Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Black Tor: A Tale of the Reign of James the First by George Manville Fenn (best romance books of all time .txt) 📖
- Author: George Manville Fenn
Book online «The Black Tor: A Tale of the Reign of James the First by George Manville Fenn (best romance books of all time .txt) 📖». Author George Manville Fenn
“Beat away,” said Dummy.
“I really will, sir, if you don’t let go.”
Dummy laughed softly, and Mary Eden could not see his face, but she saw his shoulders shaking; and in her anger she leaned forward and tried to drag the rein from the lad’s arm.
“You’ll have him off the path agen if you don’t mind, Mistress Mary.”
“Where is my whip? I’ve lost my whip,” cried the girl.
“Good job—for me,” said the boy, with a little laugh.
“If you don’t let go of that rein, directly, sir, I’ll make my brother beat you,” cried Mary angrily.
“You won’t tell him he ran away,” said the boy, without turning his head.
“Then my father shall, sirrah!”
“Won’t tell him neither, mistress.”
“Then I’ll tell him you were rude and impertinent to me, sirrah, and he’ll have you horsewhipped for that.”
“Master Mark’s sister couldn’t tell a lie with her pretty little lips,” said the boy quietly, and never once looking round. “Pony’s too fresh, and I won’t see my young mistress get into trouble again—so there!”
Mary Eden flushed with annoyance, and tried to stamp her foot, but only shook the stirrup, and sat still for a few moments, before trying cajolery.
“The pony’s quite quiet now, Dummy,” she said gently. “Let him have his head again—there’s a good boy.”
Dummy shook his own, and Mary bit her red lip, and made it scarlet.
“But I shouldn’t like to be seen led up home like this, Dummy,” she said softly. “It looks as if I can’t ride.”
“Every one knows you can ride beautiful, mistress.”
“But please let go now.”
“Nay: won’t.”
“I’ll give you some money, Dummy.”
“Wouldn’t for two donkey panniers full o’ gold—there!” cried the lad. “Come on.”
This to the pony, and then the boy checked the cob.
“That your whip, mistress?” he said, turning and wagging his head sidewise towards where, half-a-dozen yards down the steep slope, the whip lay, where Ralph had kicked it on to a clump of brambles.
“Yes, yes; get it for me, please,” cried the girl eagerly.
Dummy drew his arm from the pony’s rein, leaped off the shelf path, and lowered himself step by step toward the whip; and the girl, after waiting a few seconds, with her eyes flashing with satisfaction, shook the rein, kicked at her steed’s ribs, and did all she could to urge it forward.
“Go on—go on!” she whispered sharply. Then, as this was of no avail, she began to saw the bit to and fro in its mouth, but only made the animal swing its head from side to side in response to each drag, keeping all four legs planted out firmly like a mule’s, and obstinately refusing to move.
“Oh, you wicked wretch!” cried the girl angrily; “go on—go on!”
At the first efforts she made to force the pony on and leave him behind, Dummy turned sharply, and made a bound to catch at the rein; but as soon as he grasped the stubborn creature’s mood—knowing its nature by heart—he chuckled softly, and went on down to where the whip lay, recovered it as deliberately as he could, and began to climb the slope again.
“It aren’t no good, Miss Mary,” he said; “he won’t go till I get back to his head.”
“Go on—go on, sir!” cried the girl angrily, as she saw her last chance of escape dying away; and then, hardly able to restrain the tears of vexation, for Dummy climbed back on to the track, went to his old place by the pony’s head, and handed her the whip.
Mary snatched it in an instant, and struck the pony a sharp blow, which, instead of making it leap forward, had the opposite effect; for it backed, and but for Dummy seizing the rein once more, its hind-legs would have gone over the edge.
“Look at that, mistress,” said the boy quietly; “see what you nearly did;” and, slipping his arm through once more, he walked on, cheek by jowl with the pony, which seemed on the most friendly terms with him, swinging its nose round and making little playful bites at his stout doublet.
“Now, sir,” cried Mary angrily, “I have my whip, and if you do not leave the pony’s head directly, and come round to the back, I’ll beat you.”
“Nay, not you,” said the boy, without looking round. “Why, if I did, the pony would only turn about and follow me.”
“He would not.”
“There, then, see,” said the boy; and slipping out his arm, he turned and walked back, the pony pivoting round directly. “Told you so,” said Dummy, and he resumed his old place, with his arm through the rein.
“You told him to turn round, sir.”
“Nay, never spoke to him, Miss Mary.—There, it aren’t no good to be cross with me; I shan’t leave you till you’re safe home.”
The girl, flushed with passion, leaned forward, and struck the lad sharply over the shoulders three times.
“There, sir,” she cried; “what do you say to that?”
“Thank ye,” replied the boy coolly. “Frighten away the flies.”
Whish-whish-whish, came the whip through the air.
“Now then,” cried Mary; “what do you say now?”
“Hit harder, mistress,” said the boy, with a chuckle; “that only tickles.”
“Oh!” cried Mary, in a burst of passion. “I did like you, Dummy, but you’re a nasty, ugly old thing;” and she subsided in her saddle, sobbing with vexation, while Dummy rounded his shoulders a little more, and plodded on in silence, with the pony’s shoes tapping the stony path, as it playfully kept on making little bites at different parts of the boy’s clothes.
“’Taren’t no use to be cross with me, mistress,” said the boy at last. “Can’t help it. You don’t know, and I do. S’pose he runs off again, and Master Mark says to me, ‘Why didn’t you lead her home?’ what am I to say?”
Mary sat gazing straight before her, and had to ride ignominiously back to the zigzags leading up to the top of the Black Tor, where she dismounted, and Dummy led the pony to its underground stable.
“I shan’t tell Master Mark,” said the boy to the pony, as he took off bridle and saddle; “and you can’t, Ugly; and she won’t neither, so nobody’ll never know.”
Captain Purlrose and his merry men had found a place just to their liking, where they lived like pigs in a hole of the earth, and as voraciously. He chuckled and crowed as they ate and drank, and waited till their stock of provisions began to grow low, and then started off upon a fresh expedition, to gather tribute, as he called it. He did not expose himself to any risks, but kept his ascendancy over his men by sheer cunning and ability in making his plans, leading them to where they could come quite unexpectedly upon some lonely cottage or farmhouse, ill-use and frighten the occupants nearly to death, adding insult to injury by loading the spoil of provisions, or whatever it pleased them to take, on the farmer’s horses, leading them away, and after unloading them at the cave, setting them adrift.
The captain laughed at all threats, for he felt that no one would dare to follow him to his stronghold; and if an attack were made, he knew that he could easily beat it off. The only two people near who were at all likely to trouble him were his old captain, Sir Morton Darley, and Sir Edward Eden.
“And they’ll talk about it, and and threats, and never come.”
He seemed to be right, for as report after report of raids being made, here and there in the neighbourhood of the two strongholds reached their owners, Sir Morton Darley would vow vengeance against the marauders, and then go back to his books; and Sir Edward Eden would utter a vow that he would hang Captain Purlrose from the machicolations over the gateway at the Black Tor, and then he would go into his mining accounts, and hear the reports of his foreman, Dan Rugg, about how many pigs there were in the sty—that is to say, pigs of lead in the stone crypt-like place where they were stored.
And so time went on, both knights having to listen to a good many upbraidings from Master Rayburn, who visited and scolded them well for not combining and routing out the gang from their hole.
“I wish you would not worry me, Rayburn,” said Sir Morton one day, in Ralph’s presence. “I don’t want to engage upon an expedition which must end in bloodshed. I want to be at peace, with my books.”
“But don’t you see that bloodshed is going on, and that these ruffians are making the place a desert?”
“Yes,” said Sir Morton, “it is very tiresome. I almost wish I had taken them into my service.”
“And made matters worse, for they would not have rested till you had made war upon the Edens.”
“Yes,” said Sir Morton, “I suppose it would have been so.”
“Why not get the men quietly together some night, father, and if I went round, I’m sure I could collect a dozen who would come and help—men whose places have been robbed.”
“That’s right, Ralph; there are people as much as twenty miles away—twelve men? Five-and-twenty, I’ll be bound.”
“Well, I’ll think about it,” said Sir Morton; and when Master Rayburn walked home that day, Ralph bore him company part of the way, and chatted the matter over with him.
“I’m getting ashamed of your father, Ralph, lad. He has plenty of weapons of war, and he could arm a strong party, and yet he does nothing.”
“I wish he would,” said the lad. “I don’t like the idea of fighting, but I should like to see those rascals taken.”
“But you will not until your father is stirred up by their coming and making an attack upon your place.”
“Oh, they would not dare to do that,” cried Ralph.
“What! why, they are growing more daring day by day; and mark my words, sooner or later they’ll make a dash at the Castle, and plunder the place.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Ralph, as he thought of his sister.
“I wish they would,” cried the old man angrily, “for I am sick of seeing such a state of things in our beautiful vales. No one is safe. It was bad enough before, with the petty contemptible jealousies of your two families, and the fightings between your men. But that was peace compared to what is going on now.”
“Don’t talk like that, Master Rayburn,” said Ralph warmly. “I don’t like you to allude to my father as you do.”
“I must speak the truth, boy,” said the old man. “You feel it now; but some day, when you are a man grown, and your old friend has gone to sleep, and is lying under the flowers and herbs and trees that he loved in life, you will often think of his words, and that he was right.”
Ralph was silent.
“I am not a man of war, my boy, but a man of peace. All the same, though, whenever either your father or young Mark Eden’s arms his men to drive these ruffians out of our land, I am going to gird on my old sword, which is as bright and sharp as ever, to strike a blow for the women and children. Yes, for pretty Minnie Darley, and Mary Eden too. For I love ’em both, boy, and have ever since they were bairns.”
Ralph went back home to Cliff Castle, thinking very deeply about the old man’s words, and wishing—and planning in a vague way—that he and Mark Eden could be friendly enough to act in some way together without the help or knowledge of their fathers, and make an attack upon these men, so as to put an end to a state of things which kept all women-kind prisoners in their homes, and the men in a state of suspense as to when next they should be attacked and plundered of all they had.
It was only natural that Master Rayburn should talk in an almost similar way to Mark Eden and his
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