Mr. Hall

“ Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it incredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happen upstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was altogether too limited to express his impressions.
"He don't want no help, he says," he said in answer to his wife's inquiry. ”

“ The Dutchman was delighted to see Hall. "This is indeed a damn surprise," he said. "Join you at the table? Happy as hell to join you, Mr. Hall. Ah, the nurse of the great doctor. Tell me, nurse, do you think the doctor could cure my rheumatism?" This, he made clear by his gesture of holding his side in mock agony and groaning, was meant to be a joke.
Hall translated the joke for Pepe.
The driver nodded. "I understood most of it," he admitted. "One doesn't drive American tourists for a century and learn nothing."
"Aha," Hall said. "Pepe knows a few words of English, it develops." ”

“ Hall was left with twelve children to battle with the world. Her son, Samuel Carter, was most industrious and capable. His wooing of Miss Fielding was not long in the doing; the year after they met, the marriage took place.
"Beautiful, accomplished and good," says Mr. Hall, "was the wife that on the 20th September, 1825, God gave me to be my life's chief est blessing and most perfect boon."
From a portrait by Maclise we get a good idea of what Mrs. Hall was as a young woman. Long ringlets hang about a round, broad face of a very pronounced Irish type, with large dark eyes and a short nose. ”

“ Surely she was a wonderful creature, and as I again allowed myself to gaze on her beautiful face I was equally convinced of the possibility of her committing a crime and the improbability of her doing so.
Near these two sat a young man who, I was told, was Gregory Hall, the secretary. He had been reached by telephone, and had come out from New York, arriving shortly after I had left the Crawford house.
Mr. Hall was what may be termed the average type of young American citizens. He was fairly good-looking, fairly well-groomed, and so far as I could judge from his demeanor, fairly well-bred. ”

“ If this was bluffing, it was a very clever bluff, and magnificently carried out. Probably his hope was that the conductor could not say definitely as to Hall's presence on the late train, and any other names he might mention would only complicate matters.
But before I left I made one more attempt to get at this man's secret.
“Mr. Hall,” I began, “I am not unfriendly. In fact, for Miss Lloyd's sake as well as your own, I should like to remove every shadow of suspicion that hovers near either or both of you.” ”

“ He has a farm and house on the Swan, which is let to advantage, and a grant in the York district.—Mr. Hall is a man of singular firmness and intrepidity. He is residing, with his wife and children and his servants, on the left bank of the river, the other settlers being located on the opposite side. ”

“ Hall, assuring him that great advantage would arise from it, without much trouble to himself: Our author thinking proper to accept this, the Doctor carried him to London, and introduced him to Lord Chief Justice Popham, who seemed well pleased and thanked Dr. Chadderton for recommending a man so well qualified for the charge. When Dr. Chadderton and Mr. Hall had taken leave of his lordship and were returning to their lodgings, a messenger presented a letter to Mr. Hall, from lady Drury of Suffolk, earnestly requesting him to accept the rectory of Halsted, a place in her gift. ”

“ In this instance I know not what was the final result, but I have heard the sound of the raw-hide in at least two other instances, applied by this same reverend gentleman to the back of his female servant."
Mr. Hall adds—"The name of my informant must be suppressed, as" he says, "there are those who would cut my throat in a moment, if the information I give were to be coupled with my name." Suffice it to say that he is a professor of religion, a native of Virginia, and a student of Marietta College, whose character will bear the strictest scrutiny. ”

“ On one of his visits to Bristol, when preaching at the chapel in Broadmead, a competent individual noticed in the thronged assembly an Irish Bishop, a Dean, and thirteen Clergymen. The late Dr. Parr was an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Hall. He said to a friend of the writer, after a warm eulogium on the eloquence of Mr. H. "In short, sir, the man is inspired." Hannah More has more than once said to the writer, "There was no man in the church, nor out of it, comparable in talents to Robert Hall."
[14] I presented Mr. C. with the three guineas, but forbore the publication. ”

“ Hal object is more likely to be a tree than a church. Architecture he does not attack, and his rare figures are but the figures of the landscape-painter. He labours amongst sylvan and amongst pastoral scenes that are not strikingly picturesque; and in method, as well as often in theme, he suggests Seymour Haden.
Mr. Hall has not yet wrought very many{116} plates; they number, it may be, two score. He is not, in his work, always faultless, and perhaps he is not thus far very varied. ”

“ Dear Arthur! what did I not owe to you for this and every other happy meeting? Through him I was at once delivered from all formality, and terror, and constraint. In love affairs, there is no mediator like a merry, simple-hearted child—ever ready to cement divided hearts, to span the unfriendly gulf of custom, to melt the ice of cold reserve, and overthrow the separating walls of dread formality and pride.
“Well, Mr. Markham, what is it?” said the young mother, accosting me with a pleasant smile. ”

“ A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan looked, and saw Hal o’ the Draft’s touzled head beyond them. [See ‘Hal o’ the Draft’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.]
‘Be you the builder of the Village Hall?’ he asked of Mr Springett.
‘I be,’ was the answer. ‘But if you want a job—’
Hal laughed. ‘No, faith!’ he said. ‘Only the Hall is as good and honest a piece of work as I’ve ever run a rule over. ”

“ And so I was ready to give up.
“What do you think of Gregory Hall?” I said suddenly.
“As a man or as a suspect?” inquired Mr. Crawford.
“Both.”
“Well, as a man, I think he's about the average, ordinary young American, of the secretary type. He has little real ambition, but he has had a good berth with Joseph, and he has worked fairly hard to keep it. As a suspect, the notion is absurd. He wasn't even in West Sedgwick.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he went away at six that evening, and was in New York until nearly noon the next day.” ”

“ The Talking-Hole was carefully plugged with a whistle; and whenever a visitor came to see Father,—they came in shoals between one o'clock and three,—Mr. Evans would uncork a similar hole in the wall of the hall, and after blowing up it vigorously, would murmur the name of the visitor; and his words, owing to the fact that the Talking-Hole in the hall was in some mysterious way connected with the Talking-Hole in the Consulting Room, were conveyed to Father's ear. ”

“ Hall said, and then the clerk reddened and he forgot to speak English. "The Educator must live," Fernando Souza said. "If the Educator goes, the nation goes."
"I know," Hall said. "I admire Don Anibal greatly."
"Momentico, Señor. El teléfono." After nine, the night clerk had to handle the switchboard at the Bolivar.
It was Fielding again. Hall picked up the phone on the marble counter. "Yes, Mr. Fielding," he said, "I'm sorry I missed your first call." ”

“ He'd had a good-sized room just down the hall turned over to him, and a lot of stuff of some kind carried in there in the night, and men working, with the door locked all the time; so I and the other ladies went calmly on about our own business, decorating the main hall with the flags of all nations, fixing up the platform and the booths very pretty, and giving Mr. Smarty Egbert Floud nothing but haughty glances about his hidden novelty. Even when his men was hammering away in there at their work he'd have something hung over the keyhole—as insulting to us as only a man can be. ”

“ The Soler-halle has been guessed to be Clare Hall, merely because that college was of early foundation, and was called a 'hall.' But a happy find by Mr. Riley tells us better, and sets the question at rest. In the First Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 84, Mr. Riley gives several extracts from the Bursar's Books of King's Hall, in which the word solarium repeatedly occurs, shewing that this Hall possessed numerous solaria, or sun-chambers, used as dwelling-rooms, apparently by the fellows. ”

“ A little distance away the young man Fielding was busy with a box of flies.
“So you had a look at the Hall this morning, sir,” the grocer remarked. “I saw you coming through the gates.”
“I lunched there,” Mr. Johnson confided. “A magnificent place it is, and full of treasures, too! Why, the pictures and tapestries alone must be worth a fortune.”
Mr. Foulds joined in the conversation. He was a ruddy-faced young man, inclined to be stout, dressed in somewhat sporting fashion, with riding leggings which he was continually tapping with a switch. ”

“ At last the joy-bells ring its knell, while it crawls into eternity like a vile reptile, leaving a slimy track upon the world.
The inmates of the mansion enclosed in its old court-yard had long ceased to attract the observation of their neighbours. Sometimes [pg 16] Sarah called at the butcher's, but she exchanged smiles or greetings with few; and the baker rang the rusty bell twice a-week, which was answered by their only servant. When Mr. Bond first took possession of the manor-house, he hired five domestics, and everybody said they could not do with so few ”

“ In the centre of the hall was a huge plate-warmer, elaborately worked in brass with the college arms. Founders and benefactors were seen, or suggested, on all sides; their arms gleamed from the windows in all the glories of stained glass; and their faces peered out from the massive gilt frames on the walls, as though their shadows loved to linger about the spot that had been benefited by their substance. At the further end of the hall a deep bay-window threw its painted light upon a dais, along which stretched the table for the Dons; Masters and Bachelors occupied side-tables ”

“ If Helen had been simply content to keep her own position—if she had, as Rose's wisdom advised, sufficient moral courage to resent a slight openly, not denying her humble birth, and yet resolved to be treated as became her husband's wife—all would have been happiness and peace. Proud as Mr. Ivers was of her, her discontent and perpetual straining after rank and distinction, watching every body's every look and movement to discover if it concealed no covert affront, rendered him, kind and careful though he was, occasionally dissatisfied ”

“ He spoke of them all as men, thus winning their hearts. But one day even Mr. Leal grew out of patience with Harry. Sending for the boy’s parents, he told us that there seemed to be a difference of opinion between Harry and himself as to who should run the school. He, however, had always done so in the past and did not propose to abdicate now. History repeats itself, and this same Harry was called upon, not long ago, to curb the same spirit in his eldest daughter, little Julia Ward Howe Hall. The teacher unknowingly used the same words that had been applied to Harry in his youth! ”

“ Never had the bells of Abbeyweld, within the memory of living man—within the memory of old Mrs. Myles herself, and she was the oldest living woman in the parish—rung so merry a peal as on the morning that Helen Marsh was married to the handsome and Honourable Mr. Ivers. He was young as well as handsome—honourable both by name and nature—rich in possession and expectancy. On his part it was purely and entirely what is called a "love match"—one of the strangest of all strange things perpetrated by a young man of rank and fashion. ”

“ THERE may still be seen in Hallamshire a few survivals, more or less interesting and complete, of the old way of building; survivals which unmistakeably suggest the house built from forest trees, and with roofs and walls made watertight by wattle and daub. One of these was first brought to my notice by Mr. William Furness of Whirlow Hall. He told me of several old barns or other farm buildings near Sheffield, which were originally built of wood, and which still retained their old wooden framework. ”

“ Grimsby, a friend of his, but a man I very greatly disliked: there was a sinister cast in his countenance, and a mixture of lurking ferocity and fulsome insincerity in his demeanour, that I could not away with. What a tiresome custom that is, by-the-by—one among the many sources of factitious annoyance of this ultra-civilised life. If the gentlemen must lead the ladies into the dining-room, why cannot they take those they like best?
I am not sure, however, that Mr. Huntingdon would have taken me, if he had been at liberty to make his own selection. ”

“ We called her the Attic Fairy.
In 1889, our eldest son, Samuel Prescott Hall, entered Harvard University, having passed his examinations with honors. I went up to Cambridge with the trembling Freshman, who had just passed his seventeenth birthday. A certain indifference, not to say coldness, on the part of the authorities soon showed me that the event of Sam’s entrance into academic fields did not move them so deeply as it did me. The bursar I found especially unsympathetic. My son had not drawn a room in the college buildings, and that was an end of it. Mr. ”