Moreton

“ Moreton, I don’t think he’s any good. He’s weak, he’s idle, he entirely lacks that aggressive will that—whether we have your revolution or not—is the only bulwark a woman has in this world. Why, Mr. Moreton, you are evidently a very much more advanced and dangerous radical than your brother, but I should not have half the objection to you that I have to him. There is only one thing that makes a difference in this world—character. Your brother hasn’t got it.”
For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord’s statements about David left Ben silent. ”

“ His son, I am sorry to say, was willing to do any thing for ready money--I say any thing, for I do not know that act to which he would not have recourse for any object that he sought to gain."
"You seem to know them all thoroughly," said Doctor Miles, drily; and he then added in a warmer tone, "I will tell you what, my dear Sir, this Captain Moreton is one of those men who make us ashamed of human nature. Born to a fine estate, the son of an excellent woman and amiable man, though a weak one, he went on corrupting himself and every one else, from boyhood to youth, and from youth to manhood. ”

“ There is a letter to my father, 12 September 1852, from a lawyer at Moreton, a very able man, who died in early life from no complaint but being bored to death. He says—“I copied 29 sheets draft and engrossed a deed and settled two mortgages and a lease yesterday: hard work that.”
There came a time when lawyers (and others) did not work so hard at Moreton. In his diary on 20 January 1870, two months before his death, my grandfather notes that he had been to Moreton in the morning to see the lawyer and the doctor—“neither at home, one hunting, the other shooting: so lost my labour.” ”

“ Edward Moreton, who was rector of Tattenhall, Barrow, and Sephton, married a niece of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by her was father of the Right Reverend William Moreton, Bishop of Kildare, in Ireland, and afterwards Bishop of Meath, who died in Dublin, November 21st, 1715, leaving an only son, Sir William Moreton, of Moreton, Recorder of London, before referred to, the last of the direct male line who owned the manor. ”

“ Not many years ago a man at Moreton said something slanderous about another man there. He was threatened with an action, and compromised it by agreeing to publish an apology and devote a sum of money to any public purpose that the injured party chose to name. The public purpose was chosen very astutely—taking the whitewash off the almshouses, a fine old granite building dated 1637. The building is mentioned in the guide-books, and many people go to see it. Finding it improved, they ask about it; and then (as the astute man had foreseen) they hear the story of the other man’s discomfiture. ”

“ You have the means!"
"Ay, indeed, I have," answered Captain Moreton, with a smile; "I have got the means; for, while you were thinking I was doing nothing, I was shrewdly laying out my own plans, by which I have contrived to screw full five hundred pounds out of that terrible miser, Wharton. Was not that somewhat like a coup? With that we can live for some five or six months in Paris--economically, you know, my love--we must not have champagne and oysters every day; but we can do well enough; and before the time is out, the very event we wished to bring about will have happened ”

“ Bidder—The ravens of Brennan—Grimspound—The Great Central Trackway—Stone rows—The Lych Way—Churches—Bowerman's Nose—Ashton—The Duchess of Kingston—Hennock—The Loveys family—Parson Harris—John Cann's Rocks—Lustleigh Cleave—Hound Tor and Hey Tor Rocks—Widecombe—The Ballad of Tom Pearse.
Moreton, with its whitewashed cottages and thatched roofs, has a primitive appearance, and withal a look of cleanliness. It is now the fashion to go to Chagford, which has been much puffed, but Moreton makes quite as good a headquarters for Dartmoor excursions. ”

“ He died in 1784, leaving, with two daughters, a son who succeeded as heir, the Rev. William Moreton, who died some few years ago, leaving two daughters his co-heiresses, Frances Annabella, of Maison Moreton, Pau, in France, widow of John Craigie, Esq., formerly sheriff-substitute of Roxburghshire, and Elizabeth Moreton, a sister of mercy at Clewer, near Windsor, the present owners of the Moreton moiety of the manor of Rode, and the picturesque old moated manor house that forms the subject of our present paper. ”

“ Morel rushed to the door.
“His picture’s got first prize, Fred,” she cried, “and is sold for twenty guineas.”
“My word, that’s something like!” said the young postman, whom they had known all his life.
“And Major Moreton has bought it!” she cried.
“It looks like meanin’ something, that does, Mrs. Morel,” said the postman, his blue eyes bright. He was glad to have brought such a lucky letter. Mrs. Morel went indoors and sat down, trembling. Paul was afraid lest she might have misread the letter, and might be disappointed after all. He scrutinized it once, twice. ”

“ Winter will find a way of dealing with them.”
After dinner, on Moreton’s last night, we adjourned to Arbouine’s house, where we remained until about eleven; as we returned home, a wild riot at Billy the Cook’s pub attracted our attention, and running there we found O’Regan the Rager being thrown down the steps. O’Regan was fighting drunk, and making the night hideous with yells and blasphemy. “Go home and to bed, O’Regan,” said Moreton. He would not, and Moreton76 grabbed him; he promptly hit Moreton in the ribs, and just as promptly I hit O’Regan under the ear and also seized him. ”

“ I have remarked that the blacks between Port Macquarie and Moreton Bay, are much more circumscribed in the extent of country roamed over by each tribe, than those in the thinly wooded tracts in the western and southern parts of the colony. Thus, whereas, in the interior, Sir Thomas Mitchell found on the Murray, the identical natives that had attacked his party on the Darling, 400 miles distant, and who again displayed the peculiar ferocity for which they had been before distinguished; the tribes in the north-eastern coast districts, invariably keep within very narrow limits ”

“ Oxley to believe at the time of his discovery of the Brisbane, that that river was the largest fresh-water river in the colony, and had a very long course; whereas it is much inferior in size to the Clarence, and not even equal to the MacLeay river.
The Brisbane river rises in the chain of mountains dividing the eastern and western waters; this range is only sixty miles distant in a straight line from the coast, opposite Moreton Bay; but from the width of the basin of the Brisbane river, its tortuous course, and the great number of tributaries it receives, it soon becomes an important stream. ”

“ Looking east, the eye embraced the dense forest and swamps on the Nambucca river, the silvery glare of its tranquil reaches, and the blue surface of the boundless Pacific Ocean, which was about twenty-five miles distant. ”

“ E-text prepared by Janet Blenkinship
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
from digital material generously made available by
Internet Archive/American Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
FRONTISPIECE.
Verse 4 THE MAID and the MAGPIE an Interesting Tale Founded on Facts By Charles Moreton LONDON.
Published by G. Stevens, 10 Borough Road, Southwark.
Verse 16
THE MAID AND THE MAGPIE.
1
At Palaiseau, there liv’d a maid,
In form and features mild;
The stings of conscience never prey’d,
On this devoted child. ”

“ Of a hope against hope through the night and the day;
For although it is true, there is hope while there’s breath,
Still some rush to death while the end is but death,
As though anguish of thought finds its only surcease
To yield quickly to death and its certain release.
Lord, help us and save us; we ask for no crown,
But we do want the house till the flood shall go down. ”

“ The deep narrow valley yawned in misty obscurity, like a fathomless abyss at our feet, whilst the lofty mountains, which bounded it to the northward, stood forth in bold, well defined outline against the illuminated sky Around us, and down the steep slopes of the range we were upon, the dazzling whiteness of the branches, and upper parts of the trunks of the huge black-butt trees, and the grassy slopes bathed in mellow moonlight, formed a strong contrast to the pitchy darkness of the glen and the mountains opposite. ”

“ To places unknown in a wondering dream,
And we fall from a tower in a horrible fright,
Where we strangle and drown in a deep-rolling stream;
For our spirits may soar all alone to high towers,
But they fall with these bodies of ours. ”

“ A little farther on is the town, built on a gentle rise, which shows to advantage its pretty little cottages with pointed roofs, its broad straight streets, coated with dark red gravel, and levelled with as much accuracy as garden walks, and its tall square church tower conspicuously prominent in the highest part of the town. ”

“ TEACHING THE COLT HIS PACES. Now that the colt has been mounted and more or less mouthed during his fortnight’s road work, he must be taught his paces, viz., how to walk, trot, canter, and gallop properly. Ambling, pacing, and running not being in vogue in this country, I shall make no mention of them.
The Walk.—It is of great importance to teach a horse to walk well; there is nothing more disagreeable than riding a horse that walks as if he was crawling to his own funeral, or one which will not walk, but prefers to shake the life out of you with a jig-jog. ”

“ We now walked easily along the smooth sands, left bare by the tide; crunching under our feet, by thousands, the small blue crabs, which issue from their holes in countless multitudes at low water. When we had walked about six miles along the beach, we saw on the heights a large party of blacks watching us. ”

“ In consequence of the unexampled depression which has now for so long a time paralysed the colony of New South Wales, in common with the other Australian settlements, and the melancholy truth that few occupations can now be profitably carried on there; many persons in England have arrived at the conclusion that the state of Australia is quite hopeless. ”

“ You will of course have a fight some time or other, for the colt may wish at some cross roads to choose one for himself, irrespective of any choice on your part, or he may wish to follow some horse on the road before him, and refuse to leave an animal feeding by the roadside, but in whichever mode he disputes your authority you must undeceive him, and that thoroughly and at once. ”

“ The surrounding ranges of hills were all either very lightly wooded and grassy, or else covered over with brush timber and entangled vegetation. Most of the park-like hills rose in round conical summits, and were probably composed of clay slate; whilst one heavily wooded range, on the south bank of the river, was crowned by huge masses of rock, overgrown with creepers, and resembling the ivy-clothed battlements of some ancient fortress. ”

“ Apast them she sped like a frightened white deer.
Ah! the tears of the sweet, pretty dancers would call
For a saint or dare-devil to rescue them all.
They could look to the hill to see daring men steer
With effort to reach them, and once they came near,
But were carried away by the rush of the tide.
And often again was it desperately tried
By many who valiantly fought with the wave,
And risked their own life, hoping others to save,
While ev’ry frail dancer stood near to the river,
Despairing at each unsuccessful endeavor. ”

“ The large forest kangaroos are seldom hunted by the natives in this part of the colony, for during my residence there, I never remember more than two occasions on which I have seen the blacks feeding on kangaroo, which they had speared themselves; indeed, if the forest kangaroo should become entirely extinct in this part of the country, it would be quite immaterial to these natives. ”

“ Not more than two men should be in the stable now, one of them to hold the old horse, and watch his opportunity of leading him out, and the other to insinuate himself by degrees between the colt and the old horse, and stop the colt rushing out when he finds the horse is leaving him. ”

“ It is astonishing what a fondness the Australian natives display for the tribes to which they belong, and the localities in which they are accustomed to roam; they cannot bear even a short separation from their fellows, and their usual haunts, without feeling a strong desire to return to them.
The glen of the Bellengen, and the surrounding mountains, appeared singularly romantic from the high range on which we bivouacked, beneath the dear moonlight sky. ”

“ If he should struggle before you have got him into a clear space, use all your strength to hold him, but keep as quiet as possible, or he will become so terrified at your struggles as to fight all the more, and it will become a pitched battle between the colt at one end of the cavasson and yourself at the other for mastery. ”

“ A grove of magnificent trees encircles Port Macquarie, and extends along the banks of the river; whilst turning to the west and north-west, the eye embraces a wide extent of forest country, and can trace, among the mountain ranges, the windings of the valley through which the river Wilson flows; Mount Caoulapatamba being sufficiently near to enable one to distinguish every tree on its grassy declivities, whilst the distant ranges at the MacLeay river, and the huge frowning mountain at the back of Cogo, are half dissolved in blue ether. ”