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Updated: August 9, 2024
He spoke in an off-hand casual sort of way, and was rather proud of his knowledge until the boy laughed. "No, sir, that there is Crockern Tor. Cawsan' Baycon be right 'way 'tother side of Dartymoor, right 'long up in the narth, Oke'ampton way." "Is Crockern Tor as high as Cawsand Beacon?" asked Paul, more humbly. "I reckon not, not by a brave bit," said the boy, "but it's a purty place to go to."
"Come yeou right in an' set down, my little dearrs," said the woman. "They'll niver touch my man. He'll poach 'em to rights. Iss fai! Fresh berries an' cream. Us Dartymoor folk niver forgit their friends. But them Bidevor poachers, they've no hem to their garments. Sugar? My man he've digged a badger for yeou, my dearrs. 'Tis in the linhay in a box."
Then he went away to Newton to join some lawyer body an' larn his business. An' I mind the two small maids as was my elder sisters and comed betwixt me an' Joel. Both died like candles blawed out roughly by the wind. They wasn't made o' the stuff to stand Dartymoor winters."
And he swears to goodness that he never offered marriage before because he never found the woman worthy of it and so on; and all to me! Me a spinster from my youth up and never a thought of a man! And now, of course, I'll be a laughing-stock to Dartymoor, and a figure of fun for every thoughtless fool to snigger at." "You couldn't help his doing it," I said. "'Tis a free country."
"But `one thing at a time' is a good maxim in such a business as ours, my lad; and we will see what Cartagena yields before we begin to think seriously about any of the other towns. And now, here comes the dawn at last, for which thanks be; for I am as hungry as if I had spent all night to the top of Dartymoor, and want my breakfast."
She was for selling Dunnabridge and getting away from Dartymoor, because the place had used her bad, and she hated the sight of it; but Jonathan, a proud chap even then, got the lawyers to look into the matter, and they told him that 'twasn't vital for Dunnabridge to be sold, though it might ease his pocket, and smooth his future to do so, 'specially as Duchy wanted the place rather bad, and had offered the value of it.
"'Wedlock an' winter tames maids an' beastes," said Mr. Lyddon bitterly. "A true saw that." "Ess; an' when 'tis wedlock wi' Blanchard, an' winter on Dartymoor, 'twould tame the daughter of the Dowl, if he had wan." Billy laughed at this thought. His back rounded as he sat in his chair, his head seemed to rise off his lower jaw, and the yellow frill of hair under his chin stood stiffly out.
So there, you might say, lies the text of the tale of Jonathan Drake, of Dunnabridge Farm, a tenement in the Forest of Dartymoor. 'Twas Naboth's vineyard to Duchy, and the greedy thing would have given a very fair price for it, without a doubt; but the Drake folk held their land, and wouldn't part with it, and boasted a freehold of fifty acres in the very midst of the Forest.
"Not that that's anything for or against," declared Gaffer Lezzard. "Power of hand's nought against brain." "It gaws a tidy long way 'pon Dartymoor, however," declared Bonus. "An' Blanchard doan't set no 'mazin' store on Hicks neither, if it comes to words. I heard un say awnly t'other forenoon that the man was a weak saplin', allus grumblin', an' might be better for a gude hiding."
He can't blame himself, for not a soul on Dartymoor but us three has ever heard tell about the money." "But he'll blame me for having money at all," answered the girl. "He said a dozen times afore he offered for me, that he'd never look at a woman if she'd got more cash than what he had himself. That's why I couldn't bring myself to confess to it and lose him.
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