Peyton Randolph

“ Rand—Randolph in full, surname Peyton—who was slightly the eldest of the four, was the nephew of Mr. Scott, president of the Creston National Bank. He was a native of Virginia, having come to Creston after the death of his father some two years before this time, with his mother and sister. He was bright, but inclined to be indolent, except when aroused, when his energy knew no limit. He was slow in speech, having the soft Southern drawl with a tendency to slur his r's, and was a natural leader among his companions, both in their sports and their studies. ”

“ Pray Heaven, that if haply it do, it will be revoked and forgotten!"
"A parent's curse," said Randolph in a hollow voice, "is a terrible thing."
"To him!" the chaplain exclaimed. "To him it is, indeed, a terrible thing, and to his children, if it impels them into wrong-doing. There is no power in man to curse, my dear pupil, and surely Heaven is deaf to all such imprecations."
Alas! Polydore might as well have reasoned with the foaming waves beneath him. Randolph listened in respectful silence, but entirely unconvinced. ”

“ On the other hand, I nearly thrashed the life out of a man in Montana, and I never made such an enthusiastic friend.”
“Oh, we have to be bullied,” said Randolph frankly. “We love to brag and boast and swagger. You see we are such an extraordinary nation that we can’t help being a little cocky, and the only man we really respect is the one who lays us on our back with a black eye and a nose out of joint. We always get up—nothing can keep an American on his back—but we go to our graves with a wondering admiration of the muscle, mental or physical, that floored us.” ”

“ There was a trail of something darker and more opaque than fog itself lying near the surface of the water, but the Dom Pedro was a mere speck in the broadening distance.
A bright sun and a keen easterly wind were revealing the curling ridges of the sea beyond the headland when Randolph again passed the gates of Dornton Hall on his way to the rectory. Now, for the first time, he was able to see clearly the outlines of that spot which had seemed to him only a misty dream, and even in his preoccupation he was struck by its grave beauty. ”

“ But Pearson is trying for the middle of
April. His flat is taken." Foster writhed in his chair.
"Why do they care for him?" he burst out. "He's nothing in himself. And he cares nothing for them. And he cares nothing for you," Foster added boldly. "All he has thought for is that fellow from up north."
"Don't ask me why they care," replied Randolph, with studied sobriety. "Why does anybody care? And for what? For the thing that is just out of reach. He's cool; he's selfish; he's indifferent. ”

“ Nor was he more successful during the homeward-bound trip, across the States. Pet said nothing more about it—indeed, I think she forgot her careless suggestion almost the moment it was made; but Randolph felt himself put on his mettle, and failure stared him in the face.
No, I am not writing a “love story,” unless you grant that all true stories are that, in which pure, sweet young lives are thrown together, and drawn to one another by finest and frankest sympathy, looking ahead no farther than the sunset of that day or the sunrise of the next. ”

“ He lived latterly at Turkey Island, below Richmond, Virginia, where he had built himself a splendid mansion. He was also a shipowner, and his ships plied regularly to Bristol.
Randolph rose to the rank of colonel in the colonial militia. He was member of the house of assembly in 1684, and later a member of council. He is said to have been a man of high character, with wide influence. He was a founder and trustee of the William and Mary College, Virginia; but his chief work was directed to the civilisation of the Indians. He died on 11 April 1711 at Turkey Island. ”

“ I I had not known Tom Randolph a week before I was aware that life was not real to him. All his world was a stage, with himself as chief player. He dramatized everything—actions, emotions, income. Thus he made poverty picturesque, love a thing of the stars, the day's work a tragedy, or, if the professors proved kind, a comedy. He ate and drank, as it were, to music, combed his hair and blacked his boots in the glare of footlights; made exits and entrances of a kind unknown to men like myself who lacked his sense of the histrionic. ”

“ At a quarter before twelve o’clock, on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1833, aged sixty years, he breathed his last, in a chamber of the City Hotel, Philadelphia.
From the very necessities of the nature of an Eccentric, John Randolph could not be in harmony with the time in which he lived. But this difference was intensified into enmity by the irritable nature of his mind and the diseased condition of his body; nay, by his very virtues and genius. To increase the enmity and his own misfortune, he threw himself with ardor upon the losing side of an irrepressible conflict in government. ”

“ The president absorbed and possessed Randolph with eyes that never seemed to leave him. Then leaning back against the counter, which he lightly grasped with both hands, he said: “We've sent to the Niantic Hotel to inquire about your man. He ordered his room by letter, giving no name. He arrived there on time last night, slept there, and has occupied the room No. 74 ever since. WE don't know him from Adam, but”—his eyes never left Randolph's—“from the description the landlord gave our clerk, you're the man himself.”
For an instant Randolph flushed crimson. ”

“ But it just serves maybe to frighten the rascals, and let 'em know old Jeffrey is awake."
Randolph thanked the trusty warder for his zeal, and expressed a hope that his forebodings might not be realized; but the sentry shook his head dolefully, and reloaded his gun, saying, "Ye might as well just keep your pistols handy, Master Randolph."
Already, even in this short perambulation, the chaplain was greatly struck by the change which he observed in his former pupil. The stripling, meditative and gentle, had become a man, haughty and impassioned. ”

“ All I want is not to lose my job. Don't you give me away, and I won't give you away. Do you agree to that compromise and no more said?"
We had been holding each other by the eye, but suddenly his wandered, assisted by the monocle. So odd an expression sat on his face that I followed his straying glance, and saw what he saw—Miss Randolph! Miss Randolph at one of the long French windows of the club-house, with several other ladies. Without a second's hesitation I gripped Payne by the arm and dragged him across the lawn, using him as a screen. Once round the corner of the house, I let him go ”

“ The portraits in the picture-gallery showed the recent care of Mrs. Griffith.
"My mother's likeness is not here, Mr. Riches?" Randolph said abruptly, as they passed along.
The chaplain, greatly surprised, shook his head in silence.
They ascended to the battlements, and faced the inclemency of the weather. The ancient pieces of ordnance showed signs of that diligence on the part of old Jeffrey, to which Polydore had alluded in a recent letter to Hampstead. More dangerous they, perchance, to the defender than the foe.
"Is there really so much alarm in the country, my dear sir?" Randolph asked. ”

“ He has a compass to steer by, and a port to sail to, instead of being afloat on the waste of waters, the sport of every breeze that blows. It is touching to observe that this unhappy, sick, and sometimes mad John Randolph, amid all the vagaries of his later life, had always a vein of soundness in him, derived from his early connection with the enlightened men who acted in politics with Thomas Jefferson. ”

“ His mother, from whom he inherited his cheerful and hopeful temper and disposition, was a woman of a clear and strong understanding, [22] and, in every respect, worthy of the love of such a man as Peter Jefferson.
Isham Randolph's nephew, Colonel William Randolph, of Tuckahoe, was Peter Jefferson's most intimate friend. A pleasing incident preserved in the family records proves how warm and generous their friendship was. Two or three days before Jefferson took out a patent for a thousand acres of land on the Rivanna River, Randolph had taken out one for twenty-four hundred acres adjoining. ”

“ He spoke to his kinsman and heir of his anxieties as to the future of his dearly-loved and only child, who would at his death be only very inadequately provided for. He did not attempt to conceal the hope he had cherished in asking Randolph to be his guest, that some arrangement might be made which should conduce to her future happiness; and just as the young man’s heart began to beat high with the tumult of conflicting feelings [128] within him, the old earl looked him steadily in the face, and concluded with a certain stately dignity that was exceedingly impressive. ”

“ As soon as Randolph was alone, he glanced down the document, and, with a kind of wild glee, perceived that his real opponent in the action was Philip Trevethlan Pendarrel. He rubbed his hands together, rumpling the paper between them, and almost exulting in the strife which was at hand.
"So," said he aloud, "there are two games begun to-day. One will be played out before night; the other will last sometime longer. But we'll make it as short as we can. And now to action. Our stake is a little higher than that of the villagers yonder. They play for broken heads, and we for broken hearts. ”

“ He became gloomy and abstracted. So soon did repentance mingle with the feelings of the fugitives. But still they hurried forwards. Retreat, for Randolph at least, was out of the question; and to be overtaken would be defeat. He could afford no such triumph to Philip or Esther Pendarrel. And the father's pursuit was fruitless. He gained upon the chase at every stage; but he came up too late. They were united, never to be put asunder.
They heard of his arrival, and Mildred would have thrown herself at his feet. But her husband would not suffer it. ”

“ Randal’s eyes flashed. “What do you take me for?” he said angrily between his set teeth. “She could never again be anything to me,—not even if Floyd-Rosney were at the bottom of the Mississippi River.”
“Oh, how this relieves my mind,” cried Adrian.
“You may set it at rest,—for I could never again love that woman.”
“I know that I have no right to interfere or even to question—but you always appreciate my motives, Randal. You are the best fellow in the world.”
“I always thought so,” said Randal, smoking hard. ”

“ John Randolph sought Evadne in the familiar porch which had grown to be to him the sweetest spot on earth.
"You are always busy," he said with a smile, as he lifted the garment she was making for the little waif who was to have her first taste of heaven at 'The Willows.' Satan has no chance to find an occupation for you."
"But, oh, Doctor Randolph, what a drop in the bucket all our doing seems, when we think of the need of the world!"
"Yet without the drops the bucket would be empty, dear friend. God never expects the impossible from us, you know. ”

“ Lee Randon returned impatiently; “it is nothing but sentimental rot, all the same. If you are not contented, easy in mind, how can she be happy? You have got to believe entirely in what you are doing, it must be right to you on every possible side; and you can't make that grade, Peyton; you are too conventional underneath.” ”

“ He was not the old Conrad I once knew. It was terrible—till you came.”
“I believe at times he is mad,” answered Randolph, “with a sort of madness that is not actual insanity, though somewhat akin to it. It is the madness of ungovernable passion and hatred that rises up in him from time to time against certain individuals, and becomes, as it seems, a sort of monomania with him. It was so with his friend and benefactor Colonel Hamilton, when once he felt himself found out. ”

“ He meant to advance toward the problem as if it were a case of jealousy—a matter of Pearson's intrusion and of Amy's seemingly willing acceptance of it.
Cope soon caught Randolph's idea, and he stared. He did not at all resent Randolph's advances; misapprehension, in fact, might serve as fairly, in the end, as the clearest understanding.
Randolph placed his hand on Cope's shoulder. "You have only to assert yourself," he said. "The other man is an intruder; it would be easy to warn him off before he starts in to win her." ”

“ It was as clear as daylight, even to Randolph, that the woman was innocent. Her little harmless magic was the pathetic effort of a child to kill a dragon. He hesitated a moment before he spoke, and then he decided like the gentleman he was. If it helped the child to believe that her enchanted straw had slain the monster—well, he would let her believe it.
"And now, sir, may I go?"
Randolph looked at the woman in a sort of wonder.
"Are you not afraid," he said, "of the night and the mountains, and the long road?"
"Oh no, sir," she replied simply. "The good God will be everywhere now." ”

“ Randolph. You will find it out in time, when it is too late; and it will be your own doing."
"What?"
"Daisy will be a confirmed piece of superstition. You will see. And you will not find her docile then. If she once takes hold of anything, she does it with great obstinacy."
"But what is she taking hold of now? After all, you do not tell me," said Mr. Randolph carelessly.
"Of every sort of religious fanatical notion, you will find, Mr. Randolph! She will set herself against everything I want her to do, after the fashion of those people, who think nothing is right but their own way. ”