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Updated: August 2, 2024
"Blood and thunder! bombs and fury! what have I done, that you should turn me out of your house in my grey hairs now I'm dismantled, as it were, and laid up in ordinary?" "Turn you out, Piggy! what could put that in your foolish noddle?" "If madam comes in, I cut my cable, and pay off Rathelin Hall right abaft even if I die in a ditch, and am buried by the parish.
When we had arrived at Exeter, where we found it necessary to sleep, in order to gain some little restoration from the fatigues of our incessant travelling, we made up our minds to hire three horses and a groom, and, having very accurately ascertained the exact site of Rathelin Hall, which was situated a few miles to the north-eastward of Barnstaple, we arrived there towards the close of the day, and put up at a very decent inn in an adjoining village.
He has become necessary to me. He was never very handsome; but now, in his sixty-second year, he is a perfect fright; so, at least, everybody tells me, for I don't see it myself. His duties about my person seem to be continually healthily irritant; the most important one of which is, to keep me a bachelor, and scare away all womankind from Rathelin Hall.
The landlord and his household were much struck by the similarity of the name by which I still went, Rattlin, and that of Rathelin; and thus, whilst I was playing the cautious before Mr Seabright, the news had already reached the Hall, and those most concerned to know it, that two gentlemen, a Mr Rattlin and a Mr Pigtop, with their groom, had put up at the Three Bells in the village, and had sent for the lawyer.
"Well, you know it was in those happy days that I had first the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with the inimitable Ralph Rattlin." "But why Rattlin? my name must be either Daventry or Rathelin."
This sudden act seemed miraculously to invigorate our father; he rose from his seat, and, standing to the full height of his tall and gaunt figure, placing his bony hand heavily on my shoulder, and looking me fixedly in the face, said, "If thou art Ralph Rathelin, who then is this?"
"Rathelin, of a surety it was first of all corrupted to Rattlin by that topmost of all top-sawyers, Joe Brandon it having thus been so established, for many reasons, concealment among the rest, your mother thought it best for you to retain it. Now, Ralph, mark this about eight, or rather seven, months ago, I took a short trip to my native country in Germany. Never was my health more redundant.
"Why, here, sir, to be sure, in our town of Antwick; and mortally in dudgeon he has taken all this." "Undoubtedly, and with justice," was my reply. "So faithful a servant, who has for so many years had the sole management of the Rathelin affairs, should not be cast off so slightly. Give us as good a supper, landlord, as your skill and Antwick can produce, and let us have covers for three.
The landlord was called up; he became seriously alarmed, the more especially when the direction that we had taken had been ascertained. He immediately concluded that we had gone to Rathelin Hall to commit a burglary, or perhaps a murder.
I don't think that she was more beautiful than I, but he he whom I will never mention began to be of that opinion at least, I trembled. Reginald Rathelin loved her wooed her; I entered with eagerness into his schemes his success was my security.
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