Mr. Rushworth

“ Fanny's eyes followed Edmund, and her heart beat for him as she heard this speech, and saw his look, and felt what his sensations must be.
“Lovers' Vows!” in a tone of the greatest amazement, was his only reply to Mr. Rushworth, and he turned towards his brother and sisters as if hardly doubting a contradiction.
“Yes,” cried Mr. Yates. “After all our debatings and difficulties, we find there is nothing that will suit us altogether so well, nothing so unexceptionable, as Lovers' Vows. ”

“ But unluckily that iron gate, that Ha, Ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. I cannot get out, as the starling said." As she spoke, and it was with expression, she walked to the gate; he followed her. "Mr. Rushworth is so long fetching this key!"
"And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited." ”

“ Rushworth was very ready to request the favour of Mr. Crawford's assistance; and Mr. Crawford, after properly depreciating his own abilities, was quite at his service in any way that could be useful. ”

“ I should be considered one who had sacrificed his father to obtain his property. I should be scouted, shunned, and deservedly despised; the disgrace of my father having been hanged would be a trifle compared with the reproach of a son having condemned a parent to the gallows. Now I am doubly bound to keep to my resolution; and come what may the secret shall die with me:” and Joey slept soundly that night.
The next morning Mr Trevor came into his cell.
“I have seen your sister, Rushbrook,” said he, “and at her request, have come to assist you, if it is in my power. ”

“ Teddy took his hand from the back of the chair and started for the hall, after one despairing glance at the table.
“But, Father―” ventured Fred.
“Wouldn’t it be enough to make him go without dessert?” interposed Mrs. Rushton. “Can’t you let him have at least a piece of bread and butter? The child’s health, you know―”
“Well,” hesitated Mr. Rushton. But he caught sight of the sarcastic grin on Aaron’s face.
“No,” he went on more firmly, “he can’t have a thing. ”

“ You know him well, I dare say. They tell me that he pays the interest regularly to his nieces for their money out of his own income still.”
I made no answer to Mr Rushton at the moment, for a communication so wholly unexpected had awakened a new set of ideas, which I was busily following out in my mind. I seemed to hold in my hands the clue to a good deal of misunderstanding and unhappiness. My determination was soon [Pg 100] taken to go to Southampton, see Russell at once, and tell him what I had just heard, and of which I had no doubt he had hitherto been as ignorant as myself. ”

“ Russel!” cried the leader, stepping before the rest with a haughty air, “this is not what I expected from you after what has already passed between us. You stopped and recovered your own beasts, and nobody could blame you; but, sir, it is not like a gentleman to offer to hinder me from taking cattle from anybody else.”
“My principles are very different,” said Mr. Russel, with great coolness.
“I tell you again,” cried the little man, “that you will [60] be acting unjustly if you persevere, and that you have no right to do so.” ”

“ Rushbrook made an effort to go, but Sandford still held his hand; and meekly said to Lord Elmwood,
"He is but a boy, my Lord, and do not give him the punishment of a man."
Rushbrook now snatched his hand from Sandford's, and threw it with himself upon his neck; where he indeed sobbed like a boy.
"You are both in league," exclaimed Lord Elmwood.
"Do you suspect me of partiality to Mr. Rushbrook?" said Sandford, advancing nearer to the Earl. ”

“ Vivian, for securing for him such a treasure as Mr. Russell, he introduced Lord Lidhurst, a sickly, bashful boy of fourteen, to his new governor, with polite expressions of unbounded confidence, and a rapid enunciation of undefined and contradictory expectations.
“Mr. Russell will, I am perfectly persuaded, make Lidhurst every thing we can desire,” said his lordship; “an honour to his country, an ornament to his family. It is my decided opinion that man is but a bundle of habits; and it’s my maxim, that education is second nature—first, indeed, in many cases. ”

“ Among other things, he said, "He did not know Lord Elmwood dined from home, for if he had, he should have dined in his own apartment."
Rushbrook was still more obliged to him for all this; and the weight of obligations with which he was oppressed, made him long for an opportunity to relieve himself by expressions. As soon, therefore, as the servants were all withdrawn, he began:
"Mr. Sandford, whatever has been your opinion of _me_, I take pride to myself, that in my sentiments towards _you_, I have always distinguished you for that humane, disinterested character, you have this day proved." ”

“ GOT to Rushwater late at night, and reported at eight next morning at the factory office. Mr. McCarthy had not arrived, and I went down to Pearl's shop in the y friend sat by a lathe. He rose and embraced me with his one arm. Near us a carpenter was working at a long bench. The Pearl put on an apron and began to heat up his forge.
“How are you getting along here?” I asked.
“I am surprised at my success,” he answered. “I have made myself the most hated man in Rushwater. I am abhorred, hissed at, despised. I deprive honest labor of its occupation and grind the faces o' the poor.” ”

“ Sandford, that you have bribed some of the servants to reveal this.”
“The suspicion becomes Lord Elmwood’s heir.”
“It becomes the man, who lives in a house with you.”
“I thank you, Mr. Rushbrook, for what has passed this day—it has taken a weight off my mind. I thought my disinclination to you, might perhaps arise from prejudice—this conversation has relieved me from those fears, and—I thank you.” Saying this he calmly walked out of the room, and left Rushbrook to reflect on what he had been doing. ”

“ Alworth?"
"Silence, Mr. Flippet," said Alworth sternly. "You should have provided yourself, my friend," he went on, turning again to Lee. "You have doubtless influential neighbours—"
"Oh, yes!" said Lawrence, scratching his curls.
"Standing well at court?" continued Mr. Alworth.
"Well, I don't know so much about that. H'm, h'm—the fact is," stammered on Lawrence, "I—you see, I came off in—in just a bit of a hurry."
"And the more haste the less speed. You will know that, when those brown locks of yours have got a silver streak or two among them. ”

“ It appears to me that that should be our line of defence.”
“I never fired at the man at all,” said Joey.
“Who fired the gun, then?” asked Mr Trevor.
Joey made no reply.
“Rushbrook,” said Mr Trevor, “I am afraid I can be of little use to you; indeed, were it not that your sister’s tears have interested me, I would not take up your cause. I cannot understand your conduct, which appears to me to be absurd; your motives are inexplicable, and all I can believe is, that you have committed the crime, and will not divulge the secret to any one, not even to those who would befriend you.” ”

“ The second was to Bartanet Shoals, where the kindly keeper of the lighthouse had his part in the general jubilee. The third, and to the Rushton boys the most important of all, was to Oldtown, where Ross, who accompanied Fred and Teddy, had the proud delight of putting into the hands of Mr. Aaron Rushton the gold that paid his father’s debt.
“I wonder what Uncle Aaron will say when he finds out the money has been found,” remarked Teddy, when the three youths were on the way to Oldtown.
“I’ll wager he’ll hardly be able to believe his ears and eyes,” returned Fred. ”

“ Alworth!" yelped Flippet in his turn, and falling on his knees, regardless of the puddles; "you'll never tell of me, Mr. Alworth. 'Twould be a hanging matter for me, if it came to his majesty's ears. Oh! Mr. Alworth, the lazy, pampered little beasts put me out of patience, and I—I—"
"If all the pampered animals were treated by their deservings, some would come worse off than Azor and Médor. Get up, you foolish fellow. You cowardly pretence of a man, chastising two poor helpless little dogs. ”

“ Rushworth could be silent no longer. “I do not say he is not gentleman-like, considering; but you should tell your father he is not above five feet eight, or he will be expecting a well-looking man.” ”

“ Of course every one there had heard of the incident about the bull, and of the disappearance of Mr. Rexworth.
"Rexworth is rather backward," the Head continued. "His life has been spent abroad, and he has not had the opportunities for study; but I believe that he will soon pick up." And with this Dr. Beverly went, and Mr. Delermain, having spoken a few words of welcome, beckoned to a boy to come forward.
"Warren, let Rexworth sit beside you this afternoon, and give him a set of the sums we are doing. If you find them too difficult," he added to Ralph, "do not hesitate to come to me." ”

“ In the mean time, Rushbrook, happier than he had been for months, intoxicated with joy at that voluntary mark of civility he had received from Lady Matilda, felt his heart so joyous, and so free from every particle of malice, that he resolved, in the humblest manner, to make atonement for the violation of decorum he had lately committed against Mr. Sandford. ”

“ Then, defensively, she added: “But, after all, where do you find better boys anywhere than ours? Fred scarcely gives us a particle of trouble, and as for Teddy”–here she floundered a little–“of course, he gets into mischief at times, but he has a good heart and he’s just the dearest boy,” she ended, in a burst of maternal affection.
“How about that boarding school idea?” suggested Mr. Rushton.
“I don’t like it at all,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I simply can’t bear to think of our boys a hundred miles away from home. ”

“ There was Rupert's asking me to marry him; and the narrow escape of a bad collision; and the Earl giving me his watch; and my silly little head being turned. Then there was Mary Russell's illness; and her brother always about; till my silly little heart was turned too. And then Mr. Russell bidding good-bye, and Rupert running away.
It didn't seem likely anything more would happen out of the common yet awhile. But one never can tell. That's the strangest part of life. However steady the days seem to go on, one never can be sure of a single day ahead. ”

“ The whole group knew Semingham, and the eldest child was by his knees in a moment.
"We've been to the Exhibition," she cried exultantly; "and now Willie—Mr. Ruston, I mean—is taking us to have ices in Bond Street."
"A human devil!" said the astonished man to himself, as Willie Ruston plumped down beside him, imploring a brief halt, and earnestly asseverating that his request was in good faith, and concealed no lurking desire to evade the ices.
"I met young Haselden as we came along," Ruston observed, wiping his brow. ”

“ This impressed her favourably, though the journalist might have had reasons for making precisely the same statement {71} if he had known Logotheti to be a fraudulent promoter. One of the maxims she had learned in her youth, which had been passed in the Golden Age of old New York, was that 'business was a test of character.' Mr. Rushmore used to say that, so it must be true, she thought; and indeed the excellent man might have said with equal wisdom that long-continued rain generally produces dampness. ”

“ Holdsworth called to the servant and told her to fetch her mistress’s hat. The “man in possession” lounged out of the back room and stared with a dry smile.
“Goin’?” he asked.
Holdsworth did not answer him. The weight of the child was too great for the half-fainting mother, who tottered as she stood. Holdsworth took Nelly from her and placed her on the ground.
“You ain’t a goin’, missis, are yer?” said the servant, handing Dolly the hat, and whimpering.
[361]
“Yes,” replied Holdsworth; “and if Mr. Conway should call, tell him that his wife is at Mrs. Parrot’s.” ”

“ Thomas White, who added a fourth dialogue, is entitled: ‘Rushworth's Dialogues. Or the Judgment of common sence in the choyce of Religion,’ Paris, 1654, 8vo, pp. 280. William Chillingworth wrote: ‘An Answer to some Passages in Rushworth's Dialogues’ which appeared at the end of the ninth edition of his ‘Works,’ London, 1727, fol., and Matthew Poole also replied to Rushworth in ‘The Nullity of the Romish Faith,’ 1667 and 1679. Thomas White published ‘An Apology for Rushworth's Dialogues. ”

“ Mr. Rosedew, as has been said before, was parson of Rushford as well as of Nowelhurst. At the former place he kept a curate, but looked after the poor people none the less, for the distance was only six miles; and now, as his legs were getting stiff, he had bought Coræbus to help him. Rushford lies towards the eastern end of the great Hurst shingle bank, the most dangerous part of Christchurch Bay, being fully exposed to the south–west gales, and just in the run of the double tide; in the eddy of the Needles.
“Why, what is the matter, papa? Even if it rains, it wonʼt hurt them much. ”

“ Have a care where you're running to," cried a deep good-humoured voice, as the old fellow came trundling full-tilt against the tall, broad-shouldered figure of a man dressed in gray, who was just about to vault on to the back of a fine black horse standing before the door of the Silver Leopard. "Are you looking for an honest man?"
"I've found him anyhow, Master Alworth," replied the old man, half lifting his lantern to the face of the speaker, which was shaded by a hat of gray felt, whose broad brim almost covered the long iron-gray locks of his periwig. ”