United States or Namibia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Lady Rosemary Granton has gone to New York, at the cabled invitation of some old family friends." "It is understood that the Hon. George Brammerton, second and only other son of the late Earl, is presently on a long walking tour in Europe. His whereabouts are unknown and he is still in ignorance of his father's death."
As I grew from babyhood to boyhood, from boyhood to youth, it was drummed into me by my father that Lady Rosemary Granton, some day, would wed the future Earl of Brammerton and Hazelmere. This apparently awful calamity did not cause me any mental agony or loss of sleep, for the reason that I was merely The Honourable George, second son of my noble parent.
"Petty matters," I cried. "You call this petty? God forgive you, Harry. Petty! and that poor girl crying her heart out; her whole innocent life blasted; her future a disgrace! Petty! my God!; and you a Brammerton! "But I tell you," I blazed, "you shall let Lady Rosemary know." "And I tell you, I shall not," he replied. "Then, by God! I'll do it myself," I retorted.
"You will go to her a Brammerton, fulfilling the vow made by a Brammerton, with a Brammerton's honour, unstained, unblemished, 'Clean, within and without'?" He rose slowly from the chest and faced me squarely. There was nothing of the coward in Harry. His eye glistened with a cruel light. "Have a care, little brother," he said between his regular, white teeth. "Have a care."
Hobnailed boots, home-spun breeches; ugh! it's enough to make your noble ancestors turn in their coffins and groan. "Don't you know the Brammerton motto is, 'Clean, within and without." He bent the blade of his rapier until it formed a half hoop, then he let it fly back with a twang.
"Yes! I know, so let us not say any more about it. It is Harry and she for it, and, if they are pleased and an old whim of yours satisfied, what matters it to an ordinary, easy-going, pipe-loving, cold-blooded fellow like me?" "Whim, did you say? Whim?" cried my father, flaring up and clenching his hands excitedly. "Do you call the vow of a Brammerton a whim? The pledged word of a Granton a whim?
I had known such another as Jake in the little village of Brammerton; and I knew what the inevitable end had been and what Jake's would be also. "Don't be sore at me, George," he pleaded. "It's the only friend I got now." "It is not any friend of yours, Jake." "Well, maybe it ain't, but I think it is and that's about the only way we can reckon our friends.
The blood rushed from my face to my heart and seemed as if it would burst that great, throbbing organ: My eyes scanned the notice. "News has been telegraphed that the Earl of Brammerton and Hazelmere died suddenly of heart failure at his country residence, Hazelmere.
There are so many men from both lands in the camps and settled along the coast and they all so dearly love a newspaper. I generally try to give them what has been issued nearest their own home towns." I rowed Mr. Auld over to his launch and wished him good-bye, receiving from his kindly old hands a copy of The Northern Examiner, dated three days after I had left Brammerton.
"'And nothing would please me so much, Harry, old boy, as that a maid of Granton should wed a Brammerton, he answered earnestly. "'Then it's a go, said I, full of enthusiasm. "'It's a go, Harry. "And we raised our winecups, such as they were. "'Your daughter, Fred! "'Your heir, Harry! "'The future Earl and Countess of Brammerton and Hazelmere, we chimed together.
Word Of The Day