United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And his ancestor, Governor Winthrop, would probably have shaken his head over his descendant's dangerous audacity, if one may judge by the solemn way in which he mentions poor Mrs. Hutchinson's unpleasant experience, which so grievously disappointed her maternal expectations.
He calls aloud, aye, even on ye, wife and son of Comyn of Buchan, to snap the link that binds ye to a traitor's house, and prove though darkly, basely flows the blood of Macduff in one descendant's veins, that the Earl of Fife refuses homage and allegiance to his sovereign in ye it rushes free, and bold, and loyal still." "And he shall find it so. Mother, why do ye not speak?
"Ha ha!" cried Cockburn, laughing, and glad to get rid of the original topic. "Don't you know, Maudge, that my grandsire was a dabbler in prophetic visions; and, think ye, he would have been fool enough to plant and water, as he is said to have done, his descendant's wuddy? But I have a good mind to cut down the tree, and make Lailoken's prophecy a physical impossibility."
This maiden aunt was, as are most Irish folk of decayed families, very proud of her family tree with its roots in the inevitable "kings." Her particular kings were the "seven kings of France" the "Milesian kings" and the tree grew up a parchment, in all its impressive majesty, over the mantelpiece of their descendant's modest drawing-room.
Lately Conscience had had the picture restored and now the renovated forebear, almost jaunty in his refurbishing, looked down on his descendant and the descendant's pride was quickened. To-night, however, the eyes of the portrait seemed full of grim accusation. In their cold depths Eben could fancy the question sternly put, "Where are your sons?
He paused a moment, and then added, meaningly: "So far as being a very very taking sort of old person goes." Granny Marrable, rather absorbed in her descendant's relations with his bottle, found in due course an opportunity to answer, looking up at the doctor: "A very taking old person? But what, then, is to seek in her? Unless she be bad of heart or dishonest."
It was the Madam's opinion that "blood would tell," and the good blood of many past Sturtevants stirred now in their descendant's veins, rousing his unselfishness, and making him say: "F-f-fudge! You look b-b-beat out. I'll go the road, all right. I don't m-m-m-mind it m-m-much, not much;" for even chivalry could not prevent this last truthful word of regret.
A rosy sage in senatorials, in Stuart's later claret-and-water manner hang in his descendant's dining-room. Peter's first look was a provokingly significant one at the confused and blushing young lady. Secondly he inspected the Dying Gladiator on the ice. "Have you been tilting at this gentleman, Mary?" he asked, in the voice of a cheerful, friendly fellow. "Why! Hullo. Hooray!
Even Bramble turned up with a magnificent grandmother, greatly to the envy of friend and foe, and would have been the proudest Tadpole alive if the dear good old lady had not insisted on taking her descendant's hand instead of his arm, and trotting him about instead of letting him trot her. Oliver and Stephen alone had no kith and kin to see them on this proud day.
Probably not one of all those dead knights ever felt half the pride in himself that is felt in him by his representative in the nineteenth century, nor experienced half as much pleasure in gazing at his battered shield with its half-defaced cognisance, as now brings the blood to his descendant's cheek as he looks at the carved stone semblance of the original.
Word Of The Day