Devonian

“ Nothing daunted, the Devonian accepted the Cornish hug, and the efforts of the rivals were superb. Cann depended on his science to save him; but Polkinghorne gathered his head under his arm, and lifting him from the ground, threw him clean over his shoulder, and planted him upon his back. 'The very earth groaned with the uproar that followed; the Cornishmen jumped by hundreds into the ring ”

“ The Devonian and Cornishman will be found by the visitor to be courteous and hospitable. There is no roughness of manner where unspoiled by periodic influx of strangers; he is kindly, tender-hearted, and somewhat suspicious. There is a lack of firmness of purpose such as characterises the Scotchman; and a lively imagination may explain a slackness in adhesion to the truth. ”

“ The most serious of the accusations against him came from Richard Venn a man of high character beneficed in the diocese of London, whose sense of duty led him, though a Devonian like Rundle, to interpose in the fray. ”

“ The Devonian strata on the south do not form such lofty elevations as those on the north, and are in consequence, like the plain of Hereford, very fertile and peculiarly adapted for fruit-growing and cider-making. The remarkable features of the scenery of South Devon and Cornwall are due to a narrow band of Archaean rock which appears in the south of the peninsulas terminating in Lizard Head and Start Point, and to huge masses of granite and other eruptive rocks which form a series of great bosses and dykes. ”

“ Why, with leisure—and genius—one might compose another Rabaiyat when the tea-takers were gone.
“I reckon,” says one of the soil, whom we meet here and exchange remarks with, “Twize up and down es a gude day’s work,” and it really is a leg-aching job to climb to the top of the cliff, which must be done to gain the Torquay road. South Devon is sleepy, and, experiencing this steepest of paths and hottest of hot corners, the stranger is not surprised. At any time it is possible to sit down and drop into a “bit of a zog”—which is Devonian for a nap. ”

“ IN treating of Devonshire Characters, I have had to put aside the chief Worthies and those Devonians famous in history, as George Duke of Albemarle, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Coleridges, Sir Stafford Northcote, first Earl of Iddesleigh, and many another; and to content myself with those who lie on a lower plane. ”

“ Call yourself Richard Devine still, and I will tell the world the shameful secret which my son died to hide. Be Richard Devine! Richard Devine was a bastard, and the law allows him—nothing!"
There was no doubting the truth of her words. It was impossible that even a woman whose home had been desecrated, as hers had been, would invent a lie so self-condemning. Yet John Rex forced himself to appear to doubt, and his dry lips asked, "If then your husband was not the father of your son, who was?"
"My cousin, Armigell Esmè Wade, Lord Bellasis," answered Lady Devine. ”

“ Sir Richard Devine laughed again. “I am glad to see you are so well disposed. Listen now. To-night I send for Quaid to alter my will. My sister's son, Maurice Frere, shall be my heir in your stead. I give you nothing. You leave this house in an hour. You change your name; you never by word or deed make claim on me or mine. No matter what strait or poverty you plead—if even your life should hang upon the issue—the instant I hear that there exists on earth one who calls himself Richard Devine, that instant shall your mother's shame become a public scandal. ”

“ Other people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until now their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of dollars. They were the richest old family in America, and the most famous; and in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was centred all its social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and formal life, precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon her raised chair of state, and she wore her jewels even at breakfast. ”

“ Another characteristic of the people has always been their loyalty to their sovereign, to their county, and to each other. Devon is proverbial, like Cornwall and Yorkshire, for the clannishness of its inhabitants. It is a land, too, where superstition dies hard. Belief in pixies—fairies, as they are called elsewhere—in witches and witch-craft, in whisht-hounds and other weird and uncanny creatures, and in portents and omens, still lingers, especially on Dartmoor. ”

“ Those men in whom emotion has the effect of quickening circulation of the blood reason rapidly in moments of danger, and in the terrible instant when his eyes met those of Lord Bellasis, Richard Devine had summed up the chances of his future fortune, and realized to the full his personal peril. The runaway horse had given the alarm. The drinkers at the Spaniards' Inn had started to search the Heath, and had discovered a fellow in rough costume, whose person was unknown to them, hastily quitting a spot where, beside a rifled pocket-book and a blood-stained whip, lay a dying man. ”

“ The name of Damnonia given to Devon is probably due to these same Danann, who were also found in the south of Scotland. When this great people reached Europe, Japan, India, Africa, before its branches had begun to ramify to east and west, to south and north, its religious doctrines and its practices had become stereotyped, and almost ineradicably ingrained into the consciousness of the entire stock. ”

“ It contradicts, too, a view rather generally held, that the spirit of restless daring and love of adventure that have distinguished innumerable men of Devon belonged solely to Elizabethan days—a view that has, no doubt, sprung up because the great lights that shone in that glorious reign have eclipsed all lesser ones. ”

“ For now the Doones, having driven back, as every one said, five hundred men—though not thirty had ever fought with them—were in such feather all round the country, that nothing was too good for them. Offerings poured in at the Doone gate, faster than Doones could away with them, and the sympathy both of Devon and Somerset became almost oppressive. And perhaps this wealth of congratulation, and mutual good feeling between plundered and victim, saved us from any piece of spite; kindliness having won the day, and every one loving every one. ”

“ Powderham, June 9.—I found the door open last night and walked straight into the hall. Charlie Wood and Lady Agnes were there at tea, and people kept dropping in—a very pleasant party.... Lord Devon [200] is the kindest of hosts, full of small courtesies; but he is a great deal away, flying up to London after dinner and returning next day: they say he performs the circumference of the globe every year, and chiefly on his own lines of railway.
“Lord Devon’s only son, Lord Courtenay, is seldom here, but when he is, amuses every one. ”

“ There can be little doubt that the foremost man in the whole history of Devon is Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan seamen, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of every Spanish ship, and the most conspicuous figure in the defeat of the Armada. ”

“ In the present case the problem has reappeared in every chapter, for Devon is 'a fair province,' as Prince says in his 'Worthies of Devon,' and 'the happy parent of ... a noble offspring.'
My position is that of a person who has been bidden to take from a great heap of precious stones as many as are needed to make one chain; for however grasping that person may be, and however long the chain may be made, when all the stones have been chosen, the heap will look almost as great and delightful as before: only a few of the largest and brightest jewels will be gone. ”

“ What Devon hath kept
Devon shall keep on tide or main;
Call to the storm and drive them flying,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"
Valour of England gaunt and whitening,
Far in a South land brought to bay,
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Locked in a death-grip all day tightening,
Waited the end in twilight gray.
Battle and storm and the sea-dog's way
Drake from his long rest turned again,
Victory lit thy steel with lightning,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!
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The Volunteer
"He leapt to arms unbidden,
Unneeded, over-bold;
His face by earth is hidden,
His heart in earth is cold. ”

“ Richard Devine had suddenly returned from a mysterious absence of fourteen years, I set to work in earnest. I have spent a deal of money, Jack, but I've got you!"
"You have been clever in finding me out; I give you credit for that."
"There is not a single act of your life, John Rex, that I do not know," she continued, with heat. ”

“ It is, indeed, not often that a day in Devon is entirely hopeless, for132 clouds disperse frequently as quickly as they come. It is to this moist climate that softly beautiful Devonshire owes its fair name. ”

“ Obenreizer at that instant, and rubbed hard at him. George Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked) , and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy.
“He was saying down-stairs, Miss Obenreizer,” observed Vendale, “that the world is so small a place, that people cannot escape one another. ”

“ But the point to be mentioned is that our delightfully remote cottage belonged to a gentleman through whom—although we never met or knew each other—I came to realise my dream of some day seeing Devonshire. I often wish I had known him; for by all accounts he was a rare and original person.
In the oldest of our old times, the pre-gold times, when these lands were being "taken up" by a gallant set of young men, cadets of what we call "good" British families, he had been a pioneer squatter. ”

“ Dean! Dean!—I say, I couldn’t help it after what had happened. There, that’s all dead and buried.”
Dean hesitated, but he saw his cousin’s eyes flash, and he held out his hands and drew him into a sitting position.
“Here, Dan!” cried Mark; and the little sailor sprang to him from where he was busy cooking.
“Hullo, Mr Mark, sir!” he cried. “You are a-getting on!”
Those words, uttered loudly, brought up Buck Denham from where he had been bathing one of the cuts he had received.
“Oh, I say, Mr Mark,” he said, “you mustn’t do that! You arn’t strong enough.” ”

“ A copy of the manuscript fell into the hands of Curl, the noted bookseller in London, who extracted from it such parts as he conceived would best suit his purpose, and printed them. But when the book was on the eve of publication, it appears to have been shown to Prince, author of the "Worthies of Devon," who, having a thorough acquaintance with the original, remonstrated with Curl on the impropriety of sending into the world a book so very incomplete, and persuaded him to publish the remainder also, as a continuation of the parts already printed. ”

“ Denman devised an operation. A crisis came. Denman delayed ruin — what money-men call ruin — by a monstrous fraud. We had expected it, and we alone discovered it. ‘Now,’ said Densdeth to me, ‘I have got the man.’ ‘What more do you want,’ said I, ‘than you have already gained by him?’ ‘I want his daughter Clara,’ he said. ‘She is the most brilliant woman in the world, — the only fit wife for me. But she will not think so, and I shall have to use force. Force is vulgar. ”

“ Terrestrial senses can detect no changes of expression in a Nevian's "face." Such were the frightful beings at whom the three prisoners stared with sinking hearts.
But if we human beings have always considered Nevians grotesque and repulsive, the feeling has always been mutual. For those "monstrous" beings are a highly intelligent and extremely sensitive race, and our--to us--trim and graceful human forms seems to them the very quintessence of malformation and hideousness.
"Good Heavens, Conway!" Clio exclaimed, shrinking against Costigan as his left arm flashed around her. ”

“ So the days glided on, with not the slightest prospect, apparently, of our escape.
“Every one’s getting precious impatient, Val,” said Denham one day when we were idling up on the walls with his field-glass, after lying listlessly chatting about the old place and wondering what sort of people they were who built it, and whether they did originally come gold-hunting from Tyre and Sidon. “Yes,” he added, “we are impatient in the extreme.”
“It doesn’t seem like it,” I replied; “the men are contented enough.” ”

“ The looks of Devonshire and Cornish lasses are proverbial. This is not due to complexion alone, which is cream and roses, but to the well-proportioned limbs, the litheness of form, uprightness of carriage, and to the good moulding of the features. The mouth and chin are always well shaped, and the nose is straight; in shape the faces are a long oval.
I am not sure that West Country women ever forget that they were once comely. ”

“ After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived near his cathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the Dean's house the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
"This is the lady," said the farmer. "This is Dean Murnith." Then he went away.
"Ah," said the Dean, "I understand you were lost the other night in the marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes."
"I love the marshes," said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
"Indeed! How old are you?" said the Dean.
"I don't know," she answered.
"You must know about how old you are," he said. ”