Thomas Crawford

“ After Crawford's death the lordship of Crawford was, on 21 Jan. 1495–6, bestowed on the Earl of Angus, it being declared forfeited by the Duke of Montrose, on account of his having sold it or part of it without the king's consent (Reg. Mag. Sig. 1424–1513, entry 2298) .
By his wife, eldest daughter of James, first lord Hamilton, he had two sons—Alexander, lord Lindsay, and John, master of Crawford, who became sixth earl. The two brothers in 1489 quarrelled and fought, when the elder was mortally wounded. The Duke of Montrose married as his second wife Margaret Carmichael. ”

“ He soon acquired great proficiency in the mode of warfare practised by the Russians, and excited special admiration by his horsemanship and his prowess with the sword. After the retreat of Munich to Kiow, Crawford left him and joined the imperialists near Belgrade. When the army went into winter quarters, he accompanied Prince Eugène's regiment to Comorra, and thence proceeded to Vienna, still occupying his leisure chiefly in military studies. ”

“ In revenge of the murder Crawford was, on 5 July 1607, while accompanied by Lord Spynie, attacked by the relatives of Sir Walter, lord Spynie [see Lindsay, Alexander, first Lord Spynie] , being slain in the brawl and Crawford wounded. On 10 May 1607–8, Crawford appeared before the council and took the oath of allegiance (ib. viii. 59) , but was subsequently, on many occasions, proceeded against for his lawless proceedings. Ultimately his relatives, to prevent further alienations of the estates, placed him under surveillance in the castle of Edinburgh, where he died in February 1621. ”

“ The paper said you were related to the English nobility, and hinted that Miss Claybourne was the true explanation of your coming to Deep Harbor. When the evening paper came out, the headline man boosted you up a notch higher—something about 'English peer's son nursed by local society girl'—say, you furnished 'em great stuff for three days."
"That must be the real reason 'mother' went to Asheville," I reflected.
"Ted, what I don't understand is how Prospero could slip anything like that over on you. As a chemist you ought to know enough to look out for fumes. How'd he do it? Hypnotize you?" ”

“ I want brass tacks."
"There's not a word of truth in it. We are just what our books show us to be."
He smiled and chewed his cigar. "That's what I thought you would say," he chuckled. "What security do you offer?"
"Our notes at thirty days backed by the contracts which you will take over if we fall down."
"Not good enough, Edward. You must put up the plant."
With this he handed me the telephone which stood on his desk. I got through to Knowlton at the office, the while my financier-friend watched and listened. In the end, we had no option but to give way. ”

“ I knew it was no mood for success; yet I did not know how to fight against it.
"Now, Ted," said a crisp voice beside me, "we reach Deep Harbor at five-thirty A. M. That will give us time for breakfast, and get out to the factory by seven—when the whistle blows."
"Good heavens!" I thought with a start, coming back to the Pullman and reality with a horrible jerk. "Seven—" but words failed me.
"You'll have a chance to glance around the machine shop and pick out a location for the testing laboratory before the office force get down. ”

“ Quartel's gun crashed from ahead of them, but Crawford was too taken up with reining the black to use his Henry. He had that blurred impression of violent undulation around him. There was another snapping thud against Africano's buckskin shield, and a big diamondback fell to the ground beneath them as they went by.
Then it was the shrill scream from Huerta's copperbottom ahead. Crawford saw the huge rattler dropping off the animal's rump, and the copperbottom started to buck.
"There it is," screamed Huerta, "there it is!"
"Don't lose your head," shouted Crawford. "Get him to running again. ”

“ Nervous and exhausted by all she had felt and been made to feel since the afternoon, she held her breath and waited.
The regular tread of a man booted and spurred came relentlessly towards her, without haste and without pause. No one who wore spurs but her father ever came that way. She listened breathlessly to the hollow echoes, and turned her eyes along the wall of the embrasure. In a moment she must see his gaunt figure, and the moonlight would be white on his short grey beard. ”

“ Never had incurably wounded pride forged itself a more consummately impenetrable mask; never had bravado achieved so triumphant an imitation of sincerity. In his wife's absence, Crawford never alluded to her; but, in her presence, he was an embodiment of deference and attentive civility. ”

“ The blood beat more fiercely in the young man’s veins, his black eyes gleamed yet more brightly, his pale, high-curved nostrils quivered at every breath he drew. The throbbings of his heart unseated his thoughts and strongly took possession of the government of his body. Under an irresistible impulse he fell upon his knees beside Unorna, covering her marble hand with all his lean, dark fingers and pressing his forehead upon them, as though he had found and grasped all that could be dear to him in life. ”

“ Then it was the shadowy figure moving out of the darkness down the trail, and Crawford yanked on the maguey and it slipped off the branch and the branch snapped up with a soft crackle and caused the figure to whirl that way, his gun crashing, his back toward the thicket in which Crawford lay.
"Maybe you're a dangerous man," screamed Crawford in a terrible release, leaping to his feet and throwing himself bodily at the man, who was still firing wildly into the opposite thicket, "but this is one bronc you'll wish to hell you never climbed on." ”

“ Broke his gay calumet of flow'rs, and cast
His useless wampun, beaded with cool dews,
Far from him, northward; his long, ruddy spear
Flung sunward, whence it came, and his soft locks
Of warm, fine haze grew silver as the birch.
His wigwam of green leaves began to shake;
The crackling rice-beds scolded harsh like squaws:
The small ponds pouted up their silver lips;
The great lakes ey'd the mountains, whisper'd "Ugh!"
"Are ye so tall, O chiefs? Not taller than
Our plumes can reach." ”

“ The figure of the gray old man grew mystically to gigantic and unearthly size, his vast old hands stretched forth their skinny palms to receive the great curtain as it descended between the moonlight and the sleeping earth. His eyes were as stars, his hoary head rose majestically to an incalculable height; still the thick, all-wrapping mist came down, falling on horse and rider and wrestler and robber and Amir; hiding all, covering all, folding all, in its soft samite arms, till not a man's own hand was visible to him a span's length from his face. ”

“ Crawford stood there facing him, breathing heavily. "What are you trying to do, Huerta?"
"Give you, shall we say, an illustration," said Huerta. "Don't you think I know what is the matter with you, Crawford? Ever since I first saw you watching Africano out in the corral. Perhaps the others are still groping. They sense something not quite right in you, Crawford. But they don't know for sure, yet. I know, Crawford." He said the last softly, positively, watching Crawford. He took a drag on the cigarette. "It must be a terrible thing to live with constantly. ”

“ Since the Revolution, there has scarcely been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford was an eminent type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple in his habits, disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display—strictly moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other without abundant cause. He was never known to desert a friend or shrink from a foe. ”

“ But Annetta filled the tumbler with pure water, and emptied it again.
"At last!" she exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction. "What thirst! I seemed to have eaten ashes! And now I thank you, Sor Tommaso, and I am going home; for it is Ave Maria, and I do not wish to make a bad meeting in the dark as happened to you. Ugly assassins! I will never forgive them, never! What am I to say at home? That you will come to supper one of these days?"
"Eh, if God wills," answered the doctor. "I will be accompanied by Serafina."
"I!" exclaimed the old woman. "I am afraid even of a cat! ”

“ We gathered Helen up between us and carried her out.
"You'll look after Leonidas too, won't you, Ted?" she said. "My knee will be enough for mother for one day."
The carriage drove away with Mr. Claybourne still shouting his thanks at the Tylers, with an "If I can do anything for you, Henry, look in at my office Monday." As "Henery" and I made our way to the barn to get Leonidas and the horses I said: "Mr. Tyler, if you will also stop at my office on Monday, you'll find a package of excellent medicine for rheumatism." ”

“ For his own part he thought problem novels odious, cared nothing for dialect or local colour, believed it a mistake to make a novel too minute a picture of one generation lest another should think it “old-fashioned,” and preferred to regard the novel as a sort of “pocket-theatre”—with ideals, it should be added, much like those of the British and American stage from 1870 to 1890.
Thus far Crawford was carried by his cosmopolitan training and ideals: he believed that human beings are much the same everywhere and can be made intelligible everywhere if reported lucidly and discreetly. ”

“ The characters are all good types, the plot is strong, and the Italian atmosphere tempers the sensational occurrences to the colder northern imagination.”
Reviewed by W. M. Payne.
“In this last novel Crawford is at his best. He writes with the charm and the originality of a man at the full tide of his powers.”
“The story is ingenious, the sketches of scenery and peasantry admirable, the comments by the way philosophic and thoughtful; the English, of course, of the best-regulated. The reader for the most part, however, remains outside.” ”

“ The Ingrams anticipated by several weeks their projected departure for Newport—they had given out that they were to spend the summer there—and, quitting New York, quite left, like the gentleman in "The School for Scandal," their reputations behind them.
I continued to observe Crawford with interest, and, although I did full justice to his wisdom and self-control, when the summer arrived I was ill at ease about him. He led exactly the life he had led before his engagement, and mingled with society; neither more nor less. ”

“ American critic, Stoddard, says:—“That Crawford is a man with many talents, and with great fertility of invention, is evident in every story that he has written. He has written more good stories and in more diverse ways than any English or American novelist. It does not seem to matter to him what countries or periods he deals with, or what kind of personages he draws, he is always equal to what he undertakes.” It may interest you, in ending this biographic sketch, to add that he is a convert to the Catholic Church, and with the American critic’s idea in view, a cosmopolitan. ”

“ I exclaimed. It was rather a shock, for in Deep Harbor I had been well paid. "I can get a better job on my own."
"I have no doubt of it," replied my father. "Your chemical work is reported as expert. If you want to back out now and leave me in the lurch, go ahead."
I opened my mouth to speak—and paused. A recollection of my interview with Knowlton on this very subject crossed my mind. I heard him say—"play the skunk and leave you flat, Ted." On the other hand, what was my duty to Helen?
"We'll be paying dividends after the first twelve months, Ted. Then you'll be all right. ”

“ The vicar had ordered his dog-cart for her and Nellie, but as the night had turned out better than had been expected Mr. Juxon's groom had not come down from the Hall. Both he and John would be glad of the walk; it had not rained for two days and the roads were dry.
"Look here," said the squire, as they rose to take their leave, "Mr. Short had better go as far as the cottage in the dog-cart, to see Mrs. Goddard home. I will go ahead on foot—I shall probably be there as soon as you. There is not room for us all, and somebody must go with her, you know. ”

“ I said, "is an act of God. Steamer tickets and insurance policies specially provide for no liability for such. Even a Jevons is powerless in the face of the handiwork of Providence."
"Sit down, Ted, and let me finish. It makes me ill to see you messing up those ducklings," my mother said. Willingly I changed places. To my secret joy she splashed some gravy on the table cloth. I tried to kick Helen under the table, but all I did was to make an awful crash against one of the complicated gate legs. ”

“ Crawford tried several kinds of business, without succeeding in any. His habits were not strictly temperate, and he had died two years previous. His wife hired a house in Clinton Place, and took boarders, barely succeeding in making both ends meet at the end of the year. ”

“ Even Crawford, than whom none ever possessed a more rapid or facile hand, could never have accomplished half the immense amount of work which pressed upon him in his later years, had he not had more than one pair of hands to aid him in giving outward form to the images in his fertile brain. ”

“ Mr. Claybourne waited patiently for the first paroxysm to pass. I held Helen's hand.
"It will have to be some time in July," Mr. Claybourne resumed, "as Ted's father has ordered him to sail for England on August first."
"I—I—didn't expect you to turn against me too," sobbed and choked Mrs. Claybourne, "and stand by while our only da—daughter was ca—carried off to—to England."
Mr. Claybourne returned gently and patiently to the attack. "Now, mother, we went all through this before when they were engaged. It is natural for two engaged people to get married." ”