The Project Gutenberg EBook of 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

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAIN BY 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