Catholic, which Lord Lorne was not, he would be sure to find hearing
there, and probably some favour. But he, like a very hot-brained man,
although he had long been married to the daughter of his cousin (whom he
liked none the more for that), would have nothing to say to any attempt
at making a patch of it, but drove away with his wife and sons, and the
relics of his money, swearing hard at everybody. In this he may have
been quite wrong; probably, perhaps, he was so; but I am not convinced
at all but what most of us would have done the same.

Some say that, in the bitterness of that wrong and outrage, he slew a
gentleman of the Court, whom he supposed to have borne a hand in the
plundering of his fortunes. Others say that he bearded King Charles the
First himself, in a manner beyond forgiveness. One thing, at any rate,
is sure--Sir Ensor was attainted, and made a felon outlaw, through some
violent deed ensuing upon his dispossession.

He had searched in many quarters for somebody to help him, and with
good warrant for hoping it, inasmuch as he, in lucky days, had been
open-handed and cousinly to all who begged advice of him. But now
all these provided him with plenty of good advice indeed, and great
assurance of feeling, but not a movement of leg, or lip, or purse-string
in his favour. All good people of either persuasion, royalty or
commonalty, knowing his kitchen-range to be cold, no longer would play
turnspit. And this, it may be, seared his heart more than loss of land
and fame.

In great despair at last, he resolved to settle in some outlandish part,
where none could be found to know him; and so, in an evil day for us,
he came to the West of England. Not that our part of the world is at all
outlandish, according to my view of it (for I never found a better one),