FORE:A hundred yards off a Totease barn-door gaped, and the workmen sprinted for it. In the darkness they were able to reach it without losing more than one of their number, who fell down and had the wit to pretend to be dead. The crowd seethed after them, but the door was shut, and the heavy bolts rattled behind it."You don't understand me. It's not because I'm dead and sluggish that I don't want anything, but because I've had fight enough in me to triumph over my desires. So now everything's mine."
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The abbot of Winchcombe had now become a frequent guest at Sudley. The feelings enkindled by the detention of Edith, and the defiance of De Boteler had passed away and were forgotten. Expiatory presents had been made to the abbey, and a promise given that a gift of land should be added to its already ample endowments. Sudbury, as we have already related, had questioned the monk respecting Holgrave and the child, and, from the evasive replies returned, was strongly inclined to favour the opinion of Isabella, who now, that the application to the smith had failed, became more urgent that some compulsory measure should exact an unequivocal avowal from father John. The wishes of one so powerfully connected as the wife of the influential De Boteler, were, no doubt, of some weight with the abbot; but these certainly would not have influenced him so far as to induce him to adopt a conduct incompatible with the dignity of his character, had not father John been known of late to express strange opinions; and the monk, though poor and friendless, was one of those whose opinions somehow (it can scarcely be said why) appeared of consequence. It was true that, although but an illiterate bondman when he gained admission to the cloister, he was now, if not entirely, the most learned, undoubtedly the most talented and industrious within its walls: no monk transcribed so much, none was more devout, more strict in discipline, more attentive to the numerous and fatiguing duties of his situation as a secular monk in administering the sacraments, attending the sick, &c. But, though thus exemplary, strange things were said of him. He had been heard to declare, for instance, that villeinage was oppressive, and in every sense unjust; and that every villein was justified, whenever an opportunity offered, in escaping from bondage. These opinions, although not sufficiently heinous to have subjected him to ecclesiastical punishment, were yet considered sinful;the first as uncharitable, and the second as subversive of good order: and they induced Sudbury to act with more rigour than he would have been inclined to adopt had there been only the vague suspicions of the lady to urge his interference. Father John, therefore, was again questioned, and commanded, by his vow of obedience, to disclose the retreat of Holgrave, and reveal all he knew respecting the lost child: but threats availed not. In the midst of these adjurations, the abbot received a paper from a messenger, who burst breathless into the room, with the intelligence that the Lady Isabella had fallen down in a swoon in her own chamber."Dying!"
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The wind would carry him the scent of gorse, like peaches and apricots. There was something in that scent which both mocked and delighted him. It was an irony that the huge couchant beast of Boarzell should smell so sweetsurely the wind should have brought him a pungent ammoniacal smell like the smell of stables ... or perhaps the smell of blood."You have been drinking," said Calverley, with anger. "Could you not have kept sober till you had seen me?"
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The graceful Isabella de Vere was seated on a white palfrey, and attired in a riding-dress of green velvet, while a richly embroidered mantle or surcoat of the same material, trimmed with minever, fell from her shoulders, and in some measure concealed the emblazoned housing that ornamented the beautiful animal on which she rode. A pyramidal cap of green satin, with a long veil of transparent tissue flowing from the point, and falling so as partly to shadow, and partly reveal the glow of her high-born beauty, was the only head-gear worn that day by the daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and the new baroness of Sudley.His skin burned, his pulses throbbed, in his head was a buzzing and humming.
FORE:Reuben scarcely knew what brought him to Cheat Land. It was about a week after the blow fell that he found himself treading the once familiar lane, lifting the latch of the garden gate, and knocking at the green house-door. Nothing had changed, except to fade a little and show some signs of wear and tear. Alice herself had not changed, nor had she faded, though her cheeks might have fallen in a trifle and a few lines traced themselves round her mouth.
FORE:
FORE:
FORE:But in this instance the offence was aggravated, at least in the eye of the law, by the manner and occasion. The law had not as yet contemplated the evasion of its decisions, by the disinterment of the bodies of criminals, and, consequently, there was no provision for punishing the deed. It was, however, taken into account in the verdict, and the damages were proportionably heavy. Holgrave, as may readily be imagined, had not a coin to meet the demand, and his crops, which had grown and flourished, as if by miraclefor they had been little indebted to his attentionwere now condemned to be cut down, and put up for sale to pay the damages. The yeoman had often looked upon his plentiful fields with a feeling of pleasure: not that his mind had latterly been in a mood to find pleasure in the prospect of gain; but his house and his land were mortgaged, (for his mother,) and even in the darkest and most troubled scene, there is a beauty, a redeeming brightness, encircling the domestic hearth,nay, perhaps, the heart clings more closely to home, and treasures, more fondly, the little nameless pleasures, and even the cares and anxieties of domestic life, in proportion to the bleakness of the prospect without.
