United States or Djibouti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Very often she used to say that I was her only comfort, and I am sure she was my only one; and when she died it was more to me than if I had lost a mother. 'For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother, although they say that my father was the eldest son of Sir Ensor Doone, and the bravest and the best of them.
But Roque only doubled as he was bid, and took us hither and thither, and back to the nest of his lady-bird, where we left her and the others with grateful regrets, and finally back to the Ensor House, which on this occasion seemed to us the end of all things.
A tall old man, Sir Ensor Doone, came out with a bill-hook in his hand, hedger's gloves going up his arms, as if he were no better than a labourer at ditch-work. Only in his mouth and eyes, his gait, and most of all his voice, even a child could know and feel that here was no ditch-labourer. Good cause he has found since then, perhaps, to wish that he had been one.
"As yet I had not truly learned the evil of our living, the scorn of law, the outrage, and the sorrow caused to others. It even was a point with all to hide the roughness from me, to show me but the gallant side, and keep in shade the other. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, had given strictest order, as I discovered afterwards, that in my presence all should be seemly, kind, and vigilant.
But although our family is not so high now as it hath been, I have enough of the gentleman left to be pleased when good people try me. My father, Sir Ensor, was better than I in this great element of birth, and my son Carver is far worse. Aetas parentum, what is it, my boy? I hear that you have been at a grammar-school."
"And know you of your own low descent from the Ridds of Oare?" "Sir," I answered, being as yet unaccustomed to this style of speech, "the Ridds, of Oare, have been honest men twice as long as the Doones have been rogues." "I would not answer for that, John," Sir Ensor replied, very quietly, when I expected fury. "If it be so, thy family is the very oldest in Europe.
Old man be dying; and her can't die, or at least her won't, without first considering thee. 'Considering me! I cried; 'what can Sir Ensor Doone want with considering me? Has Mistress Lorna told him? 'All concerning thee, and thy doings; when she knowed old man were so near his end. That vexed he was about thy low blood, a' thought her would come to life again, on purpose for to bate 'ee.
"The colored people have always been religiously inclined, believed in the power of prayer and whenever she attended anyone she always preceeded with a prayer. Mother told me and I have heard her tell others hundreds of times, that one time a slave of old man Cockey was seen coming from her home early in the morning. He had been there for treatment of an ailment which Dr. Ensor had failed to cure.
She said it was extraordinary how well the author of "Lorna" had known all the traditions of her family for she was one of the Doones; and that there really was a Sir Ensor, a wild rebellious son of an Earl of Moray, who travelled with his wife to Exmoor, and settled there, in a rage because the king would give him no redress against his elder brother. "How does she spell her name of Audrie?"
His successor, Ensor, representing the same view, finds an appropriate topic in the wrongs of Ireland. Irish poverty, he holds, is plainly due not to over-population but to under-government, meaning, we must suppose, misgovernment. But the same cause explains other cases. The 'people are poor and are growing poorer, and there is no mystery about it.
Word Of The Day