Chapter 2 - Page 2

itself, in August of the year 1801.

From time beyond date the race of Yordas had owned and inhabited this
old place. From them the river, and the river's valley, and the mountain
of its birth, took name, or else, perhaps, gave name to them; for
the history of the giant Yordas still remains to be written, and the
materials are scanty. His present descendants did not care an old song
for his memory, even if he ever had existence to produce it. Piety
(whether in the Latin sense or English) never had marked them for her
own; their days were long in the land, through a long inactivity of the
Decalogue.

And yet in some manner this lawless race had been as a law to itself
throughout. From age to age came certain gifts and certain ways of
management, which saved the family life from falling out of rank
and land and lot. From deadly feuds, exhausting suits, and ruinous
profusion, when all appeared lost, there had always arisen a man of
direct lineal stock to retrieve the estates and reprieve the name. And
what is still more conducive to the longevity of families, no member
had appeared as yet of a power too large and an aim too lofty, whose
eminence must be cut short with axe, outlawry, and attainder. Therefore
there ever had been a Yordas, good or bad (and by his own showing more
often of the latter kind), to stand before heaven, and hold the land,
and harass them that dwelt thereon. But now at last the world seemed to
be threatened with the extinction of a fine old name.

When Squire Philip died in the river, as above recorded, his death, from
one point of view, was dry, since nobody shed a tear for him, unless it
was his child Eliza. Still, he was missed and lamented in speech, and
even in eloquent speeches, having been a very strong Justice of the
Peace, as well as the foremost of riotous gentlemen keeping the order of
the county. He stood above them in his firm resolve to have his own way
always, and his way was so crooked that the difficulty was to get out of
it and let him have it. And when he was dead, it was either too good
or too bad to believe in; and even after he was buried it was held that
this might be only another of his tricks.

But after his ghost had been seen repeatedly, sitting on the chain and
swearing, it began to be known that he was gone indeed, and the relief
afforded by his absence endeared him to sad memory. Moreover, his
good successors enhanced the relish of scandal about him by seeming
themselves to be always so dry, distant, and unimpeachable. Especially
so did "My Lady Philippa," as the elder daughter was called by all the
tenants and dependents, though the family now held no title of honor.

Mistress Yordas, as she was more correctly styled by usage of the