And this was how it happened that the Heavenly Twins, who had only gone to
Morne for a month, remained a year there, and one of the most important
years of their lives, as was afterward evident. It was during this time
that they managed to identify themselves completely with their grandfather
in the estimation of the people of Morningquest. Charming manners were a
family trait, and the Heavenly Twins had always been popular in the city
on their own account; their spontaneity and extreme affability having
usually been held to balance their monkey tricks. Hamilton House, however,
was ten miles distant from Morningquest, and they had hitherto been
thought of as Hamilton-Wells; but after that year at the Castle, they
became identified with the old stock, the alien Hamilton-Wells being
dropped out of sight altogether.
The duke himself had always been popular. He had, like his ancestors,
lived much in his castle on the hill overlooking the city, and had
dominated the latter by his personality as well as by his place, so that
the people, predisposed by the pressure of hereditary habit to recognize
the pre-eminence of one of his family, and being no longer subject to the
authority of their duke as in the old days when he was a ruler who must be
obeyed, looked up to him involuntarily as an example to be followed.
Which was how it came to pass that, for the last half century, there had
been two influences at work in Morningquest: that of the chime, full
fraught with spiritual suggestion; and that of the duke, which was just
the opposite. They were the influences of good and evil, and, needless to
say, the effect of the latter was much the more certain of the two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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