Then Oke told me the story of those two pictures--told it me
about as badly and hesitatingly as was possible for mortal man.
He and his wife were, as I have said, cousins, and therefore descended from
the same old Kentish stock. The Okes of Okehurst could trace back to
Norman, almost to Saxon times, far longer than any of the titled or
better-known families of the neighbourhood. I saw that William Oke, in his
heart, thoroughly looked down upon all his neighbours. "We have never done
anything particular, or been anything particular--never held any office,"
he said; "but we have always been here, and apparently always done our
duty. An ancestor of ours was killed in the Scotch wars, another at
Agincourt--mere honest captains." Well, early in the seventeenth century,
the family had dwindled to a single member, Nicholas Oke, the same who had
rebuilt Okehurst in its present shape. This Nicholas appears to have been
somewhat different from the usual run of the family. He had, in his youth,
sought adventures in America, and seems, generally speaking, to have been
less of a nonentity than his ancestors. He married, when no longer very
young, Alice, daughter of Virgil Pomfret, a beautiful young heiress from a
neighbouring county.
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