Scarborough

“ Scarborough had measured his task—to lift that convention from the slough of sordidness to which the wiles and bribes of Dumont and his clique had lured it; to set it in the highroad of what he believed with all his intensity to be the high-road of right. Usually he spoke with feeling strongly repressed; but he knew that if he was to win that day against such odds he must take those delegates by surprise and by storm, must win in a suddenly descended whirlwind of passion that would engulf calculation and craft, sordidness and cynicism. ”

“ What would be Buston and two thousand a year, as compared with all the glories and limitless income of the great Tretton property? Captain Scarborough, with his mustaches and magnificence, was just the man who would be sure to become a peer. She had always heard the income fixed at thirty thousand a year. What would a few debts signify to thirty thousand a year? Such had been her thoughts up to the period of Captain Scarborough's late visit, when he had come to Cheltenham, and had renewed his demand for Florence's hand somewhat roughly. ”

“ He always had liked him, for Scarborough had never given any trouble; he seemed more mature than most of the boys, more mature even than Louis Collingwood. He was not so popular, because he maintained a certain dignity and reserve; even Westby seemed to stand somewhat in awe of Scarborough. He was, as Irving understood, the best oarsman in the school, captain of the school crew, besides being the crack shot-putter and hammer-thrower; if he and Collingwood had together chosen to throw their influence against a new master, life would indeed have been hard. ”

“ Yorkshire men are canny, and good at a bargain and no better judges of horseflesh are found anywhere. The only drawback connected with Scarborough is its distance from London, but that is really only a drawback to Londoners. The Scarborough man is rather proud of the fact. He looks with pity upon the benighted south of England man, and has no words to express his contempt for the finnicky foreigner, who comes to Scarborough and drinks sour red wine, instead of quaffing huge draughts of the glorious old Yorkshire ale. ”

“ But the simplest maiden or the silliest widow in society, is seldom taken in by him.
There, however, at Scarborough, was an inexperienced poor little creature from the Highlands, who had never in her life seen any one more attractive than the red-headed heroes of her native hills, and who, having aurific tresses of her own, was particularly prejudiced against that splendid hue, and fatally ensnared by the raven ringlets and dark eyes of this professional lady-killer. ”

“ Scarborough thought Whitney winced; but his reply was bland and frank enough. He turned to Dr. Hargrave. "The senator is right," said he. "I shall vote with him."
"Then it is settled," said Scarborough. "Ranger is to have absolute charge."
Dr. Hargrave was now showing every sign of his great age; the anguish of imminent despair was in his deep-set eyes and in his broken, trembling voice as he cried: "Gentlemen, this is madness! Charles, I implore you, do not take such precipitate action in so vital a matter! Let us talk it over—think it over. The life of the university is at stake!" ”

“ Quite lately a wide road with an embankment has been built from bay to bay round the base of the castle promontory. Those who have loved the rough rocks that once were here feel naturally that this new drive spoils the beauty of the place. But, after all, Scarborough is not designed for lovers of wild nature. The mischief was done here long ago. The new drive is a boon to thousands who have to take their pleasure in bath-chairs, and in this place of esplanades and lawn-tennis court and smart clothes a little more artificiality is no great grievance. ”

“ They had brought from New York to look after them and their belongings the first English manservant Battle Field had seen.
Scarborough kept up his college work; he continued regularly to attend the Literary Society and to be its most promising orator and debater; he committed no overt act—others might break the college rules, might be publicly intoxicated and noisy, but he was always master of himself and of the situation. Some of the fanatical among the religious students believed and said that he had sold himself to the devil. ”

“ Sometimes he sought relaxation in Scarborough, where fashionable beaux 'danced with the pretty ladies all night,' and hundreds of Yorkshire country bumpkins 'played the inferior parts; and, as it were, [216] only tumble, whilst the others dance upon the high ropes of gallantry.' Scarborough was full of Jacobites: the popular feeling was then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme. ”

“ The hydrography of the district is remarkable, the Derwent, which flows S.W. to the Ouse and so to the Humber, having one of its sources near Scarborough within 2 m. of the sea. The climate is healthy and temperate; average temperature, 59·2° F. in July, and in January, 37·7.
The chief buildings of Scarborough apart from those already considered are the town hall, market hall and public hall, several modern churches and chapels, and charitable and benevolent institutions. The harbour, enclosed by piers and divided into two basins, lies on the south side of the castle peninsula. ”

“ The claims of Scarborough to rank and fame are of a different though scarcely inferior character. Its position above the Northern Ocean is wild and grand in the extreme. Its area, defined and protected by Nature, is calculated to contain, not a garrison, but an army; and its keep, in itself equal to Richmond or most other Norman structures, is here not a citadel but the mere gateway and key to what is really the fortress, and which rises from the seashore above and behind it. ”

“ I have not quarrelled with Augustus Scarborough. He is welcome to his suspicions if he chooses to entertain them. I should have liked him better if he had not brought me down to Tretton, so as to extract from me whatever he can. I shall be more guarded in future in speaking of Mountjoy Scarborough ”

“ Will you extend your kindness so far as to come to Tretton for any time you may please to name beyond two or three days? I am sorry to say that your friend Augustus Scarborough cannot be here to meet you. My other son, Mountjoy, may be here. If you wish to escape him, I will endeavor so to fix the time when I shall have heard from you. But I think there need be no ill blood there. Neither of you did anything of which you are, probably, ashamed; though as an old man I am bound to express my disapproval. ”

“ But to justify himself to the world at large, he picks up a scandalous story from a man like Augustus Scarborough, and immediately not a man in the county will speak to me. I say that that is enough to break a man's heart,—not the injury done which a man should bear, but the injustice of the doing. Who wants his beggarly allowance! He can do as he likes about his own money. I shall never ask him for his money. But that he should tell such a lie as this about the county is more than a man can endure."
"What was it that did happen?" asked Joshua. ”

“ We spent two days at Malton with our dear friends Ann and Esther Priestman, in their delightful new abode on the bank of the river: we were comforted in being at meeting with them on First-day. On Second-day we came to Scarborough, and soon procured two rooms near our own former residence. The sea air and exercise are beneficial to the health of my M.Y. and myself. Scarborough is certainly a most delightful place. The changes in the little society here are great: we miss many whom we knew and loved when we were resident here. ”

“ No “shadowy pomp of woods” arrests the eye looking landwards, but a region bleak and bare in aspect rolling away to the distant wolds, the line of uplands which, sweeping round, approaches the coast about Scarborough. The village with its windmill, and the few farms that are in sight, look naked and comfortless: not an inviting territory for an invader given to the picturesque. But seawards, and along the rugged front of the cliffs, grandeur and variety exert their charm. Here the up-piled chalk flings out a bold perpendicular buttress, solid from base to summit ”

“ But the remembrance of the old sounds came back upon his ear; and the consciousness that, before his father's treatment of him, he had been known to the world at large as Captain Scarborough, of Tretton.
"Well, well; pounds and fives," said Vignolles. "It's better than pottering away at ecarte at a pound a game. Of course a man could win something if the games were to run all one way; but where they alternate so quickly it amounts to nothing. You've got the first dummy, Scarborough. Where will you sit? Which cards will you take? ”

“ Grey condemns him, and all the world must condemn him. One cannot make an apology for him without being ready to throw all truth and all morality to the dogs. But if you can imagine for yourself a state of things in which neither truth nor morality shall be thought essential, then old Mr. Scarborough would be your hero. ”

“ That he is beginning to understand why you came to Scarborough Square; to grasp the necessity of human contact for human interpretation. He, too, is seeing himself, his life, his world, from the viewpoint of Scarborough Square, and what he sees gives neither peace nor pride nor satisfaction. He will never see so clearly as you, perhaps, but certain cynicisms, certain intolerances, certain indifferences and endurances will yield to keener perception of the necessity for new purposes in life. ”

“ Then up and spoke Augustus Scarborough. He rose to his feet, and the very fact of his doing so quieted for a time the exuberant mirth of the party. "Gentlemen, Mr. Hart speaks to you of honesty. I am not going to boast of my own. I am here to consent to the expenditure of a very large sum of money, for which I am to get nothing, and which, if not paid to you, will all go into my own pocket;—unless you believed that you wouldn't be here to meet me."
"We don't believe nothing," said Hart.
"Mr. Hart, you should let Mr. Scarborough speak," said Tyrrwhit. ”

“ He had done all this in such a manner that, as far as Harry knew, the law could not touch him, though all the world was aware of his iniquity. And now he lay boasting of what he had done. It was necessary that Harry should say something as he rose from his seat, and he lamely expressed a wish that Mr. Scarborough might quickly recover. "No, my dear fellow," said the squire; "men do not recover when they are brought to such straits as I am in. Nor do I wish it. Were I to live, Augustus would feel the second injustice to be quite intolerable. ”

“ And Harry, having been somewhat under a cloud for the last six months, was now emerging from it brighter than ever. Even Uncle Prosper could not do without him. That terrible Miss Thoroughbung had thrown a gloom over Buston Hall which could only be removed, as the squire himself had felt, by the coming of the natural heir. Harry was indispensable, and was no longer felt by any one to be a burden.
It was now the end of March. Old Mr. Scarborough was dead and buried, and Mountjoy was living at Tretton. Nothing had been heard of his coming up to London. ”

“ Scarborough, could find a real interest in nothing else. He had begun his investigations with a thorough wish to discover that Mountjoy Scarborough was, in truth, the heir. Though he had never loved the young man, and, as he went on with his investigations, became aware that the whole property would go to the creditors should he succeed in proving that Mountjoy was the heir, yet for the sake of abstract honesty he was most anxious that it should be so. And he could not bear to think that he and other lawyers had been taken in by the wily craft of such a man as the Squire of Tretton. ”

“ When a person is driven over, and then told to keep out of the way, he receives Scarborough-warning. Fuller says the proverb alludes to an event which happened at that place in 1557, when Thomas Stafford seized upon Scarborough Castle before the townsmen had the least notice of his approach. ”

“ And so it came to pass that Pierson went to bed at the sound of Scarborough's two-o'clock rising gong and pieced out his sleep with an occasional nap in recitations and lectures and for an hour or two late in the afternoon. He was able once more to play poker as late as he liked, and often had time for reading before the gong sounded. And Scarborough was equally delighted with the new plan. "I gain at least one hour a day, perhaps two," he said. ”

“ Captain Scarborough, when he left his father's rooms, and found himself going out from the Albany into Piccadilly, was an infuriated but at the same time a most wretched man. He did believe that a conspiracy had been hatched, and he was resolved to do his best to defeat it, let the effect be what it might on the property; but yet there was a strong feeling in his breast that the fraud would be successful. No man could possibly be environed by worse circumstances as to his own condition. ”

“ The cloud sat very black upon Mountjoy Scarborough's face as he said this, and the blacker it sat the more Mr. Grey liked him. If something could be done to redeem from ruin a young man who so felt about his mother,—who so felt about his mother simply because she had been his mother,—it would be a good thing to do. Augustus had entertained no such feeling. He had said to Mr. Grey, as he had said also to his brother, that "he had not known the lady." ”