FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   >>   >|  
he friend there, will listen and pray "God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay--" CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_" III Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array: Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay," CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_" IV Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay, Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay! I've better counsellors; what counsel they?" CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_" Though not illustrative of the subject in hand, "Martin Relph" is included here on account of the glimpse it gives of an episode, interesting in English History, though devoid of serious consequences, since it marked the final abortive struggle of a dying cause. An imaginary incident of the rebellion in the time of George II., forms the background of "Martin Relph," the point of the story being the life-long agony of reproach suffered by Martin who let his envy and jealousy conquer him at a crucial moment. The history of the attempt of Charles Edward to get back the crown of England, supported by a few thousand Highlanders, of his final defeat at the Battle of Culloden, and of the decay henceforth of Jacobitism, needs no telling. The treatment of spies as herein shown is a common-place of war-times, but that a reprieve exonerating the accused should be prevented from reaching its destination in time through the jealousy of the only person who saw it coming gives the episode a tragic touch lifting it into an atmosphere of peculiar individual pathos. MARTIN RELPH _My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago, On a bright May day, a strange old man, with a beard as white as snow, Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument of woe, And, striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the reason--so!_ If I last as long at Methuselah I shall never forgive myself: But--God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin Relph, As coward, coward I call him--him, yes, him! Away from me! Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I used to be! What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare, all eyes, no tongue? People have urged "You visit a scare too hard on a lad so young! You were taken aback, poor boy," they urge, "no time to regain your wits: Besides it had m
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Martin
 

CHORUS

 

saddle

 

jealousy

 

forgive

 
coward
 
episode
 

monument

 
MARTIN
 

prevented


grandfather

 

individual

 
accused
 

reprieve

 
exonerating
 

strange

 
reaching
 
peculiar
 

tragic

 

atmosphere


remembers

 

lifting

 

youngster

 

coming

 

destination

 

pathos

 

bright

 

person

 

People

 

tongue


Besides

 
regain
 

reason

 

Methuselah

 

striking

 
unhappy
 

counsellors

 
counsel
 

surrendering

 
honest

Gertrude
 

Laughs

 
Though
 
English
 

interesting

 

History

 
devoid
 

glimpse

 
account
 

subject