Thomas Harrington

“ Harrington laughed, and advancing, took up a bit of chalk from the floor, and marked a line on the post, as much above his own head as the notch had been above the fencing-master’s. Then poising a second, he threw up his leg, and brought away chalk on his boot. There was a general burst of acclamation.
“Ah, ha! it is grand—it is superb!” cried Monsieur Bagasse. “Missr Harrin’ton, he can keek wis me, he can fence wis me, he can shoot wis me, he can engage wis me in ze broadsword—ze single-steek, he can do everysing so I can. It is his talent. Sacrebleu! He is for-r-mi-dabble.” ”

“ Harrington put forth a series of similes that should make any dead orator turn in his grave. The nation was successively held up to our admiration in the guise of a sick man, a cripple, a banker, a theatrical company, and a peddler of tape and buttons. We were bankrupt, diseased; and our bones, like those of the Psalmist, were all out of joint; and if our hearts did not become like melting wax in the midst of our bodies, it was not the fault of Mr. John Harrington, but rather was it due to the hardening of those organs against the voice of the charmer. ”

“ A Harrington is anything but a coward. I did go and because I am devoted to your interests. That very morning, I saw announced in the paper, just beneath poor Andrew’s hand, as he held it up at the breakfast-table, reading it, I saw among the deaths, Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay, Baronet, of quinsy! Twice that good man has come to my rescue! Oh! I welcomed him as a piece of Providence! I turned and said to Harriet, ‘I see they have put poor Papa in the paper.’ Harriet was staggered. I took the paper from Andrew, and pointed it to her. She has no readiness. ”

“ Sinking still lower, he crept to the edge of the wharf, lay flat, and gazed at the boats, through the dense darkness, with straining eyes. In a moment the lightning flashed again, and he saw a single man standing in one of the vessels, looking out to sea, with his back to him, and his hands in the pockets of a sou’wester. At a glance, Harrington knew, by the look of his figure, that he was a sailor, and overjoyed that he had but one to deal with, he instantly rose, drew his pistol from his breast, put on his hat, and with a noiseless step glided down the pier to the ladder. ”

“ She sleeps, my noble-hearted Muriel—she who, misled by my proud, spleenful folly, thinks I have given my heart to Harrington. And he! oh, how can he forgive me when I tell him—but he will—that noble nature cannot scorn me; he will understand and pity and pardon. Let me only tell him frankly—let me atone for all my wrong by humbling myself before him; let me crave his compassion and forgiveness, and so be fitter to go from earth to my Savior’s rest. To-morrow I will depart from hence, and before I go I will see Harrington and Muriel, and make my peace with them. ”

“ The army that swore terribly in Flanders, never swore worse than he in his wrath. Lafitte, Atkins, Boston, Boston merchants, kidnappers, slaveholders, and slavery in the abstract and in the concrete, did he shower with curses. Never had the Captain such a backsliding before. Harrington, who perhaps thought of Sterne’s Recording Angel, with his disposition to blot out with tears the record of what Muriel called good sins, let him rip away till, as the man in the play says, he got all the bad stuff out of him, and tumbled into his seat exhausted with his rage. ”

“ He followed faithfully the fortunes of the fallen King, never saying even to the King himself a word in contradiction of his own principles of liberty, and finding nothing in his principles or in his temper that should prevent him from paying honor to his sovereign, and seeking to secure for him a happy issue out of his afflictions. Antony à Wood says that, “His Majesty loved Harrington’s company, and, finding him to be an ingenious man, chose rather to converse with him than with others of his chamber: they had often discourses concerning government ”

“ It is for the medical character to develop the mysteries of this condition of man; but this moral phenomenon of the partial delusions of the noblest intellect remains an enigma they have not yet solved. Harrington never recovered his physical energy, while his “Understanding” betrayed no symptoms of any decay in the exercise of his vigorous faculties.
707
There is one dark cloud which dusks the lustre of the name of Harrington. Opening the volume of his works, we are startled by an elaborate treatise on “The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy.” ”

“ Harrington made himself perfectly at home. Walking around behind the counter, he removed his derby hat and hung it on a nail; then he drew from his pocket a black silk skullcap and pulled it carefully down over a head prematurely bald. ”

“ The negro still fumbling at the blanket, without undoing it, and sighing piteously, Harrington laid his watch on the table, and stepping forward, unwound the wrappage from his neck, fold after fold, pulled it off, and disclosed an iron collar with a prong, and the letters distinct upon it—Lafitte Brothers, New Orleans. ”

“ The blood of Harrington seemed turned to ice as he gazed, and his hair rose.
“In the name of God,” he gasped, “what manner of man are you?”
The figure did not answer, but stared at him and trembled.
Harrington’s heart was stout, and conquering at once his affright and the sickening disgust which the stench gave him, he made one stride nearer to the figure.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?” he demanded. ”

“ Harrington, astonished beyond measure, sat in silence, wondering what object Muriel could have in telling him this, all his being, meanwhile, one burning flush of grief and pain.
“To which,” pursued Muriel, “Monsieur Bagasse replied in his French patois to this effect: ‘Why is it odd that a rich and beautiful lady should love Mr. Harrington. Is it odd because he wears an old coat? Ah, Mr. Witherlee, there are duchesses that love the old coat because it covers the nobility of heart they also love! ”

“ Harrington was a new man and he came from the Virginia mountains, and was most obliging and altogether engaging. This was all the information acquired even by the indefatigable Miss Mollie Merk, whose success in extracting from individuals information it was their dearest desire to conceal had made her a star member of the Searchlight's staff. It was to Miss Merk, however, that Harrington announced his first important discovery. Leaning across her desk one evening after his successor had taken the "car," the new elevator man touched a subject much upon his mind. ”

“ Let me at him, till I cut his heart out!”
“Listen to me, Brown,” said Harrington, in a solemn and majestic voice, fronting the roused passion of the negro with his soul divinely splendid in his eyes. “You are a brave man and the son of the brave. Your father fought in the black corps with Jackson, at New Orleans. Face to face with the foe, in honorable war. You yourself, walked from slavery in Louisiana to freedom in Massachusetts, knife in hand, through a land of enemies. You slew the hounds that followed you. You struck dead the armed hunters that opposed you. ”

“ Earthly cares and hopes forgotten, earthly strifes removed and dim, and the sorrow of their hopeless love so chastened and sanctified in the nobleness of mutual sacrifice that it knew no touch of pain.
A long, mysterious sigh of the night-wind breathed around the dwelling, and stole into the peace of their minds. Harrington smiled, and his heart rose in benediction as he silently laid his hands upon the fair and sacred head of his beloved.
“The night deepens on, Muriel, and we must part,” he gently murmured. ”

“ As the first bright years of prosperity vanished, and the drought and financial worries all but crushed Harrington under the weight of his misfortunes, and his complaining, irritable wife rendered his existence at home almost unbearable, her brave spirit kept his from sinking under the incessant strain of his anxieties. ”

“ Why is zat?”
Harrington’s maxillary muscles wrinkled, and his teeth flashed in an amused laugh, while his face grew scarlet at this complimentary recognition of the human kindness that was so mighty in him.
“Bagasse,” said he, “don’t praise me for having the feelings of a man. If you could have seen the poor fellow when I found him in the street, and if you could have heard his account of the life he had been living, you would feel as badly as I did. But here’s Wentworth and the Captain at last,” he added, catching sight of them from the window near him, as they entered the garden gate. ”

“ You know he’s a furious Abolitionist.”
[89]
“Ah, Miss’r Witterly,” said the old Frenchman, with a deprecating shrug and grimace, “zat is not good fon. Miss’r Harrin’ton is vair fine young zhentilman. If he worsheep ze neeger, pardieu, Hypolite Bagasse worsheep ze neeger wis him. Zat is only what you call ze attachment zoo libertee. Ah, Miss’r Witterly, zat Miss’r Harrington, so kind, so strong, so good, he is friend of ze neeger, of ze Iris’man, of ze Frenchman, of ze poor fellow, of ze littel child, of ze small fly on ze window, of ze vair old devail himself, of evairybody. ”

“ In fact they found he was neither a useful nor a popular man. Talents and information of a commanding order may dispense with the minor morals of good manners; but Harrington’s conceit was not atoned for by any such qualifications; and arrogance that is not backed by decided talent and sound information meets with small favor from the community at large. ”

“ The negro stood touched, but irresolute. Harrington saw that the crisis had come, and that a feather either way would turn the scale. A desperate inspiration came to him, and with a bound he tore open the door of the inner room, and dragged Lafitte front to front with the negro.
“Look at him!” he cried. “Helpless, miserable, merciless wretch, I cast him on your mercy! Show him what it is to be a man. Teach him the lesson that he never learned—how the brave can spare; and let him crawl home with the shame upon him that he owes his life to the compassion of the people he would destroy!” ”

“ He thinks he can do anything he wants, and it won't make no diff'runce. But he can't go no further with me. I've jest made up my mind to take a stand, even ef I have to go to that rich girl and show her them childern."
The father in him almost shuddered at the vernacular. Of what could Harrington have been thinking when he married this woman—Harrington, who had been brought up amid the refinements of life, and been almost too sensitive to unpleasant things? ”

“ His presence seems to pervade the whole house. The servants look more cheerful when he speaks to them. His mother brightens up, and throws off her languor as she hears his tread upon the veranda. Even the General's courtly politeness is toned down into something like affection, and all his artificial stateliness takes its natural level, when contrasted by the simple dignity of this young man's nature. Indeed, until James Harrington came, I had no idea how superficial and untrue was the character of my guardian. ”

“ Harrington laughed, with an expression and gesture of deprecation.
“How many men could you fight together, Monsoor?” asked Palmer.
“Me? I fight you all. Evairy one. Togezzer,” replied the Frenchman.
“Mawdoo!” ejaculated Palmer. “Isn’t he a trump!”
“Come, Bagasse, that will do for the marines,” said Wentworth. “You can’t do it.”
“Ah,” replied the fencing-master, “you zink not? Bah! Come, I show you.”
[110]
In a minute he had seven or eight of them, Wentworth, Vukovich, Palmer and Fisk included, masked and foiled. Then putting his back to the wall, he directed them to set upon him. ”

“ Zen if ze seven men wish zoo fight, zey sall fight wis you and me, and zey find out, by dam, zat we is fourteen!”
“Bravo, you old Gascon!” cried Wentworth, slapping him on the shoulder. “Let him go, Harrington. Don’t refuse.”
“But, Bagasse,” said Harrington, “you have a wife, and I can’t consent that you should put your life in danger on my affair.”
“Chut! poo, poo!” answered the fencing-master. “Ex-cuse me, Missr Harrin’ton, but zat is feedelstick! ”

“ Harrington proceeded. "He had left the good old country, meaning England, ten years ago, to seek his fortune. No need to speak of his ups and downs, of which he had many. He was a man of few friends; he had left nothing behind him in England but one little girl, of whom he was exceedingly fond. This little girl was delicate and needed more than the man could send her. He worked very hard for her, he led a clean life for her sake. and after many adventures he reached California, and there, together with a partner called Challis, be struck a rich placer of gold. ”

“ Which induced you to increase your expenses, by raising the rent,” bantered Harrington.
“Collected for him these six years back,” continued the Captain, pensively. “Lem Atkins, you know.”
“Lemuel Atkins!” exclaimed Harrington, leaning forward. “Why that’s Mrs. Eastman’s brother.”
“Certain. Cotton merchant on Long Wharf, and a black sheep he is too. Webster Whig—pro-slavery up to the hub—reg’lar aristocrat every way. He was one of the Fifteen Hundred Scoundrels, as Phillips called ’em. ”

“ John Harrington, through five and thirty years of his life, had believed that the patient labor of a powerful intellect could suffice to a man, in its results, for the attainment of all that humanity most honors, even for the wise and unerring government of humanity itself. To that end and in that belief he had honestly given every energy he possessed, and had sternly choked down every tendency he felt in his inner nature toward a life less intellectual and more full of sympathy for the affairs of individual mankind. ”