saw her with him just after the boy’s death, and another time,” and then he suddenly paused, remembering that it was in Fern Dene that he had twice seen May with John Temple. ”

“ At noon on that same day, Nik, wearing Hendley's identity disc adapted to his wrist with a concealed expansion mechanism, had left on the copter for the city, clothed in the uniform with the visitor's sleeve emblem.
"There's no point in exciting yourself now," the doctor had told Hendley cheerfully. "It's done, and you might as well accept it."
"He'll be back!" Hendley had retorted. "He's insane to think he can get away with impersonating me. Why ever did he do it? I still can't understand!"
"There's some don't take to freedom," the doctor said. ”