Richard Thornton

“ People at the Phœnix knew that Richard Thornton’s father had been a gentleman, and that the young man had a certain pride of his own. He was the only man in the theatre who neither abused nor flattered his employers. ”

“ Eleanor, you shall not do this, if I can prevent you.”
Richard Thornton’s unavowed love gave him a certain degree of authority over the impulsive girl. There is always a dignity and power in every feeling that is really true. ”

“ We must do the best we can to stop the bleeding ourselves, as he refuses the kind aid of hands that would do it better. Sir Richard, you had better take Miss Bessy away out of the cabin, and get her some water; she looks faint. Send off one of the men to the Thornton old place, and bid them bring down a mattress and a cart. You had better let Mr. Henry Thornton and Billy Byles know you are here, and then ride away with them to my house ”

“ Henry Thornton and the worthy magistrate himself riding towards us. "I was coming after you, Sir Richard," said the former, as he rode up. "Mr. Hubbard is at my house waiting for you, and we are sadly afraid, do what we can, the escheat will pass. Robert Thornton has so hedged his father in with one legal technicality and another, that we almost fear good aunt Bab's will will be declared null and void; for the real and personal estate are so mixed up in her devise to you, that it is hardly possible to separate them ”

“ There is no use of making enemies in this world, even of people we do not desire for friends." Mr. Thornton fell into a somewhat dark and gloomy reverie, and it may easily be imagined that my thoughts were not particularly pleasant. After a moment or two, however, he said,--
"Well, Sir Richard, it is now near one o'clock. You had better go to bed, and try to rest. I will do the same. We will both be up early to-morrow; and, after having taken counsel with our pillows, we may be able to devise some plan for tracing poor Bessy out." ”

“ Wheatley should ride across the Swamp to the place where Mr. William Thornton lay.
"I shall tell Harry Thornton that you won't be back till two or three," said the sheriff; "and, as I know he has some business to transact with you, I will try and get him and all his party to come over here, and dine and sleep: four or five girls, and four or five lovers, and four or five elderly people, and talking, and music, and flirting----a fine way of transacting business, truly; but it is the Virginian mode, and so let it pass. I will order the horses, Sir Richard; you go and get on your boots." ”

“ I said, "I will ride over to the sheriff's quarters, and inquire if anything has been heard of the dear girl there."
"You had better wait till these young ladies have risen," rejoined Mr. Thornton. "They cannot be very long, I think; and they might give us information which would lead us in a totally different direction." I was too impatient to wait, and Billy Byles seconded me.
"Oh, they will sleep better now the daylight's come in," he said. "You won't have them up for these three hours; and by that time Sir Richard and I will be back again." ”

“ If on that day Squire Richard had been told that his baby-girl would live to wear a Duchess's coronet and to be the bosom-friend and counsellor of a Queen of England, he would have laughed aloud; and yet Fate had this and more in waiting for Sarah Jennings in the years to come. The Squire himself professed to be no more than a plain country-gentleman, who knew as much as any man about horses and the management of acres, but knew no more of courts and coronets than of the man in the moon. ”

“ Many a secret meeting followed; a final joint appeal ultimately broke down the obduracy of the parents; and once again Sheridan led his bride to the altar, to make her finally and securely his own.
For a time Richard Sheridan and his Nightingale found a haven in a remote, rose-covered cottage at East Burnham. These were days of unclouded happiness, when, the "world forgetting and by the world forgot," they lived only for love, caring nothing of the future. They were days of simple delights; for their entire income was the interest of Mr Long's £3000, which proved ample for their needs. ”

“ He said there were very few of his kin living; he knew of only one, now that his brother was gone, and that was his only child, Sir Charles Thornton, of Halowell Park, but he had no family; he probably believed that he—Albert Gladstone Thornton—was dead, as everybody else did, and so he had concluded it best to send her—Star—to America, to the care of Mrs. Richards, who had promised to care for her, and who, he felt, would be true to her trust for the sake of the debt which she owed her mother. ”

“ Thornton lying on the brass bed in the car compartment that night, every line of the pale, gentle face as vivid, as actual as though it were once more before her in reality, and in her ears rang again, stabbing her with their unmeant condemnation, those words of sweetness, love and purity that held her up to gaze upon herself in ghastly, terrifying mockery. ”

“ In spite of weak health, he devoted the greater part of his leisure to literary work, and more especially to the study of economical questions. He was an intimate friend of John Stuart Mill, and one of the ablest adherents of his school of political economy. But he differed widely from him on other subjects, and the friendship was based largely on love of discussion (Bain, J. S. Mill, p. 174) . Thornton contributed to the ‘Examiner’ of 17 May 1873 an account of Mill's work at the India House. ”

“ Almost at the outset of his career Thornton ruined himself by the lavish scale on which he published his ‘New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnæus.’ For this sumptuous work in imperial folio he engaged the services of Sir William Beechey, Opie, Raeburn, Russel, Reinagle, Harlow, Miss Burney, and others, as painters; Bartolozzi, Vendramini, Holl, Ward, and the Landseers as engravers; and Dr. George Shaw, George Dyer, Seward, and Maurice as poets. The work was advertised in 1797, and seems to have been issued in parts at twenty-five shillings each between 1799 and 1807. ”

“ But as often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and the green shade, the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again. Thornton alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing. Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away. When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the long-expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till he learned they were close to Thornton ”

“ Thornton, was a gambler by profession, born and raised in the city of St. Louis. Although a man of very bad character, yet there is placed to his credit on the great register certain acts of a charitable nature that could hardly be expected from such an individual. He was always ready to assist the needy, and when money was required for the unfortunate had been known to contribute hundreds of dollars at a single time. He was hung by a vigilance committee in Carson Valley a few years later for being implicated in a murder and cattle stealing scrape. ”

“ Thornton spoke calmly and dispassionately.
“True. It is absurd in me; but I admire one who has for a moment forgotten his own interests or safety in thinking of others.”
“That does very well for poetry, but not in real life.”
“In real life, such as that on board the Tecumseh?” murmured Mrs. Thornton, with drooping eyelids.
“You are getting excited, my dear,” said Thornton, patiently, with the air of a wise father who overlooks the petulance of his child. “I will go on. I had business on the Continent when poor Brandon’s ruin occurred. ”

“ And at sight of Thornton, mechanically, as second nature to him, outwardly, like a mask, there came a smile upon his working lips, a suave, unconcerned composure to his face; while inwardly, in his dazed, fogged brain where chaos raged, surged an impulse to fling himself upon the other, wreck a mad vengeance upon the man—and then swift upon the heels of this an impulse to refrain, for if Helena was straight why should he harm Thornton—and then the shuttle again—why should he not—hadn't Helena said that she had learned what love was last night—and last night she had been with Thornton. ”

“ Nothing could be more stupid, in fact. If this man had committed the crime and had thus voluntarily returned to the road house, he would be prepared. He would have emptied his pockets, he certainly would have had enough brains to dispose of so tell-tale a bit of evidence as a handkerchief with slits let into it.
"Maybe," said Thornton quietly, and she did not detect the contemptuous insolence under the slow words until he had nearly completed his meaning, "you'd like to have me tell you where I'm riding from and why? ”

“ So back to Boston they had gone, Thornton contenting himself with the reflection that he could go ahead in Boston almost as well as in Europe; that fortunately he was not tied by money wants, and that the Camberton laboratories were always open to him. When the little daughter came he schemed a new move; he was offered a headship of a laboratory somewhere in the middle West. He began to feel the force of his father's remarks about transplanting.
Yet they never went. Another man got the appointment while he was persuading his wife. Her mother was so lonely, now that Ruby was living in New York. ”

“ The latter talent was the forte of Matthew Thornton born in Ireland in 1714 and came to this country with his father in 1717 who settled at Wiscasset in Maine. This son received a good academical education and was greatly admired for industry, correct deportment and blandness of manners. After completing his course at school he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. Grant of Leicester, Mass. He made rapid progress in the acquisition of that important department of science and gave great promise of future usefulness. ”

“ This was apparently no city maiden, come out for a sentimental stroll, for down she went on her knees before a clump of wood violets growing about an old stump. Eagerly she seized her trowel, carefully loosened the earth about them, and lifted them almost reverently into her basket.
Mr. Thornton was a devout admirer of the beautiful in art and nature, but he had not lived thirty years without knowing that a fair face and form may hide a hollow heart. He had studied, in the galleries of Europe, perfect faces, painted by the old masters ”

“ James Thornton lived and moved and had his being.
Down deep in her heart of hearts, Nancy Warren knew that she was far more like her mother than that very lovely and very conventional woman dreamed.
She was a luxury-loving soul—things that were mere accidents to other women were absolute necessities to her. With a longing that almost amounted to a passion, she craved jewels, good gowns, laces and all the other dear, delightful pomps and vanities of this world, which only a plethoric purse can procure. ”

“ Thornton—convinced by good reasons—that it is not a young man's duty to ruin his own prospects and his own influence by undertaking something as impracticable as though he tried to be a meteor by holding a candle in his hand and jumping off a roof. ”

“ Mr. Thornton's personal attendant was the late lord's faithful Louis, who was excellent as valet and nurse, but who, being used to the quiet magnificence of Kilrush, had an ill-concealed contempt for a master who locked up his money, and was uneasy about the safety of his trinkets. With them went a young medical man whom Antonia had engaged to take charge of her father's health—a needless precaution, Mr. Thornton protested, but which was justified by the fact that he was often ailing, and was nervous and apprehensive about himself. ”

“ So he set himself resolutely to work, and soon knew all that his school-teacher, a college graduate, could teach him. Thornton really was a complete master of geometry, trigonometry, higher algebra, and even the more advanced branches of mathematics. His advance in astronomy was now rapid. He even put in a summer at uncongenial labor in order to earn money enough to buy three or four second-hand instruments. He never dreamed that he might turn his knowledge to practical use ”

“ Thornton nodded his head.
"That is so," he agreed; "but there is the time to consider—it would take a long time to raise that amount."
"No," said Madison. "A few months at the outside. Thornton"—he reached out and laid his hand impressively on the other's sleeve—we are not dealing with ordinary things here—we have witnessed this afternoon a sight that should teach us that. Here, in this very room, beside us now, your wife, that little boy, is evidence of power beyond anything we have ever known before. ”

“ For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for John Thornton that he lost his head. ”

“ Thomas Thornton, born in London in 1757, was sent to the Charterhouse, where there is a Thornton on the records for 1766, and completed his education at Glasgow University. On entering into possession of his father's estate he became a zealous sportsman, and revived falconry. ”

“ There's another shack where a man and his wife live just a little off the trail and about seven miles further on. It'll be better than trying to make Wendell's place."
CHAPTER IX THE DOUBLE THEFT After that there were no more uncomfortable silences in the Harte cabin. Thornton found a lamp, lighted it and placed it on the table. And with the act he seemed to take upon himself the part of host, playing it with a quiet courtesy and gentleness fitting well with the unconscious grace of his lithe body and with the kindliness softening his dark eyes. ”