Chapter Dardu-Lena to Daura of D by Brewer's Readers Handbook

for a time upheld the tottering throne. But the rebel grew stronger and stronger, and at length found means to murder the young king; whereupon, the army under Nathos deserted. Nathos was now obliged to quit Ireland, and Dar-Thula fled with him. A storm drove the vessel back to Ulster, where Cairbar was encamped, and Nathos, with his two brothers, being overpowered by numbers, fell. Dar-Thula was arrayed as a young warrior; but when her lover was slain “her shield fell from her arm; her breast of snow appeared, but it was stained with blood. An arrow was fixed in her side,” and her dying blood was mingled with that of the three brothers.—Ossian: Dar-Thula (founded on the story of “Deirdi,” i. Trans. of the Gaelic Society).

Dartle (Rosa), companion of Mrs. Steerforth. She loved Mrs. Steerforth’s son, but her love was not reciprocated. Miss Dartle is a vindictive woman, noted for a scar on her lip, which told tales when her temper was aroused. This scar was from a wound given by young Steerforth, who struck her on the lip when a boy.—Dickens: David Copperfield (1849).

Darwin’s Missing Link, the link between the monkey and man. According to Darwin, the present host of animal life began from a few elemental forms, which developed, and by natural selection propagated certain types of animals; while others less suited to the battle of life died out. Thus, beginning with the larvæ of ascidians (a marine molluse), we get by development to fish lowly organized (as the lancelet), then to ganoids and other fish, then to amphibians; from amphibians we get to birds and reptiles, and thence to mammals, among which comes the monkey, between which and man is a Missing Link.

Dashall (The Hon. Tom), cousin of Tally-ho. The rambles and adventures of these two blades are related by Pierce Egan, in his Life in London (1822).

Dashwood, a sneerwell in Murphy’s comedy of Know your own Mind (1777).

DAsumar (Count), an old Nestor, who fancied nothing was so good as when he was a young man.

“Alas! I see no men nowadays comparable to those I knew heretofore; and the tournaments are not performed with half the magnificence as when I was a young man. …” Seeing some fine peaches served up, he observed, “In my time, the peaches were much larger than they are at present; nature degenerates every day.” “At that rate,” said his companion, smiling, “the peaches of Adam’s time must have been wonderfully large.”—Lesage: Gil Blas, iv. 7 (1724).

Daughter (The), a drama by S. Knowles (1836). Marian, “daughter” of Robert, once a wrecker, was betrothed to Edward, a sailor, who went on his last voyage, and intended then to marry her. During his absence a storm at sea arose, a body was washed ashore, and Robert went down to plunder it. Marian went to look for her father and prevent his robbing those washed ashore by the waves, when she saw in the dusk some one stab a wrecked body. It was Black Norris, but she thought it was her father. Robert being taken up, Marian gave witness against him, and he was condemned to death. Norris said he would save her father if she would marry him, and to this she consented; but on the wedding day Edward returned. Norris was taken up for murder, and Marian was saved.

Daughter with her Murdered Father’s Head. Margaret Roper, daughter of sir Thomas More, obtained privately the head of her father, which had been exposed on London Bridge, enclosed it in a casket, and at death was buried with the casket in her arms. Tennyson says—

Morn broadened on the borders of the dark
Ere I saw her who clasped in her last trance
Her murdered father’s head.

The head of the young earl of Derwentwater was exposed on Temple Bar in 1716. His wife drove in a cart under the arch, and a man, hired for the purpose, threw the young earl’s head into the cart, that it might be decently buried.—Sir Bernard Burke.