Northmour

“ I could not help shuddering at the mention of the quicksands, but reminded Northmour that our enemies had spared me in the wood.
"Do not flatter yourself," said he. "Then you were not in the same boat with the old gentleman; now you are. It's the floe for all of us, mark my words."
I trembled for Clara; and just then her dear voice was heard calling us to come upstairs. Northmour showed me the way, and, when he had reached the landing, knocked at the door of what used to be called My Uncle's Bedroom, as the founder of the pavilion had designed it especially for himself. ”

“ I believe that nothing so delighted Northmour at that moment as the thought that we must all infallibly perish before the night was out.
Meantime, the Italian put his flag of truce into his pocket, and disappeared, at a leisurely pace, among the sand hills.
"They make honorable war," said Northmour. ”

“ I see you have some reason to be secret, and, you may believe me, your secret is as safe with me as if I were in Graden Floe. I have scarce spoken to any one for years; my horse is my only companion, and even he, poor beast, is not beside me. You see, then, you may count on me for silence. So tell me the truth, my dear young lady, are you not in danger?"
"Mr. Northmour says you are an honorable man," she returned, "and I believe it when I see you. I will tell you so much; you are right; we are in dreadful, dreadful danger, and you share it by remaining where you are." ”

“ There was to have been a revolution in the Tridentino, or Parma; but the revolution is off, and the whole wasps' nest is after Huddlestone. We shall all be lucky if we can save our skins."
"The Carbonari!" I exclaimed; "God help him indeed!"
"Amen!" said Northmour. "And now, look here: I have said that we are in a fix; and, frankly, I shall be glad of your help. If I can't save Huddlestone, I want at least to save the girl. Come and stay in the pavilion; and, there's my hand on it, I shall act as your friend until the old man is either clear or dead. ”

“ The whole pavilion, it was plain, had gone alight like a box of matches, and now not only flamed sky-high to land and sea, but threatened with every moment to crumble and fall in about our ears.
Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr. Huddlestone, who had already refused a firearm, put us behind him with a manner of command.
"Let Clara open the door," said he. "So, if they fire a volley, she will be protected. And in the meantime stand behind me. I am the scapegoat; my sins have found me out." ”

“ Northmour produced some cold meat, to which I eagerly set myself, and a bottle of good Burgundy, by which, wet as I was, I did not scruple to profit. I have always been an extreme temperance man on principle; but it is useless to push principle to excess, and on this occasion I believe that I finished three-quarters of the bottle. As I ate, I still continued to admire the preparations for defense.
"We could stand a siege," I said at length.
"Ye—es," drawled Northmour; "a very little one, per—haps. It is not so much the strength of the pavilion I misdoubt ”

“ If he had heard what the fathers said, he would have learnt that, though shy and devoid of small talk, and of the art of putting guests together, Lord Northmoor was trusted and esteemed. He might perhaps be too easily talked down; he could not argue, and often gave way to the noisy Squire; but he was certain in due time to see the rights of a question, and he attended thoroughly to the numerous tasks of an active and useful county man, taking all the drudgery that others shirked. ”

“ Of all the abundance of treasure which Northumberland possesses, from a historical point of view—of all its wealth of interesting relics of bygone days—ancient abbey, grim fortress, menhir and monolith, camp and tumulus—none grips the imagination as does the sight of that unswerving line which pursues its way over hill and hollow, from the eastern to the western shores of the north-land, visible emblem, after more than a thousand years, of the far-flung arm of Imperial Rome. ”

“ I should like to stay here for good and all, and they would take me for a farming-pupil for less than you have been giving to my crammers, all in vain, I am afraid. The life would suit me much better; they let me live with the family, and they are thorough right sort of people, religious, and all that—and Alder seemed to take an interest in me from the time he made out who I was, and, indeed, the place is named after our Northmoor, where he says he spent his happiest days. ”

“ The intruders became known as “the army,” and the appearance of “the army” in any district filled the inhabitants with terror. Our first definite story of the Northmen in England is connected with the appearance of “the army” in Yorkshire A.D. 867. We learn from the English chronicles that violent internal discord was troubling Northumbria at this time. The king of the Northumbrians was Osbert,14 but the people had risen up and expelled him, we know not for what reason,2 and had placed on the throne a man named Ælla, “not of royal blood,” who seems to have been the leader of the people. ”

“ She had not been for years so seen of men as during the few weeks that followed the abasement of the Northmores. She called, in particular, on every one she had cast out after the failure of her appeal. Many of these persons figured as Lady Northmore's contributors, the unwitting agents of the unprecedented exposure ”

“ But this evening Northam is in a stir. The pebble ridge is thundering far below, as it thundered years ago: but Northam is noisy enough without the rolling of the surge. The tower is rocking with the pealing bells: the people are all in the streets shouting and singing round bonfires. They are burning the pope in effigy, drinking to the queen's health, and “So perish all her enemies!” The hills are red with bonfires in every village; and far away, the bells of Bideford are answering the bells of Northam, as they answered them seven years ago, when Amyas returned from sailing round the world. ”

“ The urgency of the inquiry somehow seemed to dispose her to cry, as if she thought she had been naughty, and she had to be dismissed to the cowslip ball.
‘If the child is right, that man cannot be her father at all,’ said Lord Northmoor. ‘That man’s name is Rattler, and he is well known at Westhaven.’
‘Should you know him?’
p. 196‘I never saw him, but I could soon find those who have done so.’
‘If we could only prove it! Oh, what a relief it would be! I dare not even send the child to school—as I meant to do, Northmoor, for indeed we don’t spoil her—for fear she should be kidnapped ”

“ Mrs. Northmore was seated on the cool veranda with her hands in her lap, and that look of tired content which tells of a busy but successful day. A generous hospitality had left her a little worn. Esther sat down on the step at her feet and leaned her arms across her lap in a childish fashion she had never outgrown.
“I wish I didn’t get so tired of people whom I really like,” she said. “It would break Aunt Milly’s heart if she knew how she bores me. It seems to me sometimes I get tired of everybody—everybody but you, mother dear.”
Mrs. Northmore looked into her daughter’s eyes with a smile. ”

“ How they did go dashing down the road, and what wonder that excitement was rife in the town that afternoon as to what member of the community was lying at the point of death that the doctor was going at such a rate to see him!
They were on the porch to greet her when she pulled up at the door, Mrs. Northmore and Virgie, with Aunt Milly gorgeous in her best cap and kerchief at the rear; and such a hugging and kissing, such a laughing and crying followed as might have made one wonder what would have happened if the girl had stayed away a year instead of a single summer. ”

“ He could hardly be restrained from leaping over the brig's side; and when they met soon after, he grasped them by the hand, and clung to them a long, long time. They were men from Norfolk, who had come on to New-Orleans to rescue him. His kidnappers, they informed him, had been arrested, and were then confined in the Norfolk prison. They conversed a few moments with the captain, and then departed with the rejoicing Arthur.
But in all the crowd that thronged the wharf, there was no one who knew or cared for me. Not one. ”

“ The reviewers observed a decorum, but, frankly, when one came to look, their stupefaction matched her own. What she had taken in the morning for enthusiasm proved mere perfunctory attention, unwarned in advance and seeking an issue for its mystification. The question was, if one liked, asked civilly, but it was asked, none the less, all round: 'What could have made Lord Northmore's family take him for a letter-writer?' Pompous and ponderous, yet loose and obscure, he managed, by a trick of his own, to be both slipshod and stiff. ”

“ It was worth Esther Northmore’s while, as Aunt Katharine had suggested, to have seen October in her mother’s country. Even Old Timers, used to the glory that wrapped its hills in the shortening days, doubted gravely whether they had ever known a fall when the woods wore such gorgeous coloring as now, or kept their royal robes so long. All the world seemed flaming in crimson and gold, with fringes of purple at the roadsides, and Esther, walking joyously in the midst, felt her pulses beating to a rhythm she had never caught before in the swinging of the round old world. ”

“ He’s hired an old horse and feed an old man,
To carry her back to Northumberland.
O when she came her father before,
A may’s love whiles is easy won
She fell down on her knees so low
For she was the fair flower of Northumberland.
‘O daughter, O daughter, why was ye so bold,
Or why was your love so easy won,
To be a Scottish whore in your fifteen year old?
And you the fair flower of Northumberland!’
Her mother she gently on her did smile,
O that her love was so easy won!
‘She is not the first that the Scotts have beguild,
But she’s still the fair flower of Northumberland. ”

“ This is a grouse from Lord Northmoor’s own moors, I presume,’ replied Mr. Rollstone, to the tune of a peal of laughter from Herbert and exclamation—‘Not know a grouse!’—for which Ida frowned at him.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said his mother; ‘we had so much game up at my brother’s, Lord Northmoor’s, that I shall quite miss it now I am come away.’
‘Flimsy sort of grub!’ growled an old skipper. ‘Only fit for this sort of a tea—not to make a real meal on, fit for “a man”!’
The young folk laughed. Captain Purdy was only invited as a messmate of Mrs. Morton’s father. ”

“ Northmore. It was in her eyes as well as her voice how much she liked the big brown fellow. “Well, if you must go—but come and see us soon. Don’t work so hard this summer that you’ll have no time for your friends.”
She took an arm of each of the girls and walked with them up the gravel path between the rows of blossoming catalpas. “So the day has gone well?” she said, glancing from one to the other.
“As if you had been there yourself, mother,” said Esther, and Kate added: “It’s been a regular picnic. I never enjoyed a day more in my life.” ”

“ FOOTNOTES
1 Northumberland Plate, or Pitmen’s Derby.
2 ‘Mevvies’ = maybe, perhaps. The true Northumbrian is in a threefold danger of betraying his origin: phonetically, by the ‘burr’; dialectically, by constant use of ‘mevvies,’ ‘wor’ (our) , and ‘I’s warned’ (I warrant you) ; psychologically, by a perpetual readiness to back himself, his dog, or any of his belongings, against any other man’s in the world, and for any amount, at a moment’s notice. ”

“ Morton. ‘It is a real valuable article, such as my brother, Lord Northmoor, would only send to us, and one or two old friends that he wishes to compliment at Hurminster. But one must be used to high society to know how such things should be relished!’
‘Are Lord Northmoor’s moors extensive?’ asked Mr. Rollstone.
‘There’s about four or five miles of them,’ responded Herbert; ‘and these grouse are awfully shy.’
‘Ah, the Earl of Blackwing owns full twenty miles of heather,’ said the ex-butler.
‘Barren stuff!’ growled the skipper; ‘breeding nothing worth setting one’s teeth into!’
p. ”

“ Northmore the feeling was even warmer. Rough and ill-educated as he was, there was a native force and shrewdness in the man by no means common, and they were joined with a frank honesty which would have attracted her in a far less interesting person than he.
Morton Elwell walked on to the house, but refused the girls’ invitation to come in to supper. “You know mother would like to have you,” Esther said, with polite urgence. ”

“ Northumberland, after a confinement of several years in Loch Leven Castle, was betrayed by the Scots to the English, and put to death. Westmoreland died an exile in Flanders, the last of the ancient house of the Nevilles, earls of Westmoreland. Norton, with his eight sons, fell into the hands of Sussex, and all suffered death at York. It is the fate of this ancient family on which Wordsworth's poem is founded. ”

“ But the new king found at once that part of his kingdom was not ready to acknowledge him. This was Northumberland, to the people of which land he had lately shown so much favour by confirming their deposition of his own brother, and their choice of Morkere as their earl. Harold had indeed been crowned by their own archbishop, and their chief men must have acknowledged him along with the rest of the Wise Men; but we should remember that at an assembly in London, though there would be many men present from Wessex, Mercia, and East-Anglia, there could not be many from Northumberland. ”