Winthrope

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 had been at Waynewood a week—a week of which one day had been so like the next that Winthrop remembered them all with impartial haziness and content. It was delightful to have nothing more startling to look forward to than a quail-shoot, a dinner at Sunnyside, or a game of whist in town; to have each day as alike in mellowness and sunshine as they were similar in events, pass softly across the garden, from shadow to shadow, the while he watched its passage with tranquilly smiling eyes and inert body from the seat under the magnolia or a chair on the quiet porch. ”

“ But whenever he come over here, no matter what he might be further inside, Mr. Winthrop was always a perfect gentleman, not a bit dissipated-lookin', exceptin' his bein' generally very pale; and we rather liked his visits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A clearing again. Shame, Volante! Are you a ploughman’s horse, that you labor so clumsily in these furrows? See that horrible glow upon the sky! This wood hides it again. Idle forest! why was it not burned clean from the ground a century ago? Everything baffles. No, Volante! No turning aside for this windrow! Over, over! Through, through, and now straight on! Yes; the hill is steep, but we must gallop down it. No stumbling. What! another wall, and higher? You shrink! No, — you must. She shall not burn! Now, God help us! Down? No; up and off! ”

“ 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." ”

“ But come! You hesitate! Winthrop, my son, you are in some danger. Into this boat instantly! both of you! Take the oars, George. Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye, my little girl. Winthrop, be good to her. And may God bless you both forever!"
As the old Squire spoke, he stepped into the larger boat, instantly releasing the skiff. His imperative gentleness had secured his object without loss of time, and the boats were apart with Winthrop's readiness to pull.
"Now row! Row for her life to yonder shore! Bow well up! Away, or the Falls will have her!" shouted Bedell. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ You should have seen the white horse, sir, in that picture, — full of gentleness and spirit, and worthy the handsome cavalier just ready to mount him.”
As the old gentleman talked of his heroic ancestor, a name not unknown to history, he revived a little, and I saw an evanescent look of his daughter’s vigor in his eye. It faded instantly; he sighed, and went on.
“I should almost have liked to live in those days. It is easier to die for a holy cause than to find one’s way along through life. I have found it pretty hard, sir, — pretty hard, — and I hope my day of peace is nearly come.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The peace was not of long lasting, for at the end of half or three quarters of an hour Winthrop had another interruption. The door opened briskly and there came in a young man, — hardly that, — a boy, but manly, well grown, fine and fresh featured, all alive in spirits and intellect. He came in with a rush, acknowledged Rufus's presence slightly, and drawing a stool close by Winthrop, bent his head in yet closer neighbourhood. The colloquy which followed was carried on half under breath, on his part, but with great eagerness. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The governor elected by the Massachusetts company was John Winthrop, one of the noblest men who aided in the making of New England. Winthrop was a gentleman by birth, gracious, gentle, and charitable in private life, intense—and sometimes intolerant—in his religious views. When he joined the “great emigration” of 1630, he was forty-one years of age, having been born the very year that the Spanish Armada was destroyed. With eight hundred men and the precious charter, Winthrop sailed to the New World. A few days were spent at Salem, and then it was decided to make a settlement at Charlestown. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ An elder of First Church I think you are;
I have a message for you; come, prepare."
Portrait of Rev. John Wilson. "Winthrop!" cried I, "my venerable sire!
Do you reanimate your rich attire?
Most glad am I to have this interview;
Pray, tell me all you wish, things old and new."
"My friend," said he, "no ven'rable am I,
For mortals grow no older when they die;
E'er since my earthly race I long have run,
My age has numbered only sixty-one.
Years are not counted on the heavenly shore,
For in eternal life time is no more. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But presently, as she looked at Kerr, growing redder with too much dinner and too much wine, laughing at his own coarse jokes and throwing at her with great vulgar compliments; and when all at once, in contrast, rose the figure of the other Major as she had painted him, — disgust so mastered her that she sprang up, pleaded a headache, and fled to her chamber, to wait and hope and doubt and pray alone. ”

“ Horses and men grew confident, and Hope, late feeble in the knees, now with braced muscles went turning somersets of joy before us. Antipodes and Gubbins, unleashed, were hurried along by the whoops and whips of my younker guides; and Klale, relieved of responsibility, and inspired by gay companions, became sprightly and tricksy. Sudden change had befallen my prospects, lately dreary. Shabbiest had come as forerunner of good fortune. Then, speeding after him, appeared my twin deliverers, guiding me for the low price of a shirt totally buttonless. ”

“ Frank Winthrop, the other little loiterer, had fallen asleep in one of the high pews, with a large Psalm-book for his pillow, and consequently he took no heed of her departure. There he lay in the calm, beautiful sleep of his young time of life, a model fit for the painter’s or the sculptor’s hand. How beautiful that boyish dreamer looked!—the round, fair outline, the fresh bloom of the features—his dark hair falling aside from his forehead, leaving its surface visible, and bland and fair. ”

“ This was hard on Winthrop, but he bore it without flinching outwardly. His heart yearned over the girl who was so alone, so far from her friends. He must not fail her.
“I haven't heard of any fighting there, and if there had been I certainly should,” he assured Miss Luck. “Besides, even if there should be another brush, there are ten chances to one against his being hurt. You've no idea what a lot of men escape even in the worst battles, without a scratch. Fighting's as safe as motoring, I reckon. ”

“ And still she seemed to rule her fate with quiet, steady eyes, — gray eyes with violet lights.
I carried her a few steps to the side of a jubilant fountain lifting beneath a rock, and left her there to Nature, kindliest leech.
Then I took a cup of that brilliant water to my friend, my brother.
“I can die now,” he said feebly.
“There is no death in you. You have won the right to live. Keep a brave heart. Drink!”
And in that exquisite spot, that fair glade of the sparkling fountains, I gave the noble fellow long draughts of sweet refreshment. ”