The Crimson Sign: A Narrative of the Adventures of Mr. Gervase Orme, Sometime Lieutenant in Mountjoy's Regiment of FootKeightley, S. R. (Samuel Robert)
History
The Crimson Sign: A Narrative of the Adventures of Mr. Gervase Orme, Sometime Lieutenant in Mountjoy's Regiment of Foot
compelled her to seek a home with her grandfather, who was unable to
make any other provision for her, however anxiously he desired to do so.
At Castleton, Dorothy Carew had spent two years of her life--not very
happy or pleasant years, but her sweet and joyous spirit had broken down
in some slight degree the barrier that her grandfather had raised
between himself and all the world.
He was growing old and frail, and his mind seemed to have gone wholly
back to the early years which he had spent in wild adventure and lawless
wanderings. The care of his estate he had left to his grandson, who paid
little heed to the old man, but went his way with the headstrong and
reckless selfishness that was the characteristic of his race. The
presence of his grand-daughter seemed to give him pleasure, but
companionship between them there was none. He accepted her attentions,
not, indeed, with an ill grace, but without any apparent sign of
affection, though at times, as he sat watching her moving about his
room, her figure appeared to arouse him from his fit of abstraction, and
to awaken a chord of memory that was not wholly painful.
So she passed these two years at Castleton--dull enough for a girl of
spirit and used to the excitement and life of a great city; and when the
news of a great Catholic rising and massacre arrived, it found her alone
and unprotected, with a number of panic-stricken domestics and a
helpless old man looking to her for assistance and advice. Her brother
had gone to Londonderry on business of his own, and there was no one
near her on whom she could rely. The servants had remained at their
posts for some time, but as the excitement deepened, and the tenantry
fled to Enniskillen or to Londonderry for safety and shelter, they
refused to remain longer, and while imploring her to join them in their
flight, one morning they departed in a body. She herself would willingly
have accompanied them, but her grandfather refused to move. It was, he
said, mere moonshine. It was only when the Irish army had marched
northward, and there came the frequent and alarming reports of robbery
and murder, that he was seized with an uncontrollable dread, and
insisted on fleeing to Londonderry forthwith. The girl had no one to
assist her in their hasty flight but a brave and trusty servant who had
served with her father abroad, and who had been since taken into her
grandfather´s service. Together they had bundled the old man into the
coach, and leaving the great house to its fate, had set out for the city
of refuge. How they fared on their way thither we have already seen.
Gervase walked by Bayard´s bridle, unmindful of all weariness and
regardless of all dangers, seeking, after the manner of young men, to
make the most of the sweet society into which chance had so strangely
thrown him. He was indignant with himself that he was ashamed of his
rags, though by way of making up for these, he began to talk of his life
in Dublin and the gay doings of the capital.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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