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Upton Court was a manor-house of considerable extent, which had in former times been the residence of a distinguished Catholic family, but which, in the changes of property incident to our fluctuating neighbourhood, was now "fallen from its high estate," and degraded into the homestead of a farm so small, that the tenant, a yeoman of the poorest class, was fain to eke out his rent by entering into an agreement with a speculating Belford upholsterer, and letting off a part of the fine old mansion in the shape of furnished lodgings.
The failure of the gendarmes at Tournebut had convinced him that this old manor-house, so peaceful of aspect, hid terrible secrets, and that its occupants had arranged within it inaccessible retreats. Then he changed his tactics.
At that moment a man dressed in rough tweeds and leggings, who had emerged from the stable side of the manor-house, crossed the terrace, and, descending the steps, walked over the lawn towards the two ladies. He had massive shoulders and a thick, strong neck, coarse reddish hair, and a moustache of a lighter shade.
In the middle of the village was a small pond, invariably covered with goose feathers, with muddy, indented banks; a hundred paces from the pond, on the other side of the road, rose the wooden manor-house, long, empty, and mournfully slanting on one side.
After the marriage of Alice and Markham Everard, the old knight resided near them, in an ancient manor-house, belonging to the redeemed portion of his estate, where Joceline and Phoebe, now man and wife, with one or two domestics, regulated the affairs of his household.
I lingered about the place until the growing darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-House, that led me to Bridget's cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of closed doors it might be of resolved will she should see me. So I knocked at her door, gently, loudly, fiercely.
They had themselves been brought like poachers before the justices for a horse-race or a cock-fight. At every breath of a rising a squad of the New Model had quartered itself in the manor-house and a warrant from the Major-general of the district had cleared the stables. Nor was this all. The same tyranny which pressed on their social and political life had pressed on their religious life too.
In many instances the homestead which his forefathers left, when they followed Winthrop or Hooker to America, is still to be found, well-kept and comfortable; the ancient manor-house built of massive unhewn stone, yet in other respects much like the New England farmhouse, with its long sloping roof and gable end toward the road, its staircase with twisted balusters running across the shallow entry-way, its low ceilings with their sturdy oaken beams, its spacious chimneys, and its narrow casements from which one might have looked out upon the anxious march of Edward IV. from Ravenspur to the field of victory at Barnet in days when America was unknown.
The rent is eighteen-pence a week probably the lowest-rented manor-house in England, though it is not very rare to find such places tenanted by labourers. But let us look at the true cottages. There are, I imagine, few places in England where the humble homes of the people have so great a charm.
He trusted, not without cause, to English honour, and coming to his manor-house of Zoubourg, near Flushing, he addressed a letter to the ambassador of Elizabeth, in which the strong desire to vindicate his aspersed integrity is quite manifest.
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