Penton

“ There was no youth in the house. Sir Walter Penton was an old man, and though he had, like most old gentlemen who figure in romance, an only daughter, she was not either young or fair. She was a lady of somewhat stern aspect, between forty and fifty, married, but childless. The household consisted of her father, her husband, and herself, no more. ”

“ The boy stood for a moment groping for his hat, following his father with his eyes, and then rushed out into the night in a turmoil of feeling—indignation, misery, surprise. He had been taken so entirely at unawares. Such a thought as that of being called upon to relinquish Penton had never entered into his mind; it had never occurred to him as a possibility. He knew well enough, whatever any one might say, that to abolish entail was not a thing to be done in a minute. Revolutions in law take time. ”

“ ALLY’S PART. Sir Edward Penton went to London most days, but he never found out anything. He was not the sort of man to act as an amateur detective, and he would not appeal to the professionals in that capacity. He was an old-fashioned man, and it seemed to him that “to set the police after” his son was an indignity impossible. He could not do it. He tramped about himself, yearning, angry, very tender underneath, thinking if he could only see Walter, meet him, which always seems so likely to country people, in the street, that all would be well. ”

“ And then you know your father, he would never be content to live in a small way, as we can do here, at Penton; he would want to keep up everything as it was in Sir Walter’s time. He would want a carriage, and horses to ride. He might even think of going into Parliament—that was one of his ideas once. Indeed, I see no end to the expense if we were once launched upon Penton. We should be finer, and we should see more company, but I don’t think we should be a bit better after awhile than if we had never come into any fortune at all. ”

“ He will be the same as I, Sir Walter Penton, when his turn comes, and it will not be long before his turn comes. Edward will never last to be an old man like me. He hasn’t got it in him; he hasn’t stuff enough. The young one will be Sir Walter—Sir Walter Penton, the old name. ”

“ Though Sir Edward has Penton now, that does not make things better, it rather make them worse. Even in Penton we shall live very simply, perhaps poorly. We can not give you society and pleasures like your other friends.”
“But I don’t want society and pleasure. Pleasure! I should like to take care of Molly, and make her things and teach her her letters. I should; she is the dearest little darling that ever was. I should like to run about with the boys. Horry and I are great friends, oh, great friends, Lady Penton. At Penton you will have hundreds of rooms; you can’t say it is not big enough. ”

“ Penton handed a paper to the boy. The latter read it through carefully, then asking for a pen, drew a line through the space left blank for the amount and signed his name.
"I am not that kind of man, Mr. Penton," said Steve. "If you wish my mother's signature to the paper, I will have her sign it. I do not care to receive any money that I have not earned."
"Rush," said the superintendent, rising and placing a hand on the boy's shoulder, "you talk like a true man. You are a true man. ”

“ Sir Walter Penton of Penton—not the old man who lived shut up in his library, who was taken out for a drive on fine days. Young Walter meant no harm to the old man, but he was himself the Sir Walter Penton whom he had seen in his dreams. What was it he had looked for? Was it only the vulgar improvement, more money to spend, better dinners, horses, travels, all that a young man wants? He had wanted these things, but something more. He had wanted first of all to find himself in his place; to be somebody, not nobody ”

“ This great festival, corresponding to the Whitsuntide of the Christians, is celebrated by the Jews on the fiftieth day after the “Passover.”
Penton Street. See “Pentonville.”
Pentonville. Prior to 1773 the whole of this neighbourhood north of the New Road was open fields. It was then acquired for building purposes by Henry Penton, M.P., one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and received its 273name from “Penton Villa,” his residence, on the site of what is now Penton Street.
Penzance. Expresses the Celtic for “Saint’s Headland,” in allusion to St Michael’s Mount.
People’s Friend. ”

“ Edward Penton said nothing on this subject. It was not one in which he could deliver his opinion. “It is a great house,” he said, “and a great responsibility for a man with a large family like me.”
“You will find it perhaps easier than you think; everything is in very perfect order. Alicia would like me to tell you, Penton, that though it was too late to be added as a codicil, her father’s wish is sacred to her, and that it shall be as he desired about your boy.”
“My boy! do you mean Wat? What has he to do with it?” Edward Penton cried, half affrighted. ”

“ Penton; “many an anxiety it would have saved us, Edward. Why, it would make you a rich man! We have always looked forward so to Penton, and nobody ever supposed Sir Walter would live till eighty-five; but I have never thought of it as such a paradise. For, in the first place, it would want a great deal of money to keep it up.” ”

“ After a few moments of conversation Mrs. Penton said, "You must speak to the Adairs, Edmund; but first tell me, where is Gerald?"
"I think he went into that room," pointing to the door on the left side of the tribune.
"Will you then take me to my husband, Mr. Blake, while Edmund goes to the Adairs?"
Mrs. Penton made this request in the manner and tone of voice of one who feels certain that any man—even an old one—would be pleased at being asked to walk with her.
Mr. Barkley was like Mrs. Penton, but handsomer, and, apparently, of superior intelligence. ”

“ Russell Penton, who never can succeed to anything; you ought to have your allowance like any other heir.”
“I don’t know why I should have an allowance,” said Mr. Penton, with a voice in which there was a certain languid irritation; “I have always held my own, and I shall always hold my own. And besides, Sir Walter does not want me to have the land; he would rather a great deal that it went to—Russell Penton, as you call him, though he has no right to our name.”
“But that can’t be,” cried young Wat, “seeing that I—I mean you, father, are the heir of entail.” ”

“ Penton thinks I am some relation of the proprietress, and in consequence everybody treats me with marked respect. Mrs. Wallace herself, the proprietress, thinks I am the discovery of Penton, in whose judgment she has great faith; and with her I get on admirably. The paper I don't think is doing too well, and the salary is small, but sufficient. Journalism suits my temperament, and I dare say I shall keep to it. ”

“ After breakfast he and I took a long walk together ... we began speaking of Penton Baxter ... I spoke in high praise of the great novelist ... reverently and with awe.
"Yes, yes," Varden assented, "Penton is all you say, but he has no sense of humour ... and he takes himself and his work as seriously as if the destiny of the human race depended on it ... which is getting in a bad way, for a reformer, you know—gives a chap's enemies and antagonists so many good openings.... ”

“ I have informed the committee that you will read a few of your poems by the camp-fire."
"—the first time I ever heard of it," I replied, concealing my pride in the invitation, under show of being disgruntled....
That was Penton's way, arranging things first, telling you afterward.
"But you will do it? I have said you would!"
"Yes, Penton, if you wish me to!"
Hildreth was always insistent on my strength ... my greyhound length of limb, my huge chest ... she stood up and pounded on my chest once....
"Oh, why do I pick out a poor poet, and not a millionaire, for a lover!" ”

“ Penton said this with a sigh, feeling already all that was involved in a removal in the middle of winter; but it would be good, she felt, for Horry and the rest to be out of the damp, and it would be very good for Wat. The thing for Wat would be to go to Oxford without delay; fortunately he was not too old, and that would take him off thinking about Penton if anything would. As for the father, there was no such panacea for him. What can be done to distract or divert a man who has outlived the ordinary pleasures, and can not have his mouth stopped or his heart occupied with any new toy? ”

“ For two weeks after the affair of the silver, Penton surpassed himself in signing his name. Also he took a social turn, and began once more to hypnotize the good people of Banfield. He had a faculty for ingratiating himself with people who were not great students of human nature. The town mayor was a particularly easy victim of his.
"Hello, Mr. Muir," Penton would say as the mayor entered the office, "I'm glad to see you looking so well. How's Mrs. Muir? I understand you are doing big things on the dam." (Here Henty would emphatically repeat the word from his desk in the rear of the office.) ”

“ Penton, angrily. “How should there be a change in{71} the law? None but demagogues or socialists would ever think of it. The law is too strong in England. As for empirics and revolutionaries—” He snapped his fingers with hot contempt. The suggestion made him angry, although he had himself dwelt upon it in the morning. Then he came back to the real matter: “Yes, there is one way in which it can be done; that is what they want me to do. If I joined with Sir Walter in taking certain steps the entail could be broken: and Penton would go to Alicia, which it appears is his desire.” ”

“ Penton is a noble place. All the time of the ball I was thinking of you, how you would have liked it, and how much more beautiful it would have been had you been there. We must give a ball some time, when we come home—”
“You mean,” she said, for he made a pause, “when{258} you succeed; but your father is not an old man, and that may be a long, long time.”
“I hope so,” said Walter, fervently; “loving you makes me love everybody else better. ”

“ Though Penton had gone on frequent walks with Darrie, after his day's work,—chiefly because Hildreth had not wanted to go on walks with him herself, or had not wanted to accompany them both—yet she and I seized on the precedent Penton and Darrie had set, and we were abroad most of the time ... roaming idyllically in the fields, the woods ... ”

“ He might get you, or you might get him, into some sort of mess."
"Why Dr. Ward, what do you mean?"
"Penton is always protesting about something or other,—always starting fantastic schemes ... he's just finished with his Parnassus Palace experiment, which brought him a lot of newspaper notoriety ... which is to me distasteful, extremely distasteful ... yet Baxter," he added hastily, "is a real force ... he can think of more original projects in a given space of time than anyone else I know." ”

“ It’s all going round and round.”
Penton Gray made no effort now to look round for danger, but, unstopping his water-bottle, he crept closer to his companion in adversity, passed the strap of the boy’s shako from under his chin, thrust his cap from his head to lie amongst the grass, and then opened the collar of his coatee and began to trickle a little water between the poor fellow’s lips and sprinkled a little upon his temples.
“Ah!” sighed the boy, as he began to revive, “that’s good! I don’t mind now.”
“But you are hurt. Where’s your wound?” said the young private eagerly. ”

“ I have taken you in here, accepted you as one almost of my family, and—"
"But, Penton, this is unfair," I lied, "unfair even to suspect me—"
"If it had been anybody but you, Johnnie, I would have been suspicious weeks ago ... Oh, I know, Hildreth ... she is giving all the manifestations ... how her face shines, how beautiful she has grown, as she does, with a new heart interest!... and her taking my little cottage ... ”

“ Inspection over, Penton walked up and down town where all might see. When he appeared in the main office his manner was overbearing. He placed heavier emphasis than ever on his "my's," and flattered the mayor to the point of idiocy, and cursed his current account with a vim foreign to his old self.
Then gradually he settled into his chair again. There came a lull in office work, and in general business, for the farmers were seeding. Penton began to drag at his upper lip. The film over his eyes thickened, and his brooding deepened.
A silent messenger came from Toronto:
"Instruct Mr. ”

“ To-morrow the increases come out. Just watch yourself get a lemon. Penton has blackballed you to Castle. Why couldn't it have been Inspector Ward?—he's a good head. I'll bet they give you a measly fifty to-morrow, Evan."
"In that case I'd be justified in quitting the bank, wouldn't I?"
Robb snorted.
"If you don't quit, increase or no increase, you're crazy. If I get you a job somewhere else in town, will you leave the bank?"
"Perhaps," said Evan; "but I'm low in energy now, you know, and I doubt if I would make much of a hit with a strange man on a new line of work." ”

“ The third Pentland had been the greatest evangelist of his time, a man who went through New England holding high the torch, exhorting rude village audiences by the coarsest of language to such a pitch of excitement that old women died of apoplexy and young women gave birth to premature children. ”

“ O king Penda, sore have we wrought against Sigmund and his kin, and many men of his have we slain, little boots it to slay this boy or the faithful thanes who fought for him, in cold blood. Right well they wrought and soldierly against thy thanes, but an unsoldierly death wouldst thou deal to them; oh, never will the light of day seem fair to thy captain Feargus if the blood of these warriors stains the sword of his king. ”