United States or Montserrat ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"So farewell, good mistress," said Master Gaythorn, and off they clanked together; and Patience, looking after them, could entirely believe that the handsome buff coat, fringed belt, high boots, and jauntily cocked hat would have driven out the thought of Stead in his best days.
He tried to take her hand, but she backed against the tree, and he repeated "Come along, I wouldn't hurt you for the world. Who is your father? Where shall we find him?" "My father is Serjeant Gaythorn of Sir Harry Blythedale's troopers," said the child, somewhat proudly, then starting again, "You are not a rebel, are you?" "No, I am a country lad," said Steadfast; "I want to help you.
"The child of a Midianitish woman!" exclaimed Jeph, "one of the Irish idolaters of whom it is written, 'Thou shalt smite them, and spare neither man, nor woman, infant, nor suckling." "But I am not Irish," broke out Emlyn, "I am from Worcestershire. My father is Serjeant Gaythorn, butler to Sir Harry Blythedale.
Henshaw, whose house was still a centre of inquiry for persons in the Cavalier interest. There, of course, they had discovered Emlyn; and Master Gaythorn proceeded to say that it had been decided that the estate should not be broken up, but that his son should at once wed her and unite their claims. "But, sir," exclaimed Patience, "she is troth plight to my brother."
Elmwood would not have hired that flighty damsel on any account, and Emlyn was sure it would be but mopish work to live under a starched old Puritan. Mrs. Lightfoot was therefore applied to, to find a service for Emlyn Gaythorn, and she presently discovered one Mistress Sloggett, a haberdasher's wife of wealth and consideration, who wanted a young maidservant.
"I am to wait here for Serjeant Gaythorn," observed the little damsel somewhat consequentially. "Well! it is a strange little makeshift of a place, but 'tis the fortune of war, and I have been in worse." "It is beautiful!" said Rusha, "now we have got a glass window and a real door and beds " all which recent stages in improvement she enumerated with a gasp of triumph and admiration between each.
"So you think," said little Mistress Gaythorn. "But I have lived in a castle." She was quite ready to tell her history. Her name was Emlyn, and the early part of the eight years of her life had been spent at Sir Harry Blythedale's castle, where her father had been butler and her mother my lady's woman.
Patience, however, was considerably startled when, one fine June day, she saw Mrs. Henshaw's servant point her out to two tall soldierly-looking men, apparently father and son. "Good morrow to you, honest woman," said the elder. "I am told it is you who have been at charges for many years for my brother's daughter, Emlyn Gaythorn." Patience assented.
Stead had better luck than Patience foreboded from a household where the servants were kept very strictly, for there was a good deal of curiosity in Bristol about the report that a lad from the neighbourhood had won an Irish heiress and castle, and when Stead presented himself at the door of the house under the overhanging gable, and begged to see Emlyn Gaythorn to give her some tidings, the maid who opened it exclaimed, "Is it anent the castle in Ireland?"
"Gaythorn he was a man to know again had big black moustaches, and had lost an eye, had a scar like a weal from a whip all down here from a sword-cut at Long Marston." "Then I saw him," said Stead, in a low voice. "Did he wear a green scarf?" "Aye, aye. Belonged to the Rangers, but they are pretty nigh all gone now." "Under the rail of the miller's croft," added Stead. "Just so.
Word Of The Day