The Three Homes; A Tale for Fathers and Sons (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER 111. Lord Glenulun's Home. " Hoc patrium est, potius conauefacere filium Sua sponte recte facere quam alieno metu. Hoc pater et dominus intersit. Hoc qui nequit Fateatur nescire imperare liberis."?Ter. Ad. i. 1. Leaving the bright and happy home of the Allerbys ?a home oter which love and peace played like a perpetual sunshine?we will make our way to the splendid seat of the Earl of Donnerill. Descending from Allerhy Park, and crossing the road, you climb another slight hill, and from the top of it catch sight of a small lake studded with islands, beyond which, terrace above terrace, belted with breadths of garden which shine with a thousand colours, and gleaming with large conservatories filled with the richest exotics, rise the stately towers and wide-spread buildings of Donnerill Castle. It was an ancient pile, raised in the reign of Edward III. by the first earl of the line; but it had received numberless modern additions, and the grounds around it had been so magnificently laid out that it was the pride and ornament of the country for miles around. The Earls of Donuerill had beon men of weight a.nd fame. Tliev had won laurels both bv land andsea?both in peace and war. The sons of the house had been wise and noble, its daughters beautiful and good, and their names were to be read on many:, page of their country's annals. But the present lord had been until quite lately a degenerate scion of the ancient stock. Even before he succeeded to the earldom he had uone his best to tarnish its honours. Pleasure and excitement had been the avowed objects oi his life, and had ended, as they always do, in lassitude and discontent. He had been a conspicuous supporter of the Prize Ring and of the Turf; he had squandered immense sums at the gaming-table; he had contracte...