Winthrop

“ He had no confidence whatever in Winthrop, simply because he was a man. In such situations men were selfish (he himself should have been no better) ; of course at the time they did not call it selfishness, they called it devotion. But in Margaret his confidence was absolute. And it was with a deep, tender pity for her, for all she had still to go through, that he now bent over her.
Winthrop had gone down-stairs; he paced to and fro in the stone-flagged hall below. The door stood open, the deep soft blue of the Florida sky filled the square frame. "If only she doesn't die!" ”

“ Rufus went on bitterly, half communing with himself. — "I for fiery impulse, and you for calm rule."
"I don't want to rule," said Winthrop half laughing. "And I assure you I make no effort after it."
"You do it, and always will. You have the love and respect and admiration of everybody that knows you — in a very high degree; and there is not a soul in the world that cares for me, except yourself."
"I do not think that is true, Will," said Winthrop after a little pause. "But even suppose it were — those are not the things one lives for." ”

“ There they came! Gerrian’s whole band of horses in full career! First, their heads suddenly lifted above a crest of the prairie; then they burst over, like the foam and spray of a black, stormy wave when a blast strikes it, and wildly swept by us with manes and tails flaring in the wind. It was magnificent. My heart of a horseman leaped in my breast. “Hurrah!” I cried.
“Hurrah ’t is!” said Gerrian.
The herd dashed by in a huddle, making for the corral. ”

“ These, then, are Winthrop's writings,—the literary works of a young man who died at thirty-two, and who had spent a goodly part of his mature life in the saddle and the canoe, exploring his own country, and in foreign travel. As we look at the volumes, we wonder how he found time for so much; but when we have read, we wonder yet more at the excellence of all he wrote. In all and through all shines his own noble spirit; and thus these books of his, whose printed pages he never saw, will keep his memory green amongst us ”

“ And the Seventh, as they went, blessed and wept over by a great city, went, as we all believed, to terrible battle. The setting sun in a clear April sky shone full up the street. Mothers’ eyes glistened at the windows upon the glistening bayonets of their boys below. I knew that Winthrop and other dear friends were there, but I did not see them. I saw only a thousand men marching like one hero. The music beat and rang and clashed in the air. Marching to death or victory or defeat, it mattered not. They marched for Justice, and God was their captain. ”

“ Winthrop said, as he tied up a bundle of papers which had been lying loose about the table.
"Have you got plenty to do?" said the naturalist, giving them a good-humoured eye.
"Can't have too much, sir. Now what is your brother's affair?"
"I do not know as I can tell you," said the other, his bright jovial face looking uncommonly mystified, — "it seems to me he does not know very well himself. He does not know that anybody has done nozing, but he is not satisfied." ”

“ I should ask her to come herself, later. New York might amuse her."
"Never in the world, she wouldn't in the least approve of it," said Winthrop, laughing. "It wouldn't be Thorne and Duero; it wouldn't even be New Bristol, where she spent her youth. She would feel that she ought to reform it, yet she wouldn't know how; she would be dreadfully perplexed. She has a genius for perplexity, poor little soul. ”

“ He kept the child with him in the large, lonely New England house which even Gertrude Winthrop's sweetness had not been able to make fully home-like and warm. For it had been lived in too long, the old house, by a succession of Miss Winthrops, conscientious old maids with narrow chests, thin throats, and scanty little knobs of gray-streaked hair behind—the sort of good women with whom the sense of duty is far keener than that of comfort, and in whose minds character is apt to be gauged by the hour of getting up in the morning. ”

“ Every fresh coming home was the pledge of a fresh parting, the pleasure of the one not more sure than the pain of the other. If Winthrop had changed, in all these years and goings and comings, it might have been different; if they could have found that their lost treasure was less true or strong or fair, than when they first let it go. But he was so exactly the same Winthrop that they had been sorry for that first time, that they could only be sorry again with the same sorrow ”

“ The day after his return from Vantassel, just as they had done supper, there was a knock at the front door. Winthrop went to open it. There he found a man, tall and personable, well- dressed though like a traveller, with a little leathern valise in his hand. Winthrop had hardly time to think he did not look like an American, when his speech confirmed it. ”

“ Winthrop."
"Why, Karen?"
"Because I aint much better than a fool," she said, putting her other hand to her eyes. "But ye're one of the Lord's precious ones, Governor; he will have service of ye, wherever ye be."
Winthrop wrung her hand. Quitting her, he saw his sister waiting for him at the kitchen door. She let him come within it, and then holding up her Bible which had hung in one hand, she pointed with her finger to these words where she had it open; —
"God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." ”

“ But though he cared nothing for each of these things separately, they all together told him he was a traveller; and Winthrop's heart owned itself overcome, whatever his head said to it.
His was not a head to be ashamed of his heart; and it was with no self-reproach that he let tears come, and then wiped them away. He slept at last; and the sleep of a tired man should be sweet. ”

“ Winthrop," said his hostess, earnestly; "you are quite mistaken. Good health is in itself full of the deepest interest, I am sure, and especially at the present day, when it is so singularly rare. I am most glad you possess it—most glad indeed."
"I possess enough of it, at any rate, to go over the place, if you will be so kind," said Winthrop. "You know you promised me that pleasure some day, and why not this afternoon? There is a delightful breeze."
Mrs. Thorne dropped her eyes to the tips of her black cloth slippers, visible beneath the skirt of her gown. ”

“ John Winthrop was born in the County of Suffolk, England, in 1588, the year of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. He was a wealthy, well-educated Puritan, the owner of broad estates. As he paced the deck of the Arbella, the night before he sailed for Massachusetts, he knew that he was leaving comfort, home, friends, position, all for liberty of conscience. Few men have ever voluntarily abandoned more than Winthrop, or clung more tenaciously to their ideals. ”

“ John Winthrop, now in his forty-third year, who was living the life of a country squire at Groton, in Suffolk, and was a small office-holder under government, had been anxiously watching the course of affairs. Of a sensitive and deeply religious nature, strongly attached to the Puritan cause, he could not but regard the future with the greatest anxiety. “The Lord hath admonished, threatened, corrected and astonished us,” he wrote to his wife in May, 1629, “yet we growe worse and worse, so as his spirit will not allwayes strive with us, he must needs give waye to his fury at last. ”

“ He had flushed a little at her taunt. "I can carry you back to the side we started from," he said.
"No, you cannot do that, either. For I could easily blind you with my hands, and make you stumble."
"Garda!—how absurd!"
"Yes; but it's you who look so," she answered, bursting into a peal of irrepressible glee.
Winthrop had the feeling that she might be right. He knew that he was flushed and angry; no man likes to be laughed at, even by a girl of sixteen. Her eyes, though over-flowing with mirth, had still an unconquerable look in them. ”

“ Winthrop asked him in, and then when he was seated, asked him what he wanted.
"I am wishing to know if you could let me live wiz you a few days — I am wanting to be busy in your mountains, about my affairs, and I just want to know if you can let me have a bed to sleep on at night, and a little somet'ing to eat — I would be very much obliged and I would pay you whatever you please — "
"Mother," said Winthrop, "can you let this gentleman stay here a few days? he has business in the mountains, he says, and wants to stop here?"
"I do not wish to be no trouble to no person," he said blandly. ”

“ Winthrop burst into a laugh. "More recently English! Poor little woman, with her small New England throat, she has swallowed the British Isles! You don't think the Cuban has a chance, then?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Mrs. Rutherford, comfortably; "it doesn't concern us, does it? It will depend upon what Garda thinks, and Garda will think what she pleases; she isn't a girl to be guided."
"She hasn't been difficult to guide so far, I fancy," said Winthrop, after a moment's silence.
"She will be, then," responded his aunt, nodding her head with an assured air. "You'll see." ”

“ In the handsome gown, with the same gems that had once enhanced my mother's charms, the transformation wrought was considerable; but my eyes were shining with a deep, unusual brilliancy, and a new expression caused by the influences of the evening had changed my face almost beyond my own recognition. I went down to the parlor where I found Mr. Winthrop absorbed in his book. I stood near waiting for him to look, but he remained unconscious of my presence. ”

“ We must not forget that the Winthrops had the best opportunity of any in the land to have good servants; for not only were help placed in their families, but the best of English servants were consigned to them; yet neither the Governor's sister, Madam Downing, nor his daughter, Madam Dudley, could be "suited." And hear the plaint of John Winthrop to his father in 1717:
"It is not convenient now to write the trouble and plague we have had with this Irish creature the year past. ”

“ Winthrop, the great racquet player of America, the famous steeplechase rider of Long Island, and the young aristocrat, kept his word, and responded eagerly to my calls for additional scholastic efforts. He was a noble, handsome, and manly American youth whose friendship I was proud to possess.
In the autumn Winthrop got rid of most of his conditions, proceeded with his class, and eventually graduated from Columbia in 1884. My imaginative chum, Winthrop’s cousin, composed a great tale describing this incident and called it: “A Serbian Peasant versus an American Aristocrat.” ”

“ I could get you a place wiz him."
"No, sir," said Winthrop smiling; — "the eagle never begins by being something else."
"Dat is true," said the naturalist. "Well — I wish I could do you some goot, but you will not let me; — and I trust you that you are right."
"You are a good friend, sir," said Winthrop gratefully.
"Well — I mean to be," said the other, nodding his good- humoured head.
Elizabeth was too far off to hear any of this dialogue; and she was a little astonished again when they reached the land to see her boatman grasp her friend's hand and give it a very hearty shake. ”

“ Should I request thee to visit the Taranteens in their own country, what would be thy reply?"
The Knight paused, as if the question was of importance sufficient to require consideration, so long, indeed, that Winthrop thought it proper to resume.
"I know," he said, "that it is a service not unattended with danger; yet did danger never frighten a noble soul, but doth ever act as an incentive. ”

“ We must have tried her that afternoon, Clara and Winthrop and I; for the spirit of her own excitement had made us completely wild. Winthrop's scream of delight when, stationed on the gate-post, he caught the first sight of the old yellow coach, might have been heard a quarter of a mile.
"Coming?" said mother, nervously, and stepped out to the gate, full in the sunlight that crowned her like royal gold.
The coach lumbered on, and rattled up, and passed.
"Why, she hasn't come!" All the eager color died out of her face. "I am so disappointed!" ”

“ Winthrop, then forty-two years old, was descended from a family of good condition, long seated at Groton, in Suffolk, where he had a property of six or seven hundred pounds a year, the equivalent of at least two thousand pounds at the present day. His father was a lawyer and magistrate. Commanding uncommon respect and confidence from an early age, he had moved in the circles where the highest matters of English policy were discussed, by men who had been associates of Whitgift, Bacon, Essex, and Cecil. ”

“ Winthrop’s “religion shone out through all his life, and gave a higher lustre to his character. He was zealous for truth and righteousness. Often he bore witness to the minister in the midst of the congregation; and frequently he visited the neighboring towns to prophesy, as it was called, or as we say, exhort. He had admirers not only in America, but in England and at court. ‘’Tis a pity,’ remarked Charles I., ‘that such a worthy gentleman should have banished himself to the hardships of a wilderness life.’” [1040]
In Massachusetts the colonists believed in rotation in office ”

“ Then, laughing, she came back to him, her pretty teeth shining beneath her parted lips. "You are the kindest man in the whole world," she announced, standing before him. Winthrop laughed also to see how suddenly happy and light-hearted she had become. "Let us go and tell mamma," continued Garda. "Poor mamma—I haven't been nice to her. But now I will be; I shall tell her that you will buy the place, there's nothing nicer than that. Then we can go to Washington."
"It will take some time, you know," Winthrop suggested. ”