Slain By The Doones

Slain By The Doones, by R. D.
Blackmore

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Title: Slain By The Doones
Author: R. D. Blackmore
Release Date: August 14, 2007 [EBook #22315]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE DOONES ***

Produced by David Widger

SLAIN BY THE DOONES.
by R. D. Blackmore
Copyright: Dodd, Mead And Company, 1895

CHAPTER I--AFTER
A STORMY LIFE.
To hear people talking about North Devon, and the savage part called
Exmoor, you might almost think that there never was any place in the
world so beautiful, or any living men so wonderful. It is not my
intention to make little of them, for they would be the last to permit it;
neither do I feel ill will against them for the pangs they allowed me to
suffer; for I dare say they could not help themselves, being so
slow-blooded, and hard to stir even by their own egrimonies. But when
I look back upon the things that happened, and were for a full
generation of mankind accepted as the will of God, I say, that the
people who endured them must have been born to be ruled by the devil.
And in thinking thus I am not alone; for the very best judges of that day
stopped short of that end of the world, because the law would not go
any further. Nevertheless, every word is true of what I am going to tell,
and the stoutest writer of history cannot make less of it by denial.
My father was Sylvester Ford of Quantock, in the county of Somerset,
a gentleman of large estate as well as ancient lineage. Also of high
courage and resolution not to be beaten, as he proved in his many rides
with Prince Rupert, and woe that I should say it! in his most sad death.
To this he was not looking forward much, though turned of threescore
years and five; and his only child and loving daughter, Sylvia, which is
myself, had never dreamed of losing him. For he was exceeding fond of
me, little as I deserved it, except by loving him with all my heart and
thinking nobody like him. And he without anything to go upon, except
that he was my father, held, as I have often heard, as good an opinion
of me.
Upon the triumph of that hard fanatic, the Brewer, who came to a
timely end by the justice of high Heaven--my father, being disgusted
with England as well as banished from her, and despoiled of all his
property, took service on the Continent, and wandered there for many
years, until the replacement of the throne. Thereupon he expected, as
many others did, to get his states restored to him, and perhaps to be

held in high esteem at court, as he had a right to be. But this did not so
come to pass. Excellent words were granted him, and promise of
tenfold restitution; on the faith of which he returned to Paris, and
married a young Italian lady of good birth and high qualities, but with
nothing more to come to her. Then, to his great disappointment, he
found himself left to live upon air--which, however distinguished, is
not sufficient--and love, which, being fed so easily, expects all who
lodge with it to live upon itself.
My father was full of strong loyalty; and the king (in his value of that
sentiment) showed faith that it would support him. His majesty took
both my father's hands, having learned that hearty style in France, and
welcomed him with most gracious warmth, and promised him more
than he could desire. But time went on, and the bright words faded, like
a rose set bravely in a noble vase, without any nurture under it.
Another man had been long established in our hereditaments by the
Commonwealth; and he would not quit them of his own accord, having
a sense of obligation to himself. Nevertheless, he went so far as to offer
my father a share of the land, if some honest lawyers, whom he quoted,
could find proper means for arranging it. But my father said: "If I
cannot have my rights, I will have my wrongs. No mixture of the two
for me." And so, for the last few years of his life, being now very poor
and a widower, he took refuge in an outlandish place, a house and small
property in