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The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway |
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Appendix 3 European Magazine
Vol 76 pps 105-110 TALES OF TODAY Lady Ann of
Pembroke in 1819 Our Tales to-day were
regulated by the pictures chosen from my port-folio; and as the only lady in
our little groupe had honoured the young clerk by choosing a chancellor’s
portrait, he requited the courtesy by selecting a celebrated female’s for the
subject of this Tale. When |
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of perfection in his mind;
and having but one daughter, he had called her Ann, and sent her to a
seminary near this noble lady’s estate, that she might be in all things
acquainted and impressed with her example. Being three thousand miles distant
himself, he selected for her guardian and future trustee, a lineal descendant
of Lady Ann’s most approved steward, a farmer of primitive morals and
provincial shrewdness, whose great-grandfather’s name appeared in the oldest
fee farm rents. He had received annual communications since his daughter’s
settlement in England from this good man; marvellously concise, but always
indicating that his Ann advanced in every part of education which the Lady
Ann excelled in; and De Romille was struck with high respect for modern
seminaries, when he found that to learn Latin, Greek, geometry, chemistry,
elocution and algebra, were no uncommon matters in the year 1819. De Romille
underwent the fatigues of his long voyage with the delicious heart-fullness
of a father hastening to the completion of his labours. He had received the
Baron’s title- flattering to his fancy only because it gave to his cherished
daughter the name so dear to his imagination; and as that imagination became
frolicsome during the leisure of a long voyage, he conceived the dangerous
idea of visiting his birth-place and his daughter as a stranger before he
appeared “with all his blushing honours
thick upon him”. A letter dated from the Isle of Wight, announcing that
he meant to refresh his health in that Montpellier of England before he
entered into its most northern district, was
sent to amuse the steward, and a stage- coach conveyed the new Baron
de Romille into During the moonlight night that preceded his last journey, De Romille’s heart beat with a school-boy’s gladness as he remembered the ancient elms and firs that overtopped the castle and stretched their interwoven arms over the stream that wore a channel at its foot. His adventurous leaps among the steep and shaggy rocks that once formed that channel, his plunder of rooks nests and wild strawberries to divert an only sister now no more, returning to his memory with pleasant dimness of evening shadows, softened and improved by distance. His sister bore the name he loved so fondly; and its holy place in his remembrance probably confirmed the hold which Lady Ann De Clifford’s image had kept there since his boyish days. To revive the ancient honours of his family, and see his favourite name preserved by the sanctity of living excellence, was a hope he had already half-fulfilled; and it two hours- in another hour, he might realize the whole! The loaded and uneasy post-coach turned down the black steep of Rumblegap- (an ominous and suitable name!)- but our traveller thought only of the valley below. There lay his native village - yonder was |
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cont. |
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