Pemberton

“ They’d never part with you; they worship the ground you tread on. Don’t you see the proof of it?” Pemberton developed. “They don’t dislike me; they wish me no harm; they’re very amiable people; but they’re perfectly ready to expose me to any awkwardness in life for your sake.”
The silence in which Morgan received his fond sophistry struck Pemberton somehow as expressive. ”

“ Will you inform Miss Pemberton that I have seen Sir Henry this morning, who has left Rome, and that he desires me to let her know that the hundred a-year which she inherits will be punctually paid in to Torloni's; but that from himself she never must expect a shilling: he will leave her nothing but his curse. To that," continued the Count, with his most melo-dramatic air, "I will not expose her; I sacrifice myself, and leave Rome to-night. ”

“ Pemberton indeed quickly found himself rejoicing that school was out of the question: in any million of boys it was probably good for all but one, and Morgan was that millionth. It would have made him comparative and superior—it might have made him really require kicking. Pemberton would try to be school himself—a bigger seminary than five hundred grazing donkeys, so that, winning no prizes, the boy would remain unconscious and irresponsible and amusing—amusing, because, though life was already intense in his childish nature, freshness still made there a strong draught for jokes. ”

“ Pemberton, an enormously fat, very florid widow of fifty. She almost invariably wore a smile on her expansive countenance, and was well known in the neighbourhood for her good nature and good temper. In fact, she was generally spoken of as "Mrs. Pemberton, that good-natured soul." The children all idolised her; for when they came of errands to buy, or for exercise and safety and a sight of the world with their mothers, Mrs. Pemberton never let them go away empty-handed as long as there was a small apple, or a bunch of currants, or a couple of nuts in the shop. ”

“ Ridiculous as it sounded, he had never yet been able to compass an uninterrupted private interview with the elder pair or with either of them singly. They were always flanked by their elder children, and poor Pemberton usually had his own little charge at his side. He was conscious of its being a house in which the surface of one’s delicacy got rather smudged; nevertheless he had preserved the bloom of his scruple against announcing to Mr. and Mrs. Moreen with publicity that he shouldn’t be able to go on longer without a little money. ”

“ Moreen would never consent—it would be so very hand-to-mouth,” Pemberton’s hostess beautifully explained to him. Then to Morgan she made it clearer: “It would destroy our peace, it would break our hearts. Now that he’s back it will be all the same again. You’ll have your life, your work and your freedom, and we’ll all be happy as we used to be. You’ll bloom and grow perfectly well, and we won’t have any more silly experiments, will we? They’re too absurd. It’s Mr. Pemberton’s place—every one in his place. ”

“ Sir Henry Pemberton, her father, was a severe man, and it was said that a young and beautiful wife had withered in the ungenial atmosphere of his cold stern temper. Only that Englishmen have a travelling mania, and the more comfortable they are at home, the less they can abide to stay there, no one could have accounted for Sir Henry's coming to Rome. He cared nothing for the fine arts. ”

“ Lowering himself hand under hand, Coq le Roi descended to the well. The unknown waited until he had reached the light, and had entered the dark hole above the water. Then he, too, clutched the rope—but he could not keep back the laugh from his lips.
“Ventrebleu! Sartines,” said he to himself, “a merry night to you, and a merrier day to-morrow. To be fooled by a woman at your time of life! Oh, you amuse us finely.” ”

“ Pemberton lost no time in introducing himself to the two ladies and informing them that he had a carriage waiting for them. His niece, who was superbly stylish and handsome, gave him her cheek to kiss, in the cool and perfunctory way adapted toward elderly relatives; and he had an impression that she was subjecting him to a rather critical inspection, and concluding with a sense of relief that he would pass muster. "This is my uncle, Mr. Pemberton, madame," she said in French to her companion; "Mr. Pemberton—Madame Bournouville." ”

“ Every room on the upper story shed bright golden rays from its windows. Seen in the strong moonlight, the great house had become like a palace of the fairies. The panes of glass were so many stars shining in a setting of black stone; the very attics were beacons to guide those far away in the valley. More than all, a man clothed from head to foot in black stood plain to be seen at a casement above the salon; and he it was who called to Count Charles,—
“Monsieur le Comte, Monsieur le Comte, where is your brother Eugène?” ”

“ Mr. Moreen had a white moustache, a confiding manner and, in his buttonhole, the ribbon of a foreign order—bestowed, as Pemberton eventually learned, for services. For what services he never clearly ascertained: this was a point—one of a large number—that Mr. Moreen’s manner never confided. What it emphatically did confide was that he was even more a man of the world than you might first make out. Ulick, the firstborn, was in visible training for the same profession—under the disadvantage as yet, however, of a buttonhole but feebly floral and a moustache with no pretensions to type. ”

“ Pemberton replied, but too vaguely, as he was aware.
“For lying and cheating?”
“For saving and managing and turning his means to the best account. He has plenty to do with his money. You’re an expensive family.”
“Yes, I’m very expensive,” Morgan concurred in a manner that made his preceptor burst out laughing.
“He’s saving for you,” said Pemberton. “They think of you in everything they do.” ”

“ If Johnston was powerless to make even a diversion with more than twenty thousand men, (his force at the time of [Pg 467] Pemberton’s surrender,) how much more helpless was Pemberton to check Grant?
A dispassionate and careful inquiry will demonstrate that the operations of General Pemberton, antecedent to the siege of Vicksburg, are far less censurable than was assumed by his assailants. There can be no manner of doubt, that if worthy of blame, he should not be visited with the whole responsibility. ”

“ When they had done their work, the tallest of the three, who was dressed in black and silver and wore a mask upon his face, came up to the door of the coach and opened it. At the same time he doffed his cap and bowed with the dignity of a courtier.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, addressing Corinne, “a thousand pardons for the liberty we have taken. Be assured that I know your name well and that it is held in great reverence here. But I have laid a wager of a thousand crowns that you shall sup with me to-night at the house of the Silver Birch, and that I shall kiss you on both cheeks afterwards. ”

“ Pemberton closed the door and put his back to it.
"Look ye here, my fine haristocrat," continued the keeper in the boundless wrath of fear, "look ye here, if you don't go quietly, devil take me if I don't get ye a trip to Botany Bay for this job. I'm a sworn constable, and I've got the justices' warrant, surely that's 'nuff for thieves like you. Come, farmer Pemberton," he added more quietly, "help me to hornament this gent," and in a very brief space the two mastered and handcuffed the labourer. ”

“ PEMBERTON (afterwards PEMBERTON LEIGH) , THOMAS, Lord Kingsdown (1793–1867) , eldest son of Robert Pemberton, a chancery barrister, by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter and coheiress of Edward Leigh of Bispham Hall, Lancashire, was born on 11 Feb. 1793. His father, a member of a family settled near Warrington in Lancashire, and a descendant of Sir Francis Pemberton [q. v.] , chief justice of the common pleas, died in 1804. Though he had earned a good income, he had been unable to save money, and his widow was left poorly off, considering the size of his family—three sons and two daughters. ”

“ Pemberton gathered that the weakness was in the region of the heart. He had known the poor child was not robust: this was the basis on which he had been invited to treat, through an English lady, an Oxford acquaintance, then at Nice, who happened to know both his needs and those of the amiable American family looking out for something really superior in the way of a resident tutor. ”

“ Any other man but Pepin would have been lost beyond hope in this labyrinth; but the guide knew the forest as he knew his own face. The very darkness of the way inspired him. He turned gaily from the path he had struck at the first, and riding as it were straight towards a gloomy bog whose shallow waters caught a leaden glow of the moon's beams, he encouraged the bewildered Abbé to new efforts.
"Well done, monsieur, well done," he cried; "a half a league ridden like that and you shall smack your lips over a wine-cup. ”

“ Then he unwound a long coil of thin rope, and attaching the lantern to this, he lowered it into the orifice. Coq le Roi, looking over his shoulder timidly, watched him as one watches a conjuror at his tricks.
“Monsieur,” cried he, “you cannot hide me in the well.”
The unknown laughed scornfully.
“St. Denis,” exclaimed he, “that a man should live five years in a house and yet know nothing of its resources! Do you follow the path of that light, my friend? Well, tell me what you see.”
“The light shows me walls green with slime and fungus,” said the robber. ”

“ Friends and neighbors were coming in and out; and the next person that came was the old minister, of whom, and of his colleague, the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, some account may here be introduced.
The Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton Father Pemberton as brother ministers called him, Priest Pemberton as he was commonly styled by the country people—would have seemed very old, if the medical patriarch of the village had not been so much older. A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors: he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost ”

“ Whatever may have happened over yonder is hardly likely to happen in La Belle France, look at it how you like. You should think no more about it, Ferdinand. You're to win this great race, and win it you certainly will if I'm a judge. Why, then, think about a woman at all?"
"Because," he replied, and he was as grave as a judge at the moment, "because I must; I've been thinking of her ever since I picked you up. It's queer, Britten, but I do believe you're going to bring me luck, and that's as true as Gospel." ”

“ Pemberton, in some confusion, glanced at him as he walked slowly to the window with his back turned, his hands in his pockets and the air in his elderly shoulders of a boy who didn’t play. The young man wondered if he should be able to teach him to play, though his mother had said it would never do and that this was why school was impossible. Mrs. Moreen exhibited no discomfiture; she only continued blandly: “Mr. Moreen will be delighted to meet your wishes. ”

“ Pemberton had changed her position entirely in regard to Mr. Herron, he proposed to Ida that he should go with her to Mrs. Pemberton at once, and tell her all that had occurred during the day, and thus show to her the kind of people into whose hands she had fallen.{98}
This was done, and Mrs. Pemberton, under the showing of Nick, saw clearly that her only hope of receiving any profit from her late husband’s work was first in the recovery of the papers of Mr. Herron, and secondly through Mr. ”

“ She sat with glistening eyes and fast-beating heart, and he applauded her.
“Ah,” he said, “if it were the children of France and not the adventurers! If one were quite sure that the Prussians ran, Madame.”
“But I see them!”
“As the tide of the sea, my child—now a little way receding, now surging again; but the tenth wave, that is the fellow. Look well at Wörth and tell me what you make of it. Those black helmets were beyond the river an hour ago. Now they are coming through the vineyards—they creep up inch by inch; the dead lie thick, but the living do not heed them. ”

“ Couldn't you have made a stronger muster?” said Pemberton.
“I don't know: twenty-eight is not bad. There are so many of our people in abeyance. There are five fighting petitions against their return, and as many more seeking re-election, and a few more, like yourself, Pem, 'out in the cold.'”
“For which gracious situation I have to thank my friends.”
“Indeed! how is that?”
“It is somewhat cool to ask me. Have you not seen the papers lately? Have you not read the letter that Sir Gray Chadwell addressed to Father O'Hea of Mallow?” ”

“ The Scotsman looked up at the rebuke as though a thunderbolt had hit him.
"Verra weel, mon; Verra weel," he muttered; "but ye're unco melancholy the nicht, unco melancholy." And then he fell to the silence of consumption, eating prodigiously of all that was set before him; but in high dudgeon, as a man rebuked unworthily. Of the others, the doctor alone talked, chatting fluently of many European cities, and proving himself no mean raconteur. ”

“ Once they had cried out, not a man spoke. Silently, with faces flushed, their heads bent forward, they watched the meeting as the two came together at last, face to face, almost heart to heart.
"My God! it cannot be; he does not mean it. It's a play—he does not want his life."
I could not keep the words back as the two men met, and stood for one awful minute on the line together. The general's face was still a beautiful thing to see; the count continued to bend forward, holding his pistol at his side. ”