Thomas Underhill

“ The General begged her to sit still, saying, “Do not stir, my dear; it is your Spirit guardian who loves you.” She wept and [363] called on her mother’s Spirit to come, saying, “Dear mother, I want you to go with me where I go, and watch over us all.”
Mrs. Thompson was cured, and walked back without difficulty from Ludlow Place to the St. Nicholas Hotel.
Two years later, in 1859, she and her lovely sister, Miss Jones, accompanied the General to New York, and on learning that it was our reception night, came to enjoy the evening with us, and related the circumstances before a very large party. ”

“ Anthony.’ The year 1672 saw Underhill as the first Justice Clodpate in Shadwell's ‘Epsom Wells,’ and Tutor in Arrowsmith's ‘Reformation,’ and in 1673 he was Fullam in Nevil Payne's ‘Morning Ramble.’ He was, presumably, in 1676, the first Jacomo in Shadwell's ‘Libertine’ (‘Don Juan’) , and was certainly the first Sanco in Ravenscroft's ‘Wrangling Lovers’ and Old Jollyman in D'Urfey's ‘Madame Fickle.’ During 1677 he appears to have been confined in the Poultry Compter (apparently for debt, at the suit of William Allen) . ”

“ And after the proclamation in Cheapside, all the Council rade to Poules, and there was Te Deum to be sung at evensong.”
“But who be ‘they’?” cried Mr Underhill. “Who told you all this jolly tale?”
“The keeper of Aldgate, and your friend Mr Newman, and George Ferris, and divers other. I gat not all from one man.”
“Newman and Ferris! Then it is true,” murmured Mr Underhill, very gravely. ”

“ Underhill, however, conjectured that it was the ballad. He "was nothing dismayed;" and in the morning went readily to the Tower, where he waited in the presence chamber talking to the pensioners.
Sir Edward Hastings passed through, and as he saw him, "frowned earnestly." "Are you come?" said Hastings, "we will talk with you ere you part, I warrant you." They were old acquaintances. Underhill had been controller of the ordnance at Calais when Lord Huntingdon was in command there. The earl being in bad health, his brother Sir Edward was with him, assisting in the duties of the office ”

“ Thomas Underwood.
"What a pity it is," said Sir Thomas, "that a man can't have a broken arm in answering all letters. I should have had to write ever so much had I been well. And yet I could not have said a word more that would have been of any use."
Sir Thomas was kept an entire week at the Percycross Standard after his election was over before the three doctors and the innkeeper between them would allow him to be moved. During this time there was very much discussion between the father and daughter as to Mary's prospects ”

“ The impertinence of this speech was deprived of its sting by the friendly whimsicality of Underhill's manner. Garve accepted it in perfect good part.
"It's just as well Morris and the rest of that crew should think so, but the truth is, I succeeded to an encumbered estate, the rent-roll of which barely suffices to pay the mortgage interest. Knowles is let furnished, Buckhurst is so dilapidated no one will hire it. I can't sell, because of the entail. I can't work, for I was never given a profession. I can only play cards ”

“ And Mr Underhill told him that my Lord of Sussex would have ordered him to the Fleet, and Sir Richard Southwell cried out to have him to the Marshalsea: but neither should content Sir John Gage nor Secretary Bourne, and they made great ado that he were sent to Newgate, and prevailed. Arrived thither, Mr Underhill was delivered of the officers to Alisaunder the keeper (Note 5) , who unlocked a door, and bade him go up-stairs into the hall. ”

“ Underwood, though she was really my contemporary, I may seem very passée—no doubt I do—and a perfect granny to the children, who regard youth and beauty as solely the prerogatives of bread-and-butter misses in their teens; but—as Captain Saunders's remark indicated—I am not too old to charm where I want to charm. No, indeed; nor ever shall be—to one person, at all events. When Tom and I woke up on our silver wedding morning and kissed each other, did we not know what love meant as much and more than we had ever done, without needing Juke and Phyllis, and Harry and his Emily to teach us? ”

“ He and Nance were alone here on the uplands. A ragged, crimson sunset lingered over the moor. A cock-grouse got up from the heather on their right, and whirred down the bitter wind, chuckling harshly as it went. It was a man’s land, this, full of hills that stepped, sleety and austere, to the red of the stormy sky. A man should have been easily the master here; and yet Underwood knew that he was dwarfed, belittled, by this slim lass of Demaine’s, whose eyes held truth and looked him through and through. ”

“ It was a point of honour with him not to seem to disdain any of Undine's amusements: the noisy interminable picnics, the hot promiscuous balls, the concerts, bridge-parties and theatricals which helped to disguise the difference between the high Alps and Paris or New York. He told himself that there is always a Narcissus-element in youth, and that what Undine really enjoyed was the image of her own charm mirrored in the general admiration. With her quick perceptions and adaptabilities she would soon learn to care more about the quality of the reflecting surface ”

“ Around this village corner gather many other memories. After Mr. Watson perhaps comes Colonel Williams, at least in point of duration of associations. He was a native of Westford, Otsego County and a son of Israel Williams. He began life in Unadilla as a clerk in Wright’s store and afterwards was a partner. In 1827 he removed to Honesdale, Pennsylvania, where with his wife’s brother, Thomas Hayes, he was engaged in trade for ten years. He then returned to Unadilla and resumed business on the old site, Mr. Wright having died. Mr. Wright’s house became Colonel Williams’s home. ”

“ If that was only Sir Arthur's eloquence, then he certainly took a heavy responsibility in putting so much passion into it."
"He was a friend of poor Gwynne's, as a matter of fact," said Underhill, more gently; "a man I know saw them hobnobbing together after a great legal dinner lately. I dare say that's why he feels so strongly in this case. I suppose it's doubtful whether a man ought to act in such a case on mere personal feeling."
"He wouldn't," said Bagshaw. "I bet Sir Arthur Travers wouldn't act only on feeling, however strongly he felt. ”

“ Underhill has entirely withdrawn [Pg 42] from public participation in spiritualistic exhibitions. She is still held, however, in high estimation by all who accept supernatural communications, and her reply to what her sister Margaret has said regarding the practice of fraud, would at this time be interesting. Unfortunately she is now in the country, and there is no person in the city to speak for her excepting her husband. ”

“ She bore it quietly, and got for her reward a letter to the keeper of Newgate, signed by Winchester, Sussex, Bedford, Rochester, and Sir Edward Waldegrave, ordering the release of Mr Underhill, who was to be bound before a magistrate, in conjunction with her brother, Mr Speryn, to appear when summoned. ”

“ Underhill refused to taste the beverage, but Nightgall and Wolfytt, who were present, forced him to swallow it. A brief conference then took place between the bishop and the prisoner, wherein the former strove earnestly to persuade him to recant. But Underhill was so firm in his purpose, and so violent in his denunciations against his interrogator, that Bonner lost all patience, and cried, “If my words do not affright thee, thou vile traitor and pestilent heretic, yet shall the fire to which I will deliver thee.” ”

“ At Will Underwood’s house, meanwhile, the laggard gentry of Lancashire were sitting over their wine, and were cursing this snowfall that would not let them hunt to-morrow. And they were troubled, all of them; for they knew that better men were facing hardship on the London road, while they, from faults of sloth or caution, were sheltered by house-walls. They were men, after all, under the infirmities that hindered them; and ease, for its own sake, never yet appealed for long to hearts built for weather and adventure. They needed hard exercise, to blunt the edge of conscience ”

“ In the evening Mr Ive came in; who said he had been to Newgate to visit his friend, Mr Underhill.
“And poor Underhill,” said he, “is fallen sick of a burning ague in that loathsome gaol. He doth account the cause to be the evil savours and the unquietness of the lodging; as may be also the drinking of a strong draught wherein his fellow-prisoner would needs have him to pledge him. He can take no rest, desiring to change his lodging, and so hath he done from one to an other; but none can he abide, having so much noise of the prisoners and naughty savours. ”

“ The idea that Undine had been only a mere apparition of the forest, again gained ascendancy over him; indeed, amid the howling of the waves and the tempest, the cracking of the trees, and the complete transformation of a scene lately so calmly beautiful, he could almost have considered the whole peninsula with its cottage and its inhabitants as a mocking illusive vision; but from afar he still ever heard through the tumult the fisherman's anxious call for Undine, and the loud praying and singing of his aged wife. ”

“ In the beginning of August, came Austin, and with him Mr Underhill.
“There is somewhat merry news from Norwich,” cried Mr Underhill. “My Lord the Bishop, returned thither, summons Rose afore his saintly presence: who is no whither to be found. Whereupon my Lord sendeth for a wizard, and in his holiness biddeth him consult with the infernal powers touching the whereabout of the prisoner. Who answereth that Rose is gone over the water, and is in keeping of a woman. ”

“ And then the wild-duck began to come, some flying low, some swinging high against the moon and starry sky. And one and all of the seven ghostly sportsmen forgot they were due with Prince Charles Edward on the road of honour; for there is a wild, absorbing glee about this moortop sport that cancels men’s regrets and shame.
Will Underwood shot well to-night. He picked the highest birds, from sheer zest in his marksmanship; and he saw the feathers, time after time, fluff up against the moonlight, watched his bird come down with that quick, slanting drop which is the curve of beauty. ”

“ Neefit made his journey to the Moonbeam, Sir Thomas Underwood was at his chambers in London. It was now eight weeks since his bone had been broken, and though he still carried his arm in a sling, he declared of himself that he was able to go about as usual;—which assertion was taken at the villa as meaning that he was now able to live in Southampton Buildings without further assistance from women. When Patience reminded him, with tears in her eyes, that he could not as yet put on his own coat, he reminded her that Stemm was the most careful of men. ”

“ Lestrade might know the man was a foreigner merely because his department has to keep an eye on all foreigners; some would say on all natives, too. As a policeman I'm glad the police know so much; for every man wants to do his own job well. But as a citizen, I sometimes wonder whether they don't know too much."
"You don't seriously mean to say," cried Underhill incredulously, "that you know anything about strange people in a strange street. That if a man walked out of that house over there, you would know anything about him?"
"I should if he was the householder," answered Bagshaw. ”

“ Underhill did not know how long he stood staring down at this macabre figure, when he looked up and saw a group of four figures standing above him on the bank. He was prepared for Bagshaw and his Irish captive, and he had no difficulty in guessing the status of the servant in the red waistcoat. But the fourth figure had a sort of grotesque solemnity that seemed strangely congruous to that incongruity. It was a stumpy figure with a round face and a hat like a black halo. He realized that it was, in fact, a priest ”

“ That is to say, Idealism, though just in its premises, and often daring and honest in their application, is stultified by the exclusive intellectualism of its own methods: by its fatal trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart. It interests man, but does not involve him in its processes: does not catch him up to the new and more real life which it describes. Hence the thing that matters, the living thing, has somehow escaped it; ”

“ Then she forgot the horse, forgot the languid mother, the weakling heir, down yonder at the bleak house of Windyhough. Her thoughts returned to her father, to Sir Jasper, to gentle and simple of the Lancashire men who had ridden out against long odds. Last of all, her maidenly reserve broke down, and she knew that she was eager for Will Underwood’s safety. She saw him so clearly—fearless, a keen [167] rider after hounds, a man who sought danger and coveted it. ”

“ XXV Undine Marvell, for the next few months, tasted all the accumulated bitterness of failure. After January the drifting hordes of her compatriots had scattered to the four quarters of the globe, leaving Paris to resume, under its low grey sky, its compacter winter personality. Noting, from her more and more deserted corner, each least sign of the social revival, Undine felt herself as stranded and baffled as after the ineffectual summers of her girlhood. She was not without possible alternatives; but the sense of what she had lost took the savour from all that was left. ”

“ His direction of the music at the Centennial of 1876, and his popular “dime concerts” in New York, attended by some hundreds of thousands, have made Professor Watson not less widely known than he is everywhere highly respected, for his philanthropy as well as musical genius and powers.
A. L. U.
“Mrs. A. Leah Underhill:
“Highly Esteemed Friend—It is with unfeigned pleasure that I comply with your request to furnish you [399] with an account of my strange experience while visiting San Francisco, Cal., in company with Olé Bull, the violinist, in 1870. ”