Convoluted sentences

Thank you for noticing, Medici.

I too admired your sentence Geoffrey, and incidentally I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments you expressed so succinctly. It's very important not to allow anything in the text to burst the reader's bubble of suspension of disbelief, and even a small incorrect technical detail can do that. It doesn't even have to be incorrect, just slightly jarring, for example I might suggest that my character, a Canadian, for example, always ate his peas with honey, whereupon all the dear Canucks amongst my reader would cry "No he wouldn't! No self respecting Canadian would ever do such a thing!"

Incidentally I think that Mr Cop "rating them up the green" probably means chasing them off with loud scolding.
I imagine "rating" is like "berating"

I took it to mean that too, and "green " would be a grassy area, as in 'village green'. There are quite a few archaic words in it, but even if they were replaced with the modern equivalents, I'm sure it would still make my brain hurt.

I think a convoluted sentence is harder work because your brain has to grapple with the structure, but with stream-of-consciousness there isn't really any structure, it just floats past you.

I'd agree that Blackmore's sentence is clumsily written and far too long (I used to tell my students "If you've got a sentence that's more than 50 words long, see if you can't break it up"), but I don't find it too hard to understand. Now if you want exceedingly long and frequently incomprehensible sentences, take a look at William Faulkner or, in his later novels, Henry James.

And of course there's always 'Finnegan's Wake' - but let's not even go there. (Almost nobody does, after all....)

Curious and interesting!

I wasn't aware of the archaic use of "rate," meaning to shout at someone, although the writing was on the wall when you consider the word "be-rate/be-rating." I should have seen that.

On a personal note, I'd like to point out that I've had a natural tendency about grammar, having read a lot of books including archaic forms. I memorized a novel by A.A. Milne when I was four. Not necessarily understanding the bulk of what was written, but understanding archaic usages of words and what individual words meant. This advanced understanding of words (and other studies) made me scoff at the education system which tried to label me a cheat for tests I would usually get 100 on without evidence of studying, or desire to push me ahead of my years. Mostly I've self-educated myself and either intuited meanings from archaic books I've read, or found meanings from studying the dictionary, or other languages. Basically, being my own etymologist. This is to explain why I might not be polished in my knowledge, and yet knowledgeable at the same time.

And also explains why I'm both shocked and pleased to learn something new.

While we're on the subject of the archaic words, would anyone like to take a stab at 'parliament and dumps'? The context would seem to suggest food and drink of some sort, but isn't 'parliament' normally related to talking (French parler)? Could it be some sort of rhyming slang?

If 'dumps' is short for dumplings, 'parliament' could be some sort of stew...? Just a guess.

Brilliant! I hadn't thought of dumplings, and guess what I've now just found on the web:

PARLIAMENT SOUP
This is a slow-cooker version of a tasty green soup invented by the wife of a 17th-century British Member of Parliament. Pairing this with some warm rolls, or hot toasted sandwiches, makes an inviting cold-day meal!

The period is correct - I think we may have cracked it!

As Sherlock Holmes might have said: Alimentary, my dear Watson.