Crown and Sceptre

Crown and Sceptre, by George
Manville Fenn

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Title: Crown and Sceptre A West Country Story
Author: George Manville Fenn
Illustrator: J. Nash
Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23382]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROWN
AND SCEPTRE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Crown and Sceptre, a West Country Story, by George Manville Fenn.
CHAPTER ONE.

IN THE WEST COUNTREE.
"Derry down, derry down, derry down!"
A cheery voice rolling out the chorus of an old west-country ditty.
Then there was a run of a few yards, a sudden stoppage, and a round,
red missile was thrown with considerable force after a blackcock,
which rose on whirring wings from among the heather, his violet-black
plumage glistening in the autumn sun, as he skimmed over the moor,
and disappeared down the side of a hollow coombe.
"Missed him," said the thrower, thrusting his hand into his pocket, and
bringing out a similar object to that which he had used as a missile, but
putting it to a far different purpose; for he raised it to his mouth, drew
back his red lips, and with one sharp crunch drove two rows of white
teeth through the ruddy skin, cut out a great circular piece of apple, spat
it out, and threw the rest away.
"What a sour one!" he cried, as he dived after another, which proved to
be more satisfactory, for he went on munching, as he made his short cut
over the moor towards where, in a sheltered hollow, a stone building
peeped from a grove of huge oaks.
The sun shone brightly as, with elastic tread, the singer, a lad of about
sixteen, walked swiftly over the elevated moorland, now descending
into a hollow, now climbing a stiff slope, at whose top he could look
over the sea, which spread away to north and west, one dazzling plain
of damasked silver, dotted with red-sailed boats. Then down another
slope facing the south, where for a moment the boy paused to deliver a
sharp kick at something on the short fine grass.
"Ah, would you!" he exclaimed, following up the kick by a jump which
landed him upon a little writhing object, which repeated its first attack,
striking with lightning rapidity at the lad's boot, before lying crushed
and helpless, never to bask in the bright sun again.
"Serve you right, you nasty poisonous little beast!" cried the boy,

crushing his assailant's head beneath his heel. "You got the worst of it.
Think the moor belonged to you? Lucky I had on my boots."
He dropped upon the ground, drew off a deer-skin boot, and, with his
good-looking, fair boyish face all in wrinkles, proceeded to examine
the toe, removing therefrom a couple of tiny points with his knife.
"What sharp teeth adders have!" he muttered. "Not long enough to go
through."
The next minute he had drawn on his boot, and set off at a trot, which
took him down to the bottom of the slope, and half up the other side of
the coombe, at whose bottom he had had to leap a tiny stream. Then,
walking slowly, he climbed the steeper slope; and there was a double
astonishment for a moment, the boy staring hard at a noble-looking stag,
the avant-guard of a little herd of red deer, which was grazing in the
hollow below.
The boy came so suddenly upon the stag, that the great fellow stood at
gaze, his branching antlers spreading wide. Then there was a rush, and
the little herd was off at full speed, bucks, does, and fawns, seeming
almost to fly, till they disappeared over a ridge.
"That's the way!" said the lad. "Now, if Scar and I had been out with
our bows, we might have walked all day and never seen a horn."
As the lad trudged on, munching apples and breaking out from time to
time into scraps of song, the surroundings of his walk changed, for he
passed over a rough stone wall, provided with projections to act as a
stile, and left the moorland behind, to enter upon a lovely park-like
expanse, dotted with grand oaks and firs, among which he had not
journeyed long before, surrounded on three sides by trees, he came in
full sight of the fine-looking, ruddy stone hall, glimpses of which he
had before seen, while its windows and a wide-spreading lake in front