[Springhaven by R. D. Blackmore]@TWC D-Link book
Springhaven

CHAPTER XXXIII
11/18

And the same with your breakfast, and your supper too, and a good long night to get over it.

Do you jump up in bed, before you have shut both eyes, hearing or fancying you have heard the bell, that calls you out into the cold, and the dark, and a wet saddle, from a warm pillow?
And putting that by, as a trouble of the war, and the chance of being shot at by dark tall men"-- here Faith shuddered at her own presentment, as the image of Caryl Carne passed before her--"have you to consider, at every turn, that whatever you do--though you mean it for the best--will be twisted and turned against you by some one, and made into wickedness that you never dreamed of, by envious people, whose grudge against you is that they fancy you look down on them?
Though I am sure of one thing, and that is that my father, instead of looking down upon any honest man because he is poor, looks up to him; and so do I; and so does every gentleman or lady.
And any one who goes about to persuade the working-people--as they are called, because they have to use their hands more--that people like my father look down upon them, and treat them like dogs, and all those wicked stories--all I can say is, any man who does it deserves to be put in the stocks, or the pillory, or even to be transported as an enemy to his country." Dan looked at the lady with great surprise.

He had always known her to be kind and gentle, and what the old people called "mannersome," to every living body that came near her.

But to hear her put, better than he could put them, his own budding sentiments (which he thought to be new, with the timeworn illusion of young Liberals), and to know from her bright cheeks, and brighter eyes, that her heart was in every word of it, and to feel himself rebuked for the evil he had thought, and the mischief he had given ear to--all this was enough to make him angry with himself, and uncertain how to answer.
"I am certain that you never thought of such things," Miss Darling continued, with her gentle smile returning; "you are much too industrious and sensible for that.

But I hear that some persons are now in our parish who make it their business, for some reason of their own, to spread ill-will and jealousy and hatred everywhere, to make us all strangers and foes to one another, and foreigners to our own country.


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