Music Welcome to Snewscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snewscast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Rolling Fog. Tonight, we'll read the opening to Laura Dune, a romance of X-Morr, a novel published in 1869 and written by English author Richard Doudridge Blackmore. Snuescast first read this one back in 2020. This book is based on a group of historical characters set in the late 17th century. John Ridd is the son of a farmer who is murdered by a member of the Dune clan. The dunes were once noble but now outlaws. John falls in love with a girl named Lorna who turns out to be from this very clan he loaths. The backdrop of Lorna Dune is the rugged and isolated region of X-Maw in England. This setting plays a crucial role in the novel, influencing the character's lives and shaping the plot's dramatic events. Black Mores vivid descriptions of the landscape transport readers to a world of wind-swept moors, treacherous bogs, and hidden valleys, adding a layer of atmosphere and suspense to the narrative. Lorne Dune is also a brand of rectangular shortbread cookies you may find in the grocery store today. Introduced in 1912, it was possibly named after the main character in tonight's episode, but no record exists as to the exact motivation behind the name. The association with the romantic and adventurous heroine of the classic novel, likely added

a touch of a lore and nostalgia to the cookie brand, which originated from an Irish American bakery in Chicago, Illinois. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. Chapter 1. Elements of Education. If anybody cares to read a simple tale, told simply, I, Jan Red, of the parish of Orr in the county of Somerset, Farmer and Churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try to set down in order, God's bearing my life and memory. And they who laid upon this book should bear in mind not only that I write for the clearing of our parish from ill fame and calumny, but also a thing which I will, I think appear appear too often in it to wit, that I am nothing more than a plain, unlettered man, not read in foreign languages as a gentleman might be, nor gifted with long words, even in my own tongue. save what I may have won from the Bible, or master William Shakespeare, whom, in the face of common opinion, I do value highly. In short, I'm an ignoramus, but pretty well for a farmer. My father being of a good substance, at least as we reckon in X-more, and ceased in his own right, from many generations of one, and that the best and largest of the three farms into which our parish is divided, or rather the cultured part thereof, he, Jan read the elder, churchen, and Overseer, being a great admirer of learning, and well able to write his name, sent me his only son to be schooled at Tiverton in the county of Devon. For the chief boast of that ancient town, next to its woolen staple, is a worthy grammar school, the largest in the west of England, founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604 by Master Peter Blundell of that same place, Clotheir. By the time I was 12 years old, I had risen into the upper school and could make bold, with utropious and Caesar, by aid of an English version, and as much as six lines of Ovid. Some even said that I might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form, being of a persevering nature, albeit by full consent of all except my mother, thickheaded. But that would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition beyond a farmer's son, for there is but one form above it, and that made of masterful scholars entitled rightly monitors. So it came to pass by the grace of God that I was called away from learning while sitting at the desk of the junior first in the upper school, and beginning the Greek language. My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could have learned Greek, 10 pages further on, being all he himself could manage with plenty of stripes to help him. I know that he hath more head than I, though never will he have such

body, and am thankful to have stopped at times with a meek and wholesome headpiece. But if you doubt of my having been there, because now I know so little, go and see my name, and read, Graven on that very form.

Forsooth, from the time I was strong enough to open a knife and to spell my name, I began to grave it in the oak, first of the block where upon I sat, and then of the desk in front of it, according as I was promoted from one to other of them, and there my grandson reads it now, at this present time of writing, and hath fought a boy for scoffing at it. Jan rid his name and done again in Winkies, a mischievous but cheerful device in which we took great pleasure. This is the manner of a winky, which I hear set down, less child of mine, or grandchild, dare to make one on my premises, if he does, I shall know the market once and score it well upon him. The scholar obtains, by prayer or price, a handful of salt-peater, and then, with the knife wherewith, he should rather be trying to mend his pens. What does he do but scuba-hole where the desk is some three-inchest thick? This This hole should be left with the middle exalted, and the circumference dug more deeply. Then let him fill it with salt-peater. I'll save a little space in the middle, where the boss of the wood is. Upon that boss, and it will be the better if a splinter of timber rise upward. He sticks the end of the candle of tallow or rat's tail, as we called it, kindled and burning smoothly. Then, as he reads by that light his lesson, lifting his eyes now and then it may be, the fire of candle lays hold of the Peter with a spluttering noise and a leaping. Then should the pupil cease his pen and, regardless of the nib, stir bravely, he will see a glow as of burning mountains and a rich smoke and sparks going merrily. Nor will it cease if he stir wisely, and there be a good stir of Peter, until the wood is devoured through, like the sinking of a well-shaffed. Now well may it go with the head of a boy intent upon his primer, who batides to sit there under. But above all things, have good care to exercise this art before the master strides up to his desk in the early gray of the morning. Other customs, no less worthy, abide in the school of Blondelle, such as the sinjing of nightcaps, but though they have a pleasant savor and of refreshing to think of, I may not stop to note them, unless it be that goodly one at the incoming of a flood. The schoolhouse stands beside a stream, not very large, called Loman, which flows into the broad river of X about a mile below. This Loman's stream, although it be not fond of brawl and violence in the matter of our Lynne, yet is want to flood into a mighty head of waters when this storm's refrain provoked, and most of all when its little comate called the taunton brook, where I have plucked the very best creases that ever man put salt on, comesaming down like a great, rone horse and rears at the leap of the hedgerows. Then are the gray stone walls of Blondelle on every side and compass. The veil is spread over with looping waters, and it is a hard thing for the day boys to get home to their sufferers. And in that time, old cop, the porter, so called because he hath copper boots to keep the wet from his stomach, and a nose of copper also in right of other waters. This place is to stand at the gate, attending to the flood boards, grooved into one another, and so to watch the torrent's rise, and not be washed away, if it please God, he may help it. But longer the flood hath obtained a height, and while it is only waxing, certain boys of deputy will watch at the stoop of the drain holes, and be apt to look outside the walls when cop is taking a cordial. And in the very front of the gate, just without the archway, where the ground is paved most handsomely, you may see in copy letters done a great p-b of white pebbles. Now it is the custom and the law that when the invading waters, either flexing along the wall from below the road bridge, or pouring sharply across the meadows from a cut called Owen's ditch. And I myself have seen it come both ways. Upon the very instant, when the waxing element lips through it, but be a single pebble of the founders letters. It is in the license of any boy, so ever small and undoctrined, to rush into the great school rooms where a score of masters sit heavily and scream at the top of his voice, P-B. Then a yell, the boys leap up or break away from their standing. They toss their caps to the black beamed roof and happily the very books after them. And the great boys vex no more the small ones and the small boys stick up to the great ones. One with another, hard they go, to see the gain of the waters, and the tribulation of cop, and are prone to kick the day boys out, with words of scanty compliment. the masters, look at one another, having no class to look to, and boys being no more left to watch. In a manner they put their mouths up. With a spirited bang they close their books and make invitation the one to the other for pipes and foreign cordials, recommending the chance of the Lord, I am the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, If I am neither a heart man nor a very close one, God knows I have had no lack of rubbing and pounding to make stone of me. Yet can I not somehow believe that we ought to hate one another, to live far asunder, and block the mouth each of his little den, as do the wild beasts of the wood, and the hairy outranks now brought over each with a chain upon him. Let that matter be as it will. It is beyond me to unfold and may have of my grandson's grandson. All I know is that wheat is better than when I began to sow it. Chapter 2. An important item. Now the cause of my leaving Tiverchin School and the way of it were as follows. On the 29th day of November, in the year of our Lord 1673, the very day when I was 12 years old, and had spent all my substance in sweet meats, with which I made treats to the little boys, to the large boys ran in and took them. We came out of school at five o'clock, as the rule is upon Tuesdays. According to Custom, we drove the day boys in brave route down the causeway from the school porch, even to the gate where cop had his dwelling and duty. Little it wrecked us and helped them less, that they were our founders' citizens, and happily his own grand nephews for he left no direct descendants. Neither did we much inquire what their lineage was. For it had long been fixed among us who were of the house and chambers that these same day boys were all cats as we had discovered to call it because they paid no growth for their schooling and we brought their own comments with them. In consumption of these we would help them for our fair and whole fed appetite and while While we ate their victuels, we allowed them freely to talk to us. Nevertheless, we could not feel when all the victuels were gone, but that these boys required kicking from the premises of Blundell. And some Some of them shopkeeper's sons, young grocers, filmongers, and polters. And these, to their credit, seemed to know how righteous it was to kick them. But others were of high family, as any need be in Devon, carous, and bo shares, and bastards, and some of these would turn sometimes and strike the boy that kicked them. But to do them justice, even these knew they must be kicked for not paying. After these charity boys were gone, as in contumely we called them, if you break my bag on my head said one, how will feed thence tomorrow? And after old cop with clang of iron had jammed the double gates in under the scruffstone archway, whereupon our laden verses, done in brass of small quality, some of us who were not hungry and cared not for the supper-bell, having sucked much parliament and dumps at my only charges. Not that I ever bore much wealth, but because I had been thrifting it for this time of my birth, we were leaning quite at dusk against the iron bars of the gate some six, or it may have been seven of us, small boys all, and not conspicuous in the closing of the daylight, and the fog that came at even tide Ells' cop would have rated us up the green. For he was churly to little boys when his wife had taken their money. There was plenty of room for all of us. For the gate will hold nine boys close packed unless they be fed wrangly, whereof is little danger. And now we were looking out on the road and wishing we could get there, hoping more over to see a good string of pack horses come by, with troopers to protect them. For the day boys had brought us word that some intending their way to the town had lain that morning at Sanford, Pevaryl. And must be an air nightfall because Mr. Fagus was after them. Now Mr. Fagus was my first cousin and in honor to the family, being a Northmulton man of great renown on the highway from Baramtown, even to London. Therefore, of course, I hoped that he would catch the Pacman, and the boys were asking my opinion as of an oracle about it. A certain boy leaning up against me would not allow my elbow room and struck me very sadly in the stomach part, though his own was full of my parliament. And this I felt so unkindly that I smote him straight away in the face without tearing to consider it or weighing the question duly. Upon this he put his head down and presented it so vehemently at the middle of my waistcoat that for a minute or more, my breath seemed dropped as it were from my pockets and my life seemed to stop from great want of ease. Before I came to myself again, it had been settled for us that we should move to the ironing box as the triangle of turf is called where the two causeways coming from the school porch and the hall porch met and our fights are mainly celebrated. Only we must wait until the convoy of horses had passed and then make a ring by candlelight, and the other boys

would like it. But suddenly there came round the post where the letters of our founder are, not from the way of Taunton, but from the side of Lomon Bridge, a very small string of horses, only two indeed counting counting for one the pony, and a red face man on the bigger nag. Clay's e-worshipful masters, he said, being feared of the gateway. Kernie tell where are Jan Ritby? Here I be, he's fine, Jen Ridd.

Answered a sharp little chap making game of John Fry's language. Jow on up then, says John Fry, poking his whip through the bars at us, show on up and put an out. The other little chaps pointed at me and some began to hello, but I knew what I was about. Oh, John, John, I cried. What's the use of your coming now? And Peggy over the moors too, and it's so cool cold for her. The holidays don't begin till Wednesday fortnight, John, to think of you're not knowing that. John Fry leaned forward in the saddle and turned his eyes away from me, and then there was a noise in his throat like a snail crawling on a window pane. Oh, us nods that well enough, maester Jan. Wrecking every arm in now that, without going to school, like you doff. Your moother have kept our the apples up, and old Betty turned the black puddings.

And none dare set trap for a black bird, all for thee, lad, every bit of it now for thee. He checked himself suddenly and frightened me. I knew that John fries way so well. And father, and father, how is father? I pushed the boys right and left, as I said it. John, his father up in town. He always used to come for me and leave nobody else to do it. Father will be at the crooked post, the other side of the telling house. Her

could enough had a reason of the Christmas bacon coming on, Zomah the cider wilted. The telling houses on the more are root cots where the shepherd will meet to tell their sheep at the end of the pasturing season.

He looked at the nag's ears as he said it, and being up to John Fry's ways, I knew that it was a lie, and my heart fell like a lump of lead, and I leaned back on the stay of the gate and longed no more to fight anybody.

A sort of dull power hung over me, like the cloud of a brooding tempest, and I feared to be told anything. I did not even care to stroke the nose of my pony Peggy, although she pushed it in through the rails

where a square of broader lattices

and sniffed at me and began to crop gently after my fingers.

But whatever lives or dies,

business must be attended to

and the principal business of good Christians is

beyond all controversy to fight one another. Come up, Jack," said one of the boys, lifting me under the chin. He hit you, and you hit him, you know. You know, pay your debts before you go," said a monitor, striding up to me, after hearing how the honor lay. Rid, you must go through with it. The fight for the sake of the junior first, cried the little fellow in my ear, the clever one, the head of our class, who had mocked John Fry, and knew all about the artists, and tried to make me know it, but I never went more than three places up, and then it was an accident, and I came down after dinner. The boys were urgent around me to fight, though my stomach was not up for it, and being very slow of wit, which is not chargeable on me, I looked from one to other of them seeking any cure for it, not that I was afraid of fighting, for now I had been three years at Blundells and fought often all that time, a fight at least once, every week till the boys began to know me, only that the load on my heart was not sprightly as of the hayfield. is a very sad thing to dwell on, but even now, in my time of wisdom, I doubt it is a fond thing to imagine and a motherly to insist upon that boys can do without fighting. Unless they be very good boys and afraid of one another. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n y