r company because it
would make me uncomfortable, and themselves as well, in a different
way, they did what nearly all Englishmen do, when a thing is right and
sensible. They shook hands with me; and said that they could not deny
but that there was reason in my view of the matter. And although they
themselves must be the losers--which was a handsome thing to say--they
would wait until I was a little older and more aware of my own value.

Now this reminds me how it is that an English gentleman is so far in
front of foreign noblemen and princes. I have seen at times, a little,
both of one and of the other, and making more than due allowance for
the difficulties of language, and the difference of training, upon the
whole, the balance is in favour of our people. And this, because we have
two weights, solid and (even in scale of manners) outweighing all light
complaisance; to wit, the inborn love of justice, and the power of
abiding.

Yet some people may be surprised that men with any love of justice,
whether inborn or otherwise, could continue to abide the arrogance, and
rapacity, and tyranny of the Doones.

For now as the winter passed, the Doones were not keeping themselves at
home, as in honour they were bound to do. Twenty sheep a week, and one
fat ox, and two stout red deer (for wholesome change of diet), as well
as threescore bushels of flour, and two hogsheads and a half of cider,
and a hundredweight of candles, not to mention other things of almost
every variety which they got by insisting upon it--surely these might
have sufficed to keep the people in their place, with no outburst of
wantonness. Nevertheless, it was not so; they had made complaint about
something--too much ewe-mutton, I think it was--and in spite of all the
pledges given, they had ridden forth, and carried away two maidens of
our neighbourhood.

Now these two maidens were known, because they had served the beer at
an ale-house; and many men who had looked at them, over a pint or quart
vessel (especially as they were comely girls), thought that it was very
hard for them to go in that way, and perhaps themselves unwilling. And
their mother (although she had taken some money, which the Doones were
always full of) declared that it was a robbery; and though it increased
for a while the custom, that must soon fall off again. And who would
have her two girls now, clever as they were and good?

Before we had finished meditating upon this loose outrage