It was a gay and cheerful life which, when at length he was given the living of Dean Prior in Devonshire, he found it hard to leave.
For eighteen years Herrick lived in his Devonshire home, and we know little of these years.
It was the offer of a small house, on very easy terms, belonging to a relation of her own, a gentleman of consequence and property in
Devonshire. The letter was from this gentleman himself, and written in the true spirit of friendly accommodation.
The other day he took hold of my frock (that green one you thought so nice at Homburg) and told me that it reminded him of the texture of the
Devonshire turf.
Her family, one of the wealthiest in
Devonshire, cut up rough about it, and we eloped--are eloping rather, for on the day that you and I walked to the landing stage to go aboard this steamer she and her faithful servant, a negress, passed us, driving to the ship Morrow.
There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of
Devonshire, one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason.
But surely, if your supernatural theory be correct, it could work the young man evil in London as easily as in
Devonshire. A devil with merely local powers like a parish vestry would be too inconceivable a thing."
Then, with a more thoughtful eye, he ripped open the letter from his more distinguished contributor, which bore a postmark of
Devonshire, and read as follows:
'Lord bless me, yes,!' said Traddles - 'by the Reverend Horace - to Sophy - down in
Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she's behind the window curtain!
She came from
Devonshire and, notwithstanding her many years of service in London, had never lost the breadth of her accent.
Stryver (after notifying to his jackal that "he had thought better of that marrying matter") had carried his delicacy into
Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod those stones.
The season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland; and my mother reluctantly confessed that she "did feel a certain longing" for the mild air and genial sunshine of the
Devonshire coast.
Devonshire - a county in southwestern England