Thomas Morgan

“ The next day Mrs Morgan travelled down to see her son. When she asked me to accompany [98] her I did so with some curiosity; for I had already become something of a stranger at Abercorran House, and had often wondered what had become of David Morgan up on his tower. His mother talked readily of his younger days and his stay in London. Though he had great gifts, some said genius, which he might have been expected to employ in the study, he had applied himself to direct social work. For a year he laboured “almost as hard,” he said, “as the women who make our shirts.” ”

“ To have further matters unto [in reference to] him, we sent for Thomas Robyns alias Morgan, commonly called Little Morgan or Tom Morgan (brother unto great [big] Morgan, of Salisbury Court, the great dicer) ; who, when I was a companion with him, told me many stories of this Allen: what a cunning man he was! and what things he could do! as, to make a woman love a man, to teach men how to win at the dice, what should become of this realm ”

“ On these evenings we saw only the fishing things, the Wilderness, and Lydiard Constantine.
This weather was but a temporary cure for Mr Morgan’s curiosity as to what Jack and Roland were to do. You could tell that he was glad to see Roland’s face again, home from Canada with some wolf skins after a six months’ [258] absence; but it was not enough. The fellow had been in an office once for a much shorter period. The one thing to draw him early from bed was hunting. Well, but he was a fine fellow. How should all the good in him be employed? It could not be left to the gods ”

“ Obiit about 1679.
[364] Thomas Morgan:—vide Mr. Howe at Mr. Griffyn's howse in York buildings, below Mi. Kent, next house but one or two to the water: he was his secretary and has his memoires. Quaere Mr. Jones for the copie of his epitaph. He lies interred in St. Martin's church: quaere if his tombe is erected. Obiit about 1679.
William Morgan (1622-16—) .
[365] Mariana Morgan, ... daughter of major Morgan of Wells, was borne there, New Yeare's Eve's eve, XX yeares since next New Yeare's Eve, about 5 or 6 a clock P.M. She is a swidging lustie woman. ”

“ This was so like the old Ann that I was delighted, with all my conceit. I remembered that first visit well, limping into the yard the day after the paper-chase, and seeing big Jack (aged then about twenty) and tall Roland (less than two years younger) discussing a greyhound with a blackguard in an orange neck-tie, Jessie (my own age) surrounded by pigeons, Mr Morgan and Mr Torrance at the top of the steps looking on, and away on the pond under the elms little Harry and Lewis crying for help to release their craft from the water-lilies of that perilous sea. ”

“ He saw clearly enough that “they had no more place in London than Bengal tigers,” as he said one day to Mr Stodham: “They ought to have been in the cavalry. But they aren’t—curse it—what is to be done? Why could I not breed clerks?” The immediate thing to be done was to light the suspended cigar. It was lucky if the weather just at that time took a fine turn; if Harry and Lewis, for a wonder, were persuaded to spend all day and every day at school; if Mrs Morgan was away in Wales; if Jessie’s voice was perfect, singing
“The cuckoo is a merry bird ...” ”

“ For a hundred years, he said, men had been reading science and investigating, as they had been reading history, with the result that they knew some science and some history. “So he went up into his tower, and there he has been these twelve years,” said Mrs Morgan, “with Angharad and no comforts. You would think by his letters that his thoughts had become giddy up there. Only five letters have I had from him in these twelve years. This is all,” she added, showing a small packet [101] in her handbag. “For the last six years nobody has heard from him except Ann. ”

“ Those ten years were reality. Everything since has been scarcely more real than the world was when it was still cut off by the hills across the valley, and I looked lazily towards it from under the cypress where the little bird sang. There is nothing to rest on, nothing to make a man last like the old men I used to see in cottage gardens or at gateways in the valley of the Uther.”
“Well,” said Mr Morgan once, “I don’t often agree with Mr Torrance, but I am very glad he exists.” ”

“ Knowing how we ourselves, walking or talking together, grew oblivious of all things that were not within our brains, or vividly and desirably before our eyes, feeling ourselves isolated in proud delight, deserted and forgotten of the multitude who were not us, we imagined, I suppose, that houses and other things could have a similar experience, or could share it with us, were we to seek refuge there like Morgan in his mountain tower. ”

“ Mr Morgan, Mr Torrance, and in later years myself, he admitted to the Study. Acquaintances he received with his wife in their clean and expensive drawing-room. Husband and wife were in harmony when entertaining a few of those whom Mrs Stodham called their friends. On these rare occasions the defensive combination of her slightly defiant pride and his kindly resignation was a model of unconscious tact. If there was a man—which seldom came about—Mr Stodham would ask him into the Study. ”

“ Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,” and Mr Morgan roared with laughter, as having no cigar he was free to do at the moment, and everyone else joined in except the Gypsy, who appeared to think he was the victim; such laughter was a command. Before the roar was over Ann came up to me and said: “Will you please to come into the kitchen. I have something for that poor leg of yours.” Pity was worse than ever, but to escape the laughter, I followed her. “There you are,” she said as we [65] entered, pointing to a broad blackberry tart uncut, “that will do your leg good. ”

“ Harry owns sheep by thousands, and rents a mighty mountain, and has as many sons as brothers, and the same number of daughters, who have come to the point of resembling Jessie: so says Ann, who has a hundred photographs. Mr Morgan is back at Abercorran. When good fortune returned to the Morgans the whole family went there for a time, leaving Ann behind until the house should be let. ”

“ Never afterwards did he do anything that fell short of the name Roland, to which the noble war-song, at that moment, fixed its character for ever. Jack and he had been to a famous school until they were sixteen, and did no good there. Indoors they learnt very little more than a manner extremely well suited to hours of idleness. Out of doors they excelled at the more selfish sports, at athletics, boxing, sculling, shooting. So they had come home and, as Mr Morgan had nothing to suggest, they had done what suggested itself. ”

“ They were a careless and a godless race, knowing not good or evil. They had never been cast out of Eden. “In fact,” said Mrs Morgan, “they must be something like Aurelius.” Some of the branches of this race had already been exterminated by men; for example, the Nymphs and Fauns. David Morgan was not afraid of uttering his belief. Others of them, he said, had adopted for safety many of men’s ways. They had become moorland or mountain men living at peace with their neighbours, but not recognised as equals. ”

“ They were feared but more [97] often despised, because they retained what men had lost by civilisation, because they lived as if time was not, yet could not be persuaded to believe in a future life.
Up in his tower Morgan came to believe his own father one of this people, and resolved to take a woman from amongst them for a wife. Angharad, the shy, the bold, the fierce dark Angharad whose black eyes radiated light and blackness together, was one of them. She became his wife and went up with him to the tower. ”

“ Everybody else did something. Aurelius earned a living, though his hands proclaimed him one who was born neither to toil nor spin. Higgs, too, did no one knew what, but something that kept him in tobacco and bowler hats, in the times when he was not fishing in the Wilderness or looking after his pigeons in the yard. For it so happened—and caused nobody surprise—that all the pigeons at Abercorran House were his. Mr Morgan looked with puzzled disapproval from Higgs to Roland and Jack, and back again to Higgs. Higgs had arrived and stayed under their shadow. ”

“ WOOL-GATHERING AND LYDIARD CONSTANTINE One day at Abercorran House I heard Aurelius, Mr Morgan, and Mr Torrance in the Library, talking about wool-gathering. “Since Jessie told us about that river in Essex with the Welsh name,” said Mr Morgan, laughing, “we have travelled from Gwithavon to Battersea Park Road and a fishmonger’s advertisement. Such are the operations of the majestic intellect. How did we get all that way? ”

“ MR STODHAM SPEAKS FOR ENGLAND—FOG SUPERVENES Some time after the story of the Castle of Leaves, Mr Morgan took occasion to point out the difference between Ann speaking of the “beautiful long white beards” that men grew in those “unhappy old days,” and Mr Torrance praising the “merry” or “good old” England of his imagination. He said that from what he could gather they were merry in the old days with little cause, while to-day, whatever cause there might be, few persons possessed the ability. ”

“ Mr Stodham, for example, was all admiration, with a little surprise. Aurelius, again, said that if such a family, house, and backyard, had not existed, they would have to be invented, as other things less pleasant and necessary had been. When rumours were afloat that perhaps Mr Morgan would be compelled to give up the house Aurelius exclaimed: “It is impossible, it is disgraceful. Let the National Gallery go, let the British Museum go, but preserve the Morgans and Abercorran House.” Mr Torrance, [260] of course, agreed with Aurelius. ”

“ Sunday was the only day when you ever saw anyone in Our Country. Presently a man who was passing said: “The farmer’s coming along this road, if that’s any interest to you.” It was too late. There he was—coming round the bend a quarter [70] of a mile off, on a white pony. I whistled to Philip to look out. I was innocently sitting in the same place when the farmer rode up. He asked me at once the name of the boy in the copse, which so took me by surprise that I blabbed out at once. “Philip Morgan,” shouted the farmer, “Philip Morgan, come out of that copse.” ”

“ His benevolence was so well known in Lexington, that to "go to Captain Morgan" was the first thought of every one who wished to inaugurate a charitable enterprise, and his business house was a rendezvous for all the distressed, and a sort of "intelligence office" for the poor seeking employment. His temper was cheerful and frequently gay; no man more relished pleasantry and mirth in the society of his friends, with whom his manner was free and even at times jovial ”

“ We can not place the ladders which will give you access to yonder helpless town."
"Then to the men you go!" cried Morgan ruthlessly. "Forward here, two or three of you, take this woman! She chooses——"
"Death——" cried the abbess, snatching a dagger from the nearest hand and driving it into her breast, "rather than dishonor!"
She held herself proudly erect for a moment, swayed back and forth, and then fell prostrate upon the sand, the blood staining her white robe about the hilt of the poniard. She writhed and shuddered in agony where she lay, striving to say something. ”

“ A man who, like General Morgan, uninfluenced by the public opinion of the State in which he resided, yet surrendered fortune, home and friends to assist the people of the South when embarked in the desperate and vital strife which their action had provoked, because sharing their blood and their convictions, he thought that they had an imperative claim upon his services; who pledged his all to their cause, and identified his name with every phase of the contest, until his death became an event of the last and most bitter—such a man can never be forgotten by them. ”

“ Use it, I say!"
"Do you hear my father's words, Alvarado?" cried Mercedes sinking on her knees and stretching up her hands to him. "'Tis a sharp weapon. One touch will end it all, and you can follow." [Pg 385]
"God help me!" cried the unhappy young Captain, throwing aside the poniard and clasping his hands to his eyes. "I cannot! Hath no one here a point for me? If I have deserved well of you or the State, sir, bid them strike home."
"Live, young sir," interrupted Morgan, "there are other women in the world. ”

“ In an instant Morgan's pistol was out. His motion was followed by Hornigold and the maroon.
"Row, you dogs!" he cried fiercely.
The stroke oarsman hesitated, although the others tried to pick up the stroke.
"I give you one minute, then I blow out your brains, pull out the plug in this boat, and we'll all go to hell together," said Morgan truculently to the recalcitrant men.
"Row, for your life's sake!" cried the man behind Sawkins, hitting him in the back with the haft of the oar.
"It's the King's ship!"
"What do we care for the King?" said Morgan. "He is the law, and none of us love the law. ”

“ He was a hideous figure of old hate and rancor, of unslaked passion, of monstrous possibilities of cruel torture. Hardened as they were by the customs of their age to hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, the listeners turned cold at such an exhibition of malefic passion, of consuming hatred. Even Morgan himself, intrepid as he was, shrank from the awful menace of the mordant words.
"My lord!" shouted the unfortunate captain, "give him no heed. He lies in his throat; he lies a thousand times. 'Twas a mutinous dog, that brother of his, that I hanged. I am your prisoner. You are a soldier. ”