SHUT UP!

Exasperating 'little boy'.  For those of us who grew up with brothers or cousins this is no fiction.  Skipped most of the dialogue while searching for some architectural kernel and hit pay dirt with the great description of Lord Stoke's castle.  Totally exhausted and glad it's over.  ♥

DORLAND and MORLAND

The world according to Tony Morland

THE DEMON IN THE HOUSE - 1

"Rising Castle was situated on a hill at the confluence of the Rising and Rushmore.  It boasted a Norman keep in fair condition and a good deal of the original walls.  The fourth Lord Stoke had defended the castle against Cromwell, who had unpleasantly battered him into honorable capitulation.  After several generations of neglect the present earl's great-grandfather had built a comfortable mansion from the stones of the ruins.  The present owner had put such parts of the castle as were still standing into tolerable repair and allowed the public to visit them at sixpence a head."  ...   "Lord Stoke, with maddening slowness and infinite wealth of detailed explanation of what he and his architect had been doing, then  showed them the piece of Norman wall that he was rebuilding, the foundations of what might have been a chapel, and the room in which it was on the whole improbable that Charles II had slept after the battle of Worcester."

HIGH RISING - 9

"But on hearing that Mr. Brown of the garage was going to jack the car up that afternoon, he temporarily forgot about trains and rushed off to make arrangements with the vet to take the foxhound, whose leg was nearly well, to see the fun."

HIGH RISING - 8

BLOOD SPORTS III

"Luckily the hounds met twice during the week, which faintly distracted Tony's attention from railway systems, and he was able to give her a mass of authoritative and mostly erroneous information about hunting."

HIGH RISING - 7

BLOOD SPORTS II


"... Sibyl, before she went, invited Tony to come and help with a little rough shooting on the following day..."

HIGH RISING - 6

BLOOD SPORTS I

"... she pulled out a foxcub's tail, mounted on a handle, with the inscription, 'Risings Hunt.  November, 1828', which was a mistake of a century on the part of the local naturalist, but Laura had never liked to have it altered.  On this cub Tony had been blooded, at the instigation of Gerald and John.  He hadn't enjoyed the ceremony at all, but another and smaller boy had been frightened and cried, which had made Tony boast quite unbearably of his superior pluck and true blueness."