Maid Marian and Crotchet Castle Author:Thomas Love Peacock General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1895 Original Publisher: Macmillan Subjects: Maid Marian (Legendary character) Women outlaws Great Britain Sherwood Forest (England) Robin Hood (Legendary character) Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Juvenile Fiction / Legends, Myths, Fables / Other Li... more »terary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER IX ' Who set my man i' the stocks ? -- I set him there, sir : but his own disorders Deserved much less advancement.' King Lear. The baron was inflexible in his resolution not to let Matilda leave the castle. The letter, which announced to her the approaching fate of young Gamwell, filled her with grief, and increased the irksomeness of a privation which already preyed sufficiently on her spirits, and began to undermine her health. She had no longer the consolation of the society of her old friend Father Michael; the little fat friar of Rubygill was substituted as the castle confessor, not without some misgivings in his ghostly bosom; but he was more allured by the sweet savour of the good things of this world at Arlingford Castle, than deterred by his awe of the Lady Matilda, which nevertheless was so excessive, from his recollection of the twang of the bow-string, that he never ventured to find her in the wrong, much less to enjoin anything in the shape of penance, as was the occasional practice of holy confessors, with or without cause, for the sake of pious discipline/ and what was in those days called social order, namely, the preservation of the privileges of the few who happened to have any, at the expense of the swinish multitude who h...« less