"His lordship--and him just saved all Dunstan parish from death--to go
like this!"
In Stornham village and in all others of the neighbourhood the feminine
attitude towards Mount Dunstan had been one of strongly emotional
admiration. The thwarted female longing for romance--the desire for
drama and a hero had been fed by him. A fine, big young man, one that
had been "spoke ill of" and regarded as an outcast, had suddenly turned
the tables on fortune and made himself the central figure of the county,
the talk of gentry in their grand houses, of cottage women on their
doorsteps, and labourers stopping to speak to each other by the
roadside. Magic stories had been told of him, beflowered with dramatic
detail. No incident could have been related to his credit which would
not have been believed and improved upon. Shut up in his village working
among his people and unseen by outsiders, he had become a popular idol.
Any scrap of news of him--any rumour, true or untrue, was seized upon
and excitedly spread abroad. Therefore Mrs. Bester wept as she talked,
and, if the truth must be told, enjoyed the situation. She was the first
to tell the story to her ladyship's sister herself, as well as to Mrs.
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