Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
From that day Bishop, notwithstanding his faults many and grievous, was
regarded with respect by both father and son, Richard vowing never to
mount another, let laugh who would, so long as the brute lived and he
had not recovered Lady.
But they had to give him room for two on the march, and the place behind
him was always left vacant, which they said gave no more space than he
wanted, seeing he kicked out his leg to twice its walking length. Before
long, however, they had got so used to his ways that they almost ceased
to regard them as faults, and he began to grow a favourite in the
regiment.
CHAPTER XL.
DOROTHY AND ROWLAND.
Such was the force of law and custom in Raglan that as soon as any
commotion ceased things settled at once. It was so now. The minds of the
marquis and lord Charles being at rest both as regarded the gap in the
defences of the castle and the character of its inmates, the very next
day all was order again. The fate of Amanda was allowed gradually to
ooze out, but the greater portion both of domestics and garrison
continued firm in the belief that she had been carried off by Satan.
Young Delaware, indeed, who had been revelling late--I mean in the
chapel with the organ--and who was always the more inclined to believe a
thing the stranger it was, asserted that he SAW devil fly away with
her--a testimony which gained as much in one way as it lost in another
by the fact that he could not see at all.
To Scudamore her absence, however caused, was only a relief. She had
ceased to interest him, while Dorothy had become to him like an
enchanted castle, the spell of which he flattered himself he was the
knight born to break. All his endeavours, however, to attract from her a
single look such as indicated intelligence, not to say response, were
disappointed. She seemed absolutely unsuspicious of what he sought,
neither, having so long pretermitted what claim he might once have
established to cousinly relations with her, could he now initiate any
intimacy on that ground. Had she become an inmate of Raglan immediately
after he first made her acquaintance, that might have ripened to
something more hopeful; but when she came she was in sorrow, nor felt
that there was any comfort in him, while he was beginning to yield to
the tightening bonds mistress Amanda had flung around him. Nor since had
he afforded her any ground for altering her first impressions, or
favourably modifying a feature of the portrait lady Margaret had
presented of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account