Thomas Mercer

“ The men who were ranged as his enemies have for the most part been relegated to a second place on the page of history (this does not apply to Thomas Hutchinson, who in his official capacity was Otis's chief political opponent, but who did not exhibit the personal enemity of Bernard and others) ; while those who were his friends stand out boldly among the notable characters of the past. As Otis himself remarked concerning Charles Lee, we are not at a loss to know which is the highest evidence of his virtues—the greatness and number of his friends, or the malice and envy of his foes. ”

“ Mercer brought a photograph of it. Mercer doesn't want to live in idleness. Though he's borne the burden and heat of the day in this humming hive of population, he still feels he has a few more years of work in him for the good of the community. He isn't going to be a curate exactly ”

“ But you can do a good many things that you haven't got that sort of power over, if you go the right way to work."
"Well, I don't care much about Mercer myself, though I've always tried to keep my opinion dark for the sake of peace. He's a tiresome fellow, and that's a fact; but he's never done anything that he could be shifted for. It takes a Bishop all he knows, and a devil of a lot of money besides, to get rid of an incumbent who's a real wrong 'un. ”

“ I could see them quite distinctly, bending over Mercer, working on him....
"Do your best, Taylor," urged Mercer desperately. "We're on the edge of a sort of cliff; a fault in the structure of the ocean bed. They're tying me with strong cords of leather. Tying a huge stone to my body. I think they—" I had a momentary flash of the scene as Mercer saw it at that instant: the horrid noseless face close to his, the swart bodies moving with amazing agility. And at his very feet, a yawning precipice, holding nothing but darkness, leading down and down into nothingness.
"Run quickly!" It was Imee. ”

“ I am Don Mercer, and this is my brother Jim. This is Terry Mackson.”
“Glad to know you all,” nodded the captain, shaking hands with them. “Is this the fellow who pinned up Sommers’ trousers?”
“My fame has run before me!” murmured Terry, smiling.
19
“Yes, Terry’s the culprit,” laughed Don. “A bad boy all around, always into something, but he means well, Mr. Rhodes.”
“I don’t doubt it,” returned the cadet. “You may drop the mister, Mercer. Speaking of Terry’s well-meaning attempt on Mr. Sommers, I can safely say that no harm was done except a temporary bruising of the lieutenant’s feelings. ”

“ Mercer’s general life differed somewhat from the lives of many pioneer women in that she was always a pioneer. Many had given up an existence in the thickly settled portions of the east to accept the burdensome, half-civilized life of the west. They had at least once known the joys of civilization. ”

“ The period for mourning poor Catherine was short indeed. But the mansion at Marlborough needed a mistress, and Mercer’s children, a mother. A new chapter was about to open as the decade closed. From the meticulous records that Mercer kept, it has been possible to see Mercer as a dynamic cosmopolite, accomplishing an incredible amount in a few short years. ”

“ Mercer’s Consolidation of Marlborough, 1730-1740 MERCER THE YOUNG LAWYER
The 1730’s opened a golden age in the Virginia colony. There was an interval of peace in which trade might flourish; there were new laws which favored the tobacco planter and led to the building of resplendent mansions along Virginia’s shores. John Mercer wasted no time in grasping the opportunities that lay about him. With shrewd foresight he made law his major objective, thus raising himself above most of his contemporaries. ”

“ The rest of Merrick's life up to the time that I met him at Liverpool Street Station was one dull record of degradation and squalor. He was dragged from town to town and from fair to fair as if he were a strange beast in a cage. A dozen times a day he would have to expose his nakedness and his piteous deformities before a gaping crowd who greeted him with such mutterings as "Oh! what a horror! What a beast!" He had had no childhood. He had had no boyhood. He had never experienced pleasure. He knew nothing of the joy of living nor of the fun of things. ”

“ TREASURE HUNT CHAPTER I
THE PROFESSOR’S LETTER
“I’d like to have a crack at that ball,” said Don Mercer, with a grin.
His brother Jim returned the grin as he said: “Let’s go out on the field and ask the kids to toss us one. They won’t mind giving us one swing at it.” The two Mercer brothers were standing at the edge of a large vacant lot near the center of their home town one morning late in June. ”

“ Mercer hadn't a moral to her back. And she had a spite to work off on her ex-family-in-law. And she grew to love the life. And there was a tolerable living in it for her. And it kept her from being lonesome. And it was nice to have folks to order around. So Mrs. Mercer was pretty happy. She had craved to lap up excitement. And she got it (like the house's liquor) by the wholesale. It was the life she was suited to. The longer it lasted the surer she was of that.
She came of a million times better class than most Rahabettes. And that helped. For she catered only to the “Double A” trade. ”

“ Towards the Place of Darkness. I hurried out of the village in the direction she indicated, towards the distant gleam of Mercer's armor, rapidly being lost in the gloom.
"I'm coming, Mercer!" I called to him. "Delay them as much as you can. You're going faster than I can."
"I can't help myself much," replied Mercer. "Doing what I can. Strong—they're devilish strong, Taylor. And, at dose range, I can see you were right. They have true gill-covers; their noses are rudimentary and—"
"The devil take your scientific observations! Drag! Slow them down. ”

“ Thus, after 1730 we find Mercer’s fortune already well established and increasing. No longer a youthful trader plying the Potomac in his sloop, he was now a gentleman planter and influential lawyer. He lived in a new house, owned some parts of Marlborough, and was building “improvements” on others. Almost overnight he had become a landed proprietor.
SUCCESS AT LAW AND CONFLICTS WITH LAWYERS
The source of Mercer’s newly made wealth is easily discovered. His ledger shows an income from legal fees in 1730 amounting to £291 10s. ”

“ Of late they had had some adventurous events in their lives, some of which were related in the first volume of this series, The Mercer Boys’ Cruise in the Lassie, when they ran down a marine bandit gang, and later when solving a baffling mystery at the military school, details of which were related in the second volume entitled The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest. Together with their comrade, Terry Mackson, they had faced many perils and adventures, and now they were home to spend, as they thought, a comparatively dull vacation. ”

“ Whaur's Burbage noo—whaur's Broun?"
"Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul!" interpolated Charlotte.
"Gone!" continued Mr. Macpherson, responding to his own inquiry with morbid unction. "Deed! The Lord be praised, I ha'e the guid sense tae withstand th' infeernal tipplin' masel'. Mony's the time, when I'm talkin' tae a mon in the way o' business, ye ken, I turn the damned glass upside down when he is na lookin'. But there's the folk I sell tae, an' the ithers; what o' them? It's ma trade to praise the evil—tae tak' it into the world, spreadin' it broadcast for the destruction o' monkind. ”

“ Mercer’s close attention to the natural phenomena around him began with his illness in 1766. On January 4, only a few days after he had become ill, he installed a thermometer in his room, and eight days later moved it to his office. Regularly, from then until the close of his journal, except when he was absent from Marlborough, he recorded the minimum and maximum readings. One has only to look at the figures for the winter months to realize that “heated” rooms, as we understand them, were little known in the 18th century. ”

“ He was dressed in a gray uniform and wore a tall military hat. The letters W. M. I. in gold showed plainly on the hat. It meant Woodcrest Military Institute, and Lieutenant Sommers was an important part of that institution.
Two boys who had just stepped from a train at Portville station grinned and nudged each other. They were nice-looking young boys, with sandy hair, freckles, and lean faces browned by exposure to the wind and sun. Don Mercer whispered to his brother:
“Terry’s at it again. He’s forever fooling around and playing jokes on someone.” ”

“ Human nature is a curious thing, and the older one grows the more strange and wonderful it seems. There was I watching Tom Mercer from the window, and the minute before I felt as if I would have given anything to have him there alone with our jackets off, to put in force the old sergeant’s teaching, knowing that I could in my passion nearly knock his head off. ”

“ He walks heavily with the assurance of a man who believes that the earth belongs to him. Mercier is the most solid, the most vigorous and the most penetrating. Penetrating is, indeed, the word which best describes his eloquence. See his movements; they resemble those of the axeman who strikes the tree at the root and at each blow removes a chip. Mercier is a parliamentary orator, a lawyer, a tribune. ”

“ At the same time he began an extensive purchasing of property, so that within a decade he was to become one of the major landed proprietors in the colony. Planting and legal practice each augmented the other in Mercer’s prosperity, which was assured by a classic combination of energy, ability, and outgoing personality. As with many successful men, Mercer had an eye for meticulous detail ”

“ During the 1730’s Mercer recorded a minimum of recreational activities. Those that he did list are representative of the society of which he was a part. Making wagers was a favorite amusement. For example, he was owed £7 16s. by “Colo George Braxton To a Wager you laid me at Capt Robt Brooke’s house before Mr James Reid, Willm Brooke &c. Six Guineas to one that Colo Spotswood would not during the Reign of K. George that now is, procure a Commission as Chief or Lieut Govr of Virginia.” In 1731 he paid William Brent “By a pistole won of me about Hedgman’s wrestling with and throwing Fras Dade. ”

“ THE ELDER AND HIS STARLING
When Adam Mercer returned from the wars, more than half a century ago, he settled in the village of Drumsylie, situated in a county bordering on the Highlands, and about twenty miles from the scene of his poaching habits, of which he had long ago repented. His hot young blood had been cooled down by hard service, and his vehement temperament subdued by military discipline ”

“ When Cadets Don and Jim Mercer and their friend Terry Mackson were ordered by Colonel Morrell of Woodcrest Military Academy to gather together all the school trophies, they were able to find all except one—the cup awarded to the Class of 1933. What had happened to the cup was a mystery the boys were determined to solve. And little by little Don and Jim uncovered a strange story and unraveled a mystery that had puzzled school authorities for years. The Mercer boys uphold the honor of Woodcrest against a conspiracy of silence and dishonor. ”

“ That they included no lawbooks at a time when Mercer was preparing for the law is an indication of his broad taste for literature and learning.
Marlborough, we can see, was occupied by a young man of talent, energy, and creativity. He alone, of the many men who had envisioned a center of enterprise on Potomac Neck, was possessed of the drive and the simple directness to make it succeed. For George Mason and the Waughs, Mercer was the ideal solution for their Marlborough difficulties. ”

“ He seems to have a down on the lot of them."
"Well, between you and me," said Worthing confidentially, "I shouldn't take much notice of what Mercer says, if I were you. He's a nice enough fellow, but he does seem, somehow, to get at loggerheads with people. I wouldn't say anything against the chap behind his back, but you'd find it out for yourself in time. You'll see everybody there is, and you can judge for yourself."
"Oh, yes, I can do that all right. Let's go and play bridge. The girls are pretty good at it." ”

“ Now we’re going down the road and take a look at that house Dennings lived in. My name is Mercer, and this is my brother. If you should hear that Colonel Morrell has been found from any clue you may have furnished you can write to us at Woodcrest and we’ll gladly see to it that you are fairly rewarded. Thanks for your information and the card. So long.”
Jim and Don left the station platform and the old man looked after them in some doubt.
“I wonder if I was a fool to give that card to those boys?” he pondered. “They look honest, but you can’t be too sure of anybody these days. ”

“ He could only go out after dark, and on fine nights ventured to take a walk in Bedstead Square clad in his black cloak and his cap. His greatest adventure was on one moonless evening when he walked alone as far as the hospital garden and back again.
To secure Merrick’s recovery and to bring him, as it were, to life once more, it was necessary that he should make the acquaintance of men and women who would treat him as a normal and intelligent young man and not as a monster of deformity. ”