The duke - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...it honest folk sees." Then Lambert ventured to ask him if he had heard anything of the new Duke. "It's early yet to judge," he said cautiously; "but I dinna like what I hear. Is he never coming to see us, either?" "I happen to know that he is." "And that's gude news," said the landlord, his sombre face seeming to clear somewhat at the prospect. When the new Duke a little later walked through the village in the fading light and saw knots of men and women taking the evening air, he said to himself--" My people." He was bent now for the castle, determined to get through his unpleasant business as speedily as he might, and little suspecting what lay upon the knees of the gods. A short way beyond the village he came upon two grey lichen-grown pillars surmounted by the weather-beaten remains of heraldic monsters; the lodge beside them evidently long unused and the gates perpetually open for want of a keeper to close them. The wood within was chiefly of black, wind-blown pines, and through them a sandy, ragged drive wound into the obscurity of evening. As he went along it he noticed no signs of recent wheel-marks or any sort of attention, and the only things he saw besides the multitude of trees were scores of scuttling rabbits. Presently the wood abruptly stopped, and a grey battlemented lump of masonry stood suddenly before him. It looked so dark and silent and forbidding that he stopped for a time in the edge of the trees, as if he were studying its defences. CHAPTER II WITHIN the old castle of Dunwishart shadows were deepening in empty rooms and the short summer night seemed to be drawing in as quietly and uneventfully as night after night had closed for so many years. Throughout all the dark pile, from th...