“Some day, I should love you.”
The next afternoon Hellier returned to London.
CHAPTER IV
IT was in the year 1600, or thereabouts, that the family of Gyde first took its place in the history of Cumberland.
A family may be likened to a thistle; plant it here or there, and, if left, it grows and flourishes, it casts its spores, like thistle-down on the wind of chance, and the spores blown here or there fade or flourish, as the case may be.
The wind of chance in the year 1600, blew Sir John Gyde to the wilds of Cumberland, from the original home of the family in Pembrokeshire.
How splendidly they built in those old days may still be seen in the house he made for himself.
Sir John was a gentleman of a very old school; had he lived in the present day, and did the law take cognizance of his pleasantries and way of life, he would have found himself, within twenty-four hours, in the gaol of Carlisle, and he would have been hanged, to a certainty, after the lapse of three clear Sundays following his conviction at the next assizes.
In 1600, however, he was respected with that unalloyed respect which fear of a bloody-minded and powerful scoundrel inspired in the medieval mind.