Rawdon

“ He’s as false as can be, is Rawdon.”
“‘Then I think you were weak with him,’ I said. ‘Are you afraid of him?’
“‘It’s like this,’ said Ruth, with that great uneasy heave of the uneducated when confronted with the explanation of a problem beyond the scope of their vocabulary, ‘we never get straight. Rawdon and I. He cringes to me, and then I bully him; or else he bullies me, and then I cringe to him. But quarrel as we may, we always come together again. It’s no good,’ she said with a note of despair in her expressive voice like the melancholy of a violin, ‘we can’t get away from one another. ”

“ Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.
"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied—"and there's only a way out of it for one of us, Mac—do you understand? I was put out of the way: arrested: I found 'em alone together. I told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."
"Serve him right," Macmurdo said. "Who is it?"
Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne. ”

“ Rawdon had been a fortnight at Firholt the carriages began to roll up the drive with considerable frequency. Ellinor took her line. She was a little on the defensive, dignified, very quiet, defying criticism. In the daytime she dressed with marked plainness, in the evenings with marked splendour. It was wonderful where the girl had learnt that she could no longer afford to be childish. ”

“ Rawdon, whose ‘name will take a respectable place in the scanty list of early British tourists who have left any record of their travels,’ made extensive manuscript collections, compiled a ‘brief history of cathedrals,’ and prepared for the press a genealogical memoir of his family. Nearly half a century after his death his manuscripts were in the possession of Samuel Bagnall, esq., of London, whose wife was the granddaughter of Colonel Thomas Rawdon, the eldest son of Sir Marmaduke. ”

“ Pennistan and I strolled out towards the road.
“He’s dead against Rawdon; always was,” she said in a distressed tone. “I was for making up, and making the best of it, but Pennistan isn’t that sort. He’d sooner have life unbearable than go a tittle against his prejudices. After all, Rawdon’s married to Ruth, and the father of our grandchildren, and there’s no going against that. He’s an unaccountable hard man, my man, when he chooses. I couldn’t never do nothing with him, and Nancy she’s the same.”
“And Mrs. Westmacott?” ”

“ During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Rawdon, if he had got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold, and locked up in his study plunged in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers—has gained the good graces of his married and maiden aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he shall be presented to the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. ”

“ In the morning she went to talk the subject over with her grandmother. The old lady received the news with affected indifference. She said, “It mattered nothing to her who sat in Rawdon’s seat; but she would not hear Mostyn blamed for seeking his right. Money and sentiment are no kin,” she added, “and Fred has no sentiment about Rawdon. Why should he? Only last summer Rawdon kept him out of Parliament, and made him spend a lot of money beside. He’s right to get even with the family if he can.”
“But the old Squire! ”

“ Sir, this is a perroud day for a workin' geologist. Your servant, Dr. Coristine!"
"I'm no doctor, Mr. Rawdon," replied the lawyer, a bit angrily; "I passed all my examinations in the regular way."
"Hif it's a fair question, gents, ware are you a goin'"? asked the working geologist.
"We intend, if nothing intervenes, to spend the night at the village of Peskiwanchow," answered Wilkinson, whose heart warmed to the knapsack man that knew his great discovery.
"Beastly 'ole!" remarked Mr. Rawdon; "but, as I'm a long way hoff Barrie, I'll go there with you, if Mr. Currystone is hagreeable. ”

“ Becky, extended his good will to little Rawdon. Wishing to have the boy out of his way, he pointed out to Rawdon's parents the necessity of sending him to a public school; that he was of an age now when emulation, the first principles of the Latin language, pugilistic exercises, and the society of his fellow boys would be of the greatest benefit to him. His father objected that he was not rich enough to send the child to a good school; his mother, that Briggs was a capital mistress for him, and had brought him on, as indeed was the fact, famously in English, Latin, and in general learning ”

“ On 10 Feb. 1790 Rawdon, in pursuance of his uncle's will, took the surname of Hastings in addition to his own surname of Rawdon, and on 20 June 1793 succeeded his father as the second Earl of Moira in the peerage of Ireland, he was promoted to the rank of major-general on 12 Oct. 1793, and was appointed, on Cornwallis's recommendation, to the command of an expeditionary force, which in December was sent to aid the insurrection of the royalists in Brittany, but returned without effecting anything. In June 1794 he was despatched with seven thousand men to the assistance of the Duke of York. ”

“ There was a note of the casual conversation of an assumed miser with Rawdon, in which Rawdon was represented as saying: "Dry sandy soil, well drained with two slopes, under a rain-shed, will keep millions in a cigar box." That the Squire noted; then he sealed up the rest of the papers, and addressed them to Hickey Bangs, Esq., D.I.R., ready for the post in the morning. The colonel, Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis were all in Wilkinson's room. The colonel was commenting upon the four poor souls that had gone before God's judgment seat, three of them, probably, with murder on their hands ”

“ Riggs went back with his report that very afternoon. Rawdon lingered for a word with Cassidy, Quinlan, and poor remorseful Rafferty; then followed, unhampered even by his arch enemy Fitzroy, who slipped away to the stables three minutes after the close of the conference. But he was not even there when, along in the spring, Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon came out for a visit to Doctor Mayhew. Like Rawdon, he had received his discharge. Unlike Rawdon, there was serious objection to his reënlistment. Even Snaffle dare not "take him on" again.
The snows lay long and deep in the ravines and hollows. ”

“ Often father frets me in the same way. If he wins a difficult case, he does it naturally, because he is a Rawdon. He is handsome, gentlemanly, honorable, even a perfect horseman, all because, being a Rawdon, he was by nature and inheritance compelled to such perfection. It is very provoking, Dora, and if I were you I would not allow Basil to begin a song about ‘the English Stanhopes.’ Aunt Ruth and I get very tired often of the English Rawdons, and are really thankful for the separating Atlantic.”
“I don’t think I shall feel in that way, Ethel. I like the nobility ”

“ If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed a perfect family interest and knowledge of Rawdon's history. She had all the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker, in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in shooting the Captain. ”

“ The months went by, and Matthew Rawdon did not come, nor Guy. Lady Peyton and Sir Arthur began to console themselves with the thought that the little man must be dead, and to weary for their son. Ellinor advertised, sought the aid of a private inquiry office, all to no avail. She lived on quietly at Firholt with Mrs. Montresor, seldom going into society. She had grown into a grave, slightly reserved woman. ”

“ He usually headed the table in silence, with the result that, on the present occasion, his white, exhausted face escaped remark, except from Guy Peyton. Matthew Rawdon had now something more than toleration from his future son-in-law—partly on Ellinor's account, partly on his own.
The unobtrusive self-effacement of the little man appealed strongly to those who came within his immediate influence. The American was dilating on the fortunes made and lost on the other side of the Atlantic. ”

“ Lord Rawdon, who was contemplating a mission to North Africa, sent Shakespear to learn Arabic in London, where he studied the language under Richardson and James Golius. In 1793 Lord Rawdon obtained for him a post in the commissariat of a force under his command, which it was proposed to send in aid of the insurgents in Brittany. About 1805 he was appointed to an oriental professorship at the Royal Military College, Marlow. When the East India Company, in 1809, opened a training college for cadets at Addiscombe, he was appointed professor of Hindustani there on 200l. ”

“ It is a very pretty rural place, and is fast rising towards the dignity of a town. When we first came to Belleville, the spot on which Rawdon now stands belonged principally, if not altogether, to an enterprising Orkney man, Edward Fidlar, Esq., to whose energy and industry it mainly owes its existence. ”

“ The stables contained many horses; and strong waggons, such as those seen by the pedestrians at the Beaver River, were in the sheds. The stone-cutters and the women professed to know nothing, and, save in the case of the woman called Flower, Bangs was of opinion that they spoke the truth. All the men could tell was that Rawdon paid them good wages, so that they were able to live without work all winter ”

“ Errol, thank you, Marjorie, my dear. Perhaps the good God will be kinder than we think, and find some use for a poor, lonely, careless detective." Mr. Nash was unusually thoughtful, yet still had an eye to business. He made diligent enquiries about Rawdon, and, at last, getting on the scent through Miss Du Plessis, found out all that Coristine and Timotheus had to tell of him. The latter had watched the working geologist slinking off in the Lake Settlement direction across the fields and by bush tracks. ”

“ A just, decent man, not without brains, who said his prayers, and knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardly through life, he could not be otherwise than aware that something was due to his brother at his hands, and that morally he was Rawdon's debtor. ”

“ The funeral over, Rebecca and her husband remained for a visit at Queen's Crawley, which assumed its wonted aspect. Rawdon senior received constant bulletins respecting little Rawdon, who was left behind in London, and sent messages of his own. "I am very well," he wrote. "I hope you are very well. I hope mamma is very well. The pony is very well. Grey takes me to ride in the Park. I can canter. ”

“ That hold bloke of a Hirish haint in a 'urry to do the hamiable between 'is hold guvner's gal an' yours truly. My name, Miss, is Rawdon, Haltamont Rawdon, workin' geologist and minerologist, and, between you and me and the bedpost, a pretty warm man."
"Yes; Mr. Rawdon," replied the pseudo Miss Du Plessis, "you look—well, not pretty—but warm."
"O, dash it hall, that haint wot I meant, Miss Do Please-us; I mean hi'm a man that's got the dibs, the rhino, the blunt, you know, wot makes the mare go. I don't go geologizin' round for nothin'." ”

“ But Dreda shook her head, and could not be shaken. Then Miss Drake turned aside and sat down, turning her chair so that her face was hidden from the audience, and two little patches of red showed themselves on Mr Rawdon’s cheek bones.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “a mistake has arisen—a most regrettable mistake. The numbers attached to two of the essays submitted to me have apparently been misplaced. It is impossible to say how this confusion has arisen. Neither Miss Drake nor I can think of any satisfactory explanation. ”

“ Old man Newcome is said to have been converted by Father Newberry and to be living a life in keeping with the exalted station of his daughter Serlizer. Reginald Rawdon's son was looked up by Mr. Bangs, and started in business in a new town, as a country store-keeper, on part of his uncle's ill-gotten money. Monty, growing a big lad, has charge of the farm at Bangslea, and, to see him and his grey-haired, but otherwise young-looking, mother, none would think they had ever been deprived of their reason. ”

“ Rawdon retired to the Governorship of Coventry Island, a post procured for him by the influence of that great nobleman the Marquis of Steyne, and who cared what became of Becky? It was said she went to Naples. Rawdon certainly declined to be reconciled to her, because of the money she had received from Lord Steyne and which she had concealed from her husband. "If she's not guilty, she's as bad as guilty ”

“ The love of destyuction is natuhal to ouah fallen human natuhe." Mr. Terry corroborated this statement, and added, "Faix, it sames to me there's jist two sarts an koinds av payple in the wurruld, thim as builds up an' thim as batthers down. For moy paart, I'd lafer build a log shanty an' clane a bit land nor pull a palish to paces." Miss Du Plessis assented, but drew attention to the fact that Rawdon had cleared, built up, and beautified the place, and improved his mind on the one hand, while he was warring against society and law, robbing and even murdering, on the other. ”

“ The drivers got into the waggon again and drove home more gently, exchanging a few words with each other; one being: "Guaiss old man Newcome's out o' mischief fer one night."
While Bridesdale was being delivered from the presence of one unwelcome guest, the welcome ones of the front were discussing with the Squire the programme for the night. He had made out a warrant for the arrest of Rawdon, should he again have the hardihood to turn up, and otherwise proposed to repeat the guards of the night before. While the excursionists were at tea, the colonel and Mr. ”