Then the faithful ones began to drop in again--among whom
were not the President; neither came the rural dean, nor the two
curates, though the Colonel, and the man of family, cigars in mouth,
were good enough to return, having found their hotel dreary. The
museum had no regular means of illumination, and a solitary candle,
less powerful than the rays of the fire, was placed on the table;
also bottles and glasses, provided by some thoughtful member. The
chink-eyed churchwarden, now thoroughly primed, proceeded to relate
in his own terms what was in substance as follows, while many of his
listeners smoked.
DAME THE FIFTH THE LADY ICENWAY
By the Churchwarden
In the reign of His Most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,
Defender of the Faith and of the American Colonies, there lived in
'a faire maner-place' (so Leland called it in his day, as I have
been told), in one o' the greenest bits of woodland between Bristol
and the city of Exonbury, a young lady who resembled some aforesaid
ones in having many talents and exceeding great beauty. With these
gifts she combined a somewhat imperious temper and arbitrary mind,
though her experience of the world was not actually so large as her
conclusive manner would have led the stranger to suppose. Being an
orphan, she resided with her uncle, who, though he was fairly
considerate as to her welfare, left her pretty much to herself.
Now it chanced that when this lovely young lady was about nineteen,
she (being a fearless horsewoman) was riding, with only a young lad
as an attendant, in one o' the woods near her uncle's house, and, in
trotting along, her horse stumbled over the root of a felled tree.
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