Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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Nay more, he was supremely wretched.

No wonder a shadow had crossed over his house—​a shadow deep and sinister.

The misfortunes that had befallen him and his were, to a certain extent, attributable to circumstances beyond his control; but he had added to these misfortunes by his own indomitable pride.

People, in speaking of him, said he was just and generous, but very proud.

He was a rigid observer of class distinctions. He paid all persons the honour due to them, and he expected the same in return.

“The Ethalwoods came in with the Conqueror,” he would say. “Had fate ordained them to be kings, they would have known how to reign. Old as the line is, there is not a blot on the escutcheon. No Ethalwood ever forfeited his honour.”

It is an axiom as old as the hills—​much older, it may be, than the honoured line of the Ethalwoods—​that pride must have a fall.

Never, surely, was the truth of this more terribly exemplified than in the life of the nobleman now immediately under our notice.

Bertram Lord Ethalwood, married a young creature of surpassing beauty. She was nobly born, but vivacious and volatile. She bore him three children—​two sons and one daughter.