Tales From the Telling-House

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Blackmore Richard Doddridge. Tales From the Telling-House

PREFACE

SLAIN BY THE DOONES

CHAPTER I. AFTER A STORMY LIFE

CHAPTER II. BY A QUIET RIVER

CHAPTER III. WISE COUNSEL

CHAPTER IV. A COTTAGE HOSPITAL

CHAPTER V. MISTAKEN AIMS

CHAPTER VI. OVER THE BRIDGE

FRIDA; OR, THE LOVER’S LEAP. A LEGEND OF THE WEST COUNTRY

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

GEORGE BOWRING. A TALE OF CADER IDRIS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CROCKER’S HOLE

PART I

PART II

PART III

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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.

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“There are few of us left, and we are persecuted. Sad calumnies are spread about us,” this venerable man proceeded, while I gazed on the silver locks that fell upon his well-worn velvet coat. “But of such things we take small heed, while we know that the Lord is with us. Haply even you, young maiden, have listened to slander about us.”

I told him with some concern, although not caring much for such things now, that I never had any chance of listening to tales about anybody, and was yet without the honour of even knowing who he was.

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