Henry Smeaton: A Jacobite Story of the Reign of George the First.

We must return here to an earlier hour in the day of which we have just been speaking. The breakfast at Ale Manor was laid in the dining-saloon, and presented a curious combinat...

Sleep was not destined that night to visit the eyes of the young Earl of Eskdale. He made his way through the passages to the stone door near the well--opened it cautiously, and...

The life of man, like the life of society, goes in epochs. There are periods at which fair fortune or ill fortune seems to begin or end; and a long succession of bright or dark...

Sir John Newark rode away towards Exeter. At first he went fast; for the thoughts with which he set out were not altogether devoid of uneasiness. He did not like leaving Emmelin...

Smeaton struck the banks of the stream some little distance above the bridge, and with a keen and rapid eye traced the whole distance within the range of sight. He instantly mar...

It is curious, what mighty business is transacted in mean places. The destinies of the world, and the widest-spread enlightenment of the human mind, have gone forth from two of...

There are moments in the life of every one, when some sudden and unexpected change hurries us rapidly through a bustling and exciting scene, where we are called upon to decide a...

From the groom to the stable-boy, from the stable-boy to the kitchen-maid, from maid to maid and man to man, by housekeeper and old butler, the tale proceeded, till every lad an...

We will now move, for a while, to a far distant scene, and go back to a somewhat earlier period of the year; for, having a violent objection to all stiff rules, I cannot even co...

By the side of the large piece of water in St. James's Square, looking at the playing of the fountain, (which was afterwards congealed into a great ugly statue,) and watching th...

Through quiet hedgerows and calm and solitary lanes Smeaton pursued his way towards Keanton. As he advanced, he thought he recognised the objects around him. It might be fancy,...

Sir John Newark was in a peculiarly gay and lively mood when his noble guest descended to breakfast. He ventured upon a jest or two--a thing rare with him--and discoursed fluent...

I will not dwell upon the first interview between Emmeline and her husband; I will not dwell upon many that took place, for many did take place between the time of his arrival a...

It was a bright and cheerful morning; and the scenery round Ale would have been in its greatest beauty, had but one cloud floated in the sky to chequer the landscape with moving...

"And even then, my good Lord," observed Van Noost, "if I might humbly be permitted to advise, you would still wait awhile--not in London, not in London, but in some quiet countr...

At the hour of half past ten, two persons issued forth from the room in the Tower in which the young Earl of Eskdale had been long confined. Both were dressed in female apparel;...

There were lights in many of the windows of Ale Manor House when Thomas Higham approached by the back way. The gates of the great court behind, however, were bolted, and the blo...

It was nine o'clock before Sir John Newark entered the room where preparations had been made for breakfast. He found his son Richard talking gaily to Emmeline in the window, whi...

From the turbulent scene amongst the magistrates at Exeter, and the somewhat annoying occurrences which Sir John Newark had met with on the road back, let us turn to the quieter...

The events which I have narrated in the last chapter occupied nearly two hours, although, in their recapitulation, they fill so small a space. It was thus four o'clock, or somew...

What need I tell of the first proceedings of the small body of gentlemen whom we have seen set out on the path of insurrection? How they marched to Rothbury, and thence to hermi...

An old Norman church, built in the earliest style of that fine but somewhat heavy architecture, stands about five miles from Ale Head and Bay, upon the slope of a gentle hill, w...

Several day, passed, and the time elapsed which was requisite to bring an answer from London to Smeaton's letter addressed to Lord Stair. But none arrived, and rumours were thic...

I trust the reader remembers well the description before given of the little village of fishermen's cottages at Ale, and of the way in which the road, after separating into two,...

Hopeful mankind! ye seldom estimate prospective pains at their real worth; and ye always over-estimate the pleasures--till they are gone. Two great races of philosophers, if not...

Having already changed the _venue_ once in the same chapter, I have judged it best to finish one of those fragments into which the caprice of authorship induces men to divide ro...

Considering the period of the year, which was only the end of September, the day was cold and wintry, when a party, consisting of some sixteen horse, took their way through one...

Slowly, and for him very soberly, with his eyes bent upon the ground, and his thoughts heavier than his own statues, Van Noost took his way across the little street towards a tu...

Emmeline had retired to change her dress. Richard had gone, Heaven knows whither; and Smeaton, after pausing for a few minutes in the hall, seemingly very busy in examining the...

It blew a gale of wind right up the long valley between Ale harbour and Aleton. The night was dark and cloudy. The sky, if not constantly covered with black vapours, was so freq...

At an early hour in the morning of Saturday, the twelfth of November, a good deal of bustle and commotion filled the streets of Preston. Private gentlemen and military officers...

The morning of Sunday the 13th dawned dull and heavily. The flames of the burning houses had been extinguished without doing much damage, although, had there been any wind, it i...

The Tower the Marshalsea, Newgate, and other London jells, were filled to overflowing. Prison regulations, which were few, and those not very strict, were all, but entirely negl...

would much interest the reader in detail. Smeaton's letter to the Earl of Stair was written and despatched, and it may be sufficient to say that it never reached its destination.

The morning was bright and beautiful; the clouds of the preceding day, although they had not passed off entirely, had broken into detached masses, soft, white, and buoyant, but...

Darkness was rapidly descending, when the Earl of Eskdale, guided by Quartermaster Calderwood, entered the little street of the hamlet. They found Tom Higham amusing himself wit...

I must now turn to different scenes, and to people whom I have long left, in order not to break the chain of events immediately affecting the young Earl of Eskdale.

Many men were in the Jacobite army, both in the south and in the north, who, judging of the future by the present, and by the appointment of the most incompetent persons to offi...

It was about nine o'clock at night when two persons on foot approached the little hamlet of Aleton. One of them advanced a little before the other, as if to reconnoitre; but all...

It is wonderful how rapidly Somerville, as he called himself, gained to all appearance upon the good opinion of his young cousin. They became quite intimate. Richard found out f...

The account given by Richard Newark to Emmeline and Smeaton, after the latter had returned, comprised nothing that the reader does not know; but he told his tale with great humo...

It was on the evening of the brightest day which had shone for the last fortnight, when the Earl of Eskdale, accompanied by Mr. William Newark, under the name of Somerville, and...

It was during the evening of the ninth of November, on which the cavalry of the insurgent army marched into Preston, that a party consisting of three mounted men followed the co...

The darker scenes of the early part of the reign of George I. had passed away, and, though there were troubles and contentions in many parts of Europe, and conspiracies and desi...

Important business came thick and fast upon all the magistrates of the western counties of England; for, though parties were very nearly balanced, and the prompt, vigorous, and...

We must now return to the little parlour of Van Noost, the leaden-statue-maker, and suppose that an hour or two has passed since we left him and his companion there together. We...