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At Craigdarrock House is kept "the whistle" of his poem of that name. Burns tells the story of it in a note. It was brought into Scotland by a doughty Dane in the train of Anne, queen of James VI. He had won it in a drinking bout. It was a "challenge whistle," to use a modern term. The man who gave the last whistle upon it, before tumbling under the table dead drunk, won it.
The remaining conflict of the war was a naval one, of remarkable character. Russia, finding its Pacific fleet put out of commission, and quite unable to face the doughty Togo, had despatched a second fleet from the Baltic, comprising nearly forty vessels in all.
The doughty Count of Embden alone could have swallowed up such sovereignty, have annexed all the buckwheat patches and cranberry marshes of Overyssel to his own meagre territories, and nobody the wiser. Zeeland, as we have seen, was disposed at a critical moment to set up its independent sovereignty.
The pretty, black-eyed gipsy girl, whom I have mentioned on a former occasion as the sibyl that read the fortunes of the general, endeavoured to wheedle that doughty warrior into their interests, and even made some approaches to her old acquaintance, Master Simon; but was repelled by the latter with all the dignity of office, having assumed a look of gravity and importance suitable to the occasion.
Three Earls, Pembroke, Powis, and Carnarvon, represented the cultured family of Herbert, and, as a counterpoise to the Duke of Northumberland, we see six Peers of the doughty Douglas blood. Lord Curzon found by his side three other Curzons, and the Duke of Atholl three Murrays from the slopes of the Grampians.
"Pardon me, noble Duke; but, though the Lady Marjory Douglas be departed, like an errant dame in romance, to implore succour of her doughty sire, there is, I may say, a lovelier, I am sure a younger, maiden, either presently at Falkland or who will soon be on the road thither. Your Highness has not forgotten the Fair Maid of Perth?" "Forget the prettiest wench in Scotland!
But some day the British public will wake up and will refuse to read the works of a smug- faced man in spectacles who tries to make them believe that he is doughty, fearless, and beloved of beautiful damsels.
The tame round of the cities and picture-galleries of Europe had no charms for him. Among the many books which he had read at this time were the Indian romances of Chateaubriand, "René," "Attila," and "Le Dernier Abencerage." How deeply these stories had impressed his mind is apparent in his letters to Lady Doughty. "Happy," he says, "was the life of René.
But in the March of that year he moved to a more commodious dwelling, at 48, Doughty Street, where he remained till the end of 1839, when still increasing means enabled him to move to a still better house at 1, Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. But the house in Doughty Street must have been endeared to him by many memories.
Then the two lieutenants rose swiftly, but a third shape bounded into the road a gigantic figure Black Tom! With a startled yell they gathered him in one by the waist, the other about the neck, and, for a moment, the terrible Kentuckian it could be none other swung the two clear of the ground, but the doughty lieutenants hung to him.
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