Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

There used to be a row of buildings, well within the sacred precincts of the Inner Temple, but still preserving a fair look-out on the wharves, and the tidal gut at their back,...

Along the northern brow and bend of the Sussex hills, the winter lingers, and the spring wakes slowly. The children of the southern slope, towards Worthing and West Tarring, hav...

At this particular time there was nothing so thoroughly appreciated, loved, admired, and begged, borrowed, or stolen in every corner of the Continent, as the good old English gu...

At this very time there happened to be a boy of no rank, and of unknown order, quietly jogging homeward. He differed but little from other boys; and seemed unworthy of considera...

“What a lazy loon that Steenie Chapman is!” said the Rector, for about the twentieth time, one fine October morning. “He knows what dreadful weather we get now, and yet he can’t...

In those old times of heavy pounding, scanty food, and great hardihood, when war was not accounted yet as one of the exact sciences, and soldiers slept, in all sorts of weather,...

Hilary was so weak and weary, and so seriously ill, when at last he reached the rectory, that his uncle and aunt would not hear of his coming downstairs for a couple of days at...

One man there is, or was, who ought to have been brought forward long ago. Everybody said the same thing of him--he wanted nothing more than the power of insisting upon his repu...

Mrs. Lovejoy’s lecture to her daughter seemed likely to come just a little too late, as so many excellent lessons do. For as soon as he saw that all had dined, the host proposed...

The excellent people of Coombe Lorraine as yet were in happy ignorance of all these fine doings on Hilary’s part. Sir Roland knew only too well, of course, that his son and heir...

There would seem to be times, and scenes, and cases, in which human nature falls helpless under sudden contamination, a mental outbreak of black murrain, leprosy, or plague. A p...

Three days of gloom and storm ensued upon the outbreak of the water; while the old house at the head of the Coombe in happy ignorance looked down upon its hereditary foe. But da...

The British army now set forth on its grand career of victory, with an entirely new set of breeches. Interception of convoys, and other adverse circumstances, had kept our heroe...

The trout knew nothing of all this. They had not tasted a worm for a month, except when a sod of the bank fell in, through cracks of the sun, and the way cold water has of licki...

Sir Remnant Chapman, in his dry old fashion, was a strongly-determined man. He knew the bitter strait of Coombe Lorraine for ready money; and from his father, Sir Barker Chapman...

Again, another thing will show how heavily and wearily all people that on earth do dwell plod and plead their little way, and are but where they came from. Three young people, a...

If any man has any people who ought to care about him, and is not sure how far they exert their minds in his direction, to bring the matter to the mark, let him keep deep silenc...

Sir Roland Lorraine was almost as free from superstition as need be. To be wholly quit of that romantic element is a disadvantage still; and excepts a neighbour even now from th...

In all the British army--then a walking wood of British oak, without a yard of sapling--there was no bit of better stuff than the five feet and a quarter (allowing for his good...

Near the head of a pass of the Sierra Morena, but out of the dusty track of war, there stood a noble mansion, steadfast from and to unknown ages. The Moorish origin, here and th...

At Coombe Lorraine these things had been known and entered into some time ago. For Sir Roland had not left his son so wholly uncared for in a foreign land as Hilary in his sore...

The stern and strong will of a single man is a very fine thing for weaker men--and still more so for women--to dwell upon. But the stern strong will of a host of men, set upon o...

Mrs. Lovejoy sat far away from all the worry, and flurry, and fun of picking, and packing, and covering up. She had never entirely given herself to the glories of fruit-growing;...

The darkness of the hardest winter of the present century--so far as three-fourths of its span enable us to estimate--was gathering over the South Down hills, and all hills and...

Hilary Lorraine enjoyed his sudden delivery from London, and the fresh delight of the dewy country, with such loud approval, and such noisy lightsomeness of heart, that even Cru...

Pessimists who love to dwell on the darker side of human nature, and find (or at any rate colour) that perpetually changing object to the tone of their own dull thoughts, making...

Peradventure the eyes and the heart, as well as the boundless charity of true love, were needed to descry what Mabel at a glance discovered, the “grand nobility” of Hilary’s con...

These doings of Hilary and his love--for his love he declared her to be for ever, whether she would have him for hers or not--seem to have taken more time almost in telling than...

Is it just or even honest--fair, of course, it cannot be--to deal so much with the heavy people, the eldermost ones and the bittermost, and leave altogether with nothing said of...

A grand physician being called from London, pronounced that Sir Roland’s case was one of asthenic apoplexy, rather than of pure paralysis. He gave the proper directions, praised...

On the second evening after the above discourse, a solitary horseman might have been seen (or, to put it more indicatively, a lonely ponyman was seen) pricking gallantly over th...

Lorraine set spurs to his horse as soon as he got to the end of this letter. It was high time for him to gallop away from the one idea,--the bitter knowledge that out of this he...

Of all trite proverbs, no truer there is in the affairs of men (perhaps because in the kingdom of the clouds so untrue) than this venerable saying--“It never rains, but what it...

Sir Roland smiled at his mother’s position, and air of stern attention, as he came back from his book-room with a small but heavy oaken box. This he placed on a chair, and witho...

In the village of West Lorraine, which lies at the foot of the South Down ridge, there lived at this moment, and had lived for three generations of common people, an extraordina...

A sad and sorry task it is to follow the lapse of a fine young fellow, from the straight line of truth and honour, into the crooked ways of shame. Hilary loved Mabel still, with...

It may perhaps be said, without any painful exaggeration, that throughout the whole course of this grand war, struggle of great captains, and heroic business everywhere, few thi...

Having no love of bloodshed, and having the luck to know nothing about it, some of us might be glad to turn into the white gate across the lane, leading into Old Applewood farm-...

Alice had “plenty of spirit of her own,” which of course she called “sense of dignity;” but in spite of it all, she was most unwilling to encounter her valiant grandmother. And...

“You call yourself an unlucky fellow,” said Colonel Clumps to Hilary, who was leaning back in his easy-chair; “but I call you the luckiest dog in the world. What other man in th...

While the Rector still was sitting on the mossy hump of an apple-tree, weary and disconsolate, listening to the murmuring brook, with louder murmurings of his own, he espied a l...

As soon as the Count and his daughters knew how much they owed to Hilary, and saw the weak and wounded plight in which he had laboured for their good, without any loss of time t...

When the flaunting and the flouting of the summer-prime are over; when the leaves of tree, and bush, and even of unconsidered weeds, hang on their stalks, instead of standing up...

It did not occur to Sir Roland Lorraine (as he shook Martin Lovejoy’s hand, and showed him forth on his way to meet the Reigate coach at Pyecombe) that Mabel’s rich legacy might...

Dark weather and dark fortune do not always come together. Indeed, the spirit of the British race, and the cheer flowing from high spirit, seem to be most forward in the worst c...

One part of Coombe Lorraine is famous for a sevenfold echo, connected by tradition with a tale of gloom and terror. Mr. Hales, being proud of his voice, put this echo through al...

Alice Lorraine, with no small excitement, heard from her father’s lips this story of their common ancestor. Part of it was already known to her through traditions of the country...

Though Coombe Lorraine was so old a mansion, and so full of old customs, the Christmas of the “comet year” was as dull as a Sunday in a warehouse. Hilary (who had always been th...

It was true that Hilary had attained at last the great ambition of his life. He had changed the pen for the sword, the sand for powder, and the ink for blood; and in a few days...

The next day was Sunday; and Hilary (having brought a small bag of clothes with him) spent a good deal of the early time in attending to his adornment. For this he had many good...

After sunset, Mabel Lovejoy went a little way up the lane leading towards the Maidstone road, on the chance of meeting her father. The glow of the west glanced back from the tre...

At the top of the hill, these lofty themes were being handled worthily; while, at the bottom, little cares had equal glance of the democrat sun, but no stars allotted to regard...

It is a fine thing to have quarters in an English country-town, where nobody knows who the sojourner is, and nobody cares who he may be. To begin (at gentle leisure) to feel int...

Standing in a dark grey corner of the old stone passage, below a faded and exiled portrait of some ancestor of hers, Alice looked so calm and noble, that Steenie (although he “h...

Nature appears to have sternly willed that no man shall keep a secret. There is a monster, here and there perhaps to be discovered, who can sustain his boast of never whispering...

It seems to be almost a settled point in the affairs of everybody (except, perhaps, Prince Bismarck) that nothing shall come to pass exactly according to arrangement. The best a...

As soon as the master of the house had been taken to his bedroom, and a groom sent off at full gallop for the nearest doctor, Mr. Hales went up to Stephen Chapman, who was cryin...

“What can I do? Oh, how can I escape?” cried Alice to herself one morning, towards the end of dreary November; “one month out of three is gone already, and the chain of my miser...

Martin Lovejoy, Gregory’s father, owned and worked a pleasant farm in that part of Kent which the natives love to call the “Garden of Eden.” In the valley of the upper Medway, a...

“It is worse than useless to talk any more,” Sir Roland said to Mr. Hales, who by entreaty of Alice had come to dine there that day, and to soften things: “Struan, you know that...

According to all the best accounts, that long and heavy frost began with the clearing of the sky upon Christmas-day. At least it was so in the south of England, though probably...

The hero of a hundred fights (otherwise called “Old Beaky”) had just scraped through a choking trouble on the score of money with the grasping Portuguese regency; and now, in th...

In this present state of things, and difficulty everywhere, the one thing most difficult of all is to imagine greater goodness than that of Mr. Bottler. He had a depression that...

The room known as the Astrologer’s (by the maids, less reverently entitled the “star-gazer’s closet”) was that old eight-sided, or lantern-chamber, which has been mentioned in t...

Hilary’s luck was beginning to turn. For in a few days he received a grand addition to his comforts, and wholesome encouragement to get well. For after the Grower’s return to hi...

Two hundred years before the day when Alice thus sat listening, an ancestor of hers had been renowned in Anatolia. The most accomplished and most learned prince in all Lesser As...

It takes but little time to tell what happened to the rest of them. Sir Roland Lorraine had the pleasure of seeing two tribes of grandchildren round him, who routed him out of h...

Artemise, and all around the prince, had been alarmed of late by many little symptoms. He always had been rashly given to take no heed of his food or clothes; but now he went be...

Although this prince knew so much more of the heaven above than the earth beneath, he did not quite expect to ride the whole of the way to England. At Smyrna he took ship, and a...

Sir Roland Lorraine, in his little book-room, after that long talk with his mother, had fallen back into the chair of reflection, now growing more and more dear to him. He hoped...

In the old house and good household, warmth of opinion and heat of expression abounded now about everything. Pages might be taken up by saying what even one man thought, and ten...

Long ere the writing of the diffident sage had been thus interpreted, the casket, or rather its contents (being intrusted to the wary hands of the Counsellor, on his return to L...

While these things were going on down in the valley, a nice little argument was raging in the dining-room of the old house on the hill. By reason of the bitter weather, Mr. Binn...

Whether his fathers felt, or failed to see, the beauty beneath their eyes, the owner of this house and land, at the time we have to speak of, deserved and had the true respect o...

“How came that old house up there?” is generally the first question put by a Londoner to his Southdown friend leading him through the lowland path. “It must have a noble view; b...

Upon a very important day (as it proved to be, in his little world), the 18th of June, 1811, Sir Roland Lorraine had enjoyed his dinner with his daughter Alice. In those days me...

Beauty having due perception and affection for itself, it is natural that young ladies should be much attached to jewels. It does not, however, follow that they know anything ab...

“Papa, you are only trying now to provoke me, because you cannot answer. You know what I mean as well as I do, and perhaps a little better. What I mean is, one or two of the ver...

Westward of that old town Steyning, and near Washington and Wiston, the lover of an English landscape may find much to dwell upon. The best way to enjoy it is to follow the path...