Katerfelto: A Story of Exmoor

Again is Nelly Carew sitting among the rocks in Porlock Bay, but the tide is out now, and a broad sweep of wet sand stretches before her to a low and level line of white that se...

In the gipsies' camp a night of snow and storm was accepted without a murmur, and provided against in a spirit of ingenuity and forethought peculiar to such wayfarers, as love t...

Katerfelto's business seemed to bring him in contact with persons of every class and character. Men and women were coming to the surgery at all hours of the day and night; the f...

They left town together notwithstanding; and although my lady altered her mind with every mile, now extolling her own sense of wifely duty, now bewailing her want of firmness an...

A thorough gipsy bred and born, Waif so far resembled a wild animal of the woods, that, when sore stricken, she instinctively sought her home. Scarce knowing how, she sped back...

To have lost a hundred guineas after supper was bad enough, but to yield possession of the best horse he ever owned, and pursue Lord Bellinger into the West on foot, or by the t...

Meantime John Garnet, enjoying the golden hours at Porlock with the carelessness of his nature, thought no more of the toils that surrounded him than the wild deer of the forest...

"And you never told me your life was in danger, never said that a careless word might ruin both of us at a blow. Dear heart, surely you might have trusted _me_."

Threading like a herd of red deer the slight undulations of the down, it took the gipsies but a few minutes to withdraw from the scene of their late outrage. In less than an hou...

Nature is always beautiful in her morning, evening, and noon-day dresses, her fits of rage, her languor of repose, her storms, her calms, her shadows, sunshine, tears, and smile...

Deadman's Alley was at all times a secluded thoroughfare; after dark, indeed, its echoes rarely woke to the sound of a footstep; and the watch reflecting, perhaps, that such lon...

"Thee be'est a drunken old twoad!" exclaimed a buxom countrywoman, apple-faced and dark-haired, to her laughing mate, not the least in tones of conjugal reproof, but rather as a...

Wittingly or unwittingly, nobody ever offended Katerfelto without regretting it. To do him justice, the Charlatan had every intention of screening John Garnet from the avenger o...

There were few better horses in the West of England than Parson Gale's black nag Cassock, a beast on which he had performed many surprising feats of speed and endurance for trif...

High-water in Porlock Bay. The tide upon the turn--sand-pipers, great and small, dipping, nodding, stalking to and fro, or flitting along its margin waiting for the ebb; a gull...

But there was no time for interchange of sentiments, regretful or otherwise, at such a crisis. Fin Cooper and Dick Boss had already coasted round the coombe, and were hastening...

"Weather-wise--fool otherwise," is a West-country proverb that by no means applied to Red Rube. The harbourer, who had taken a judicious view of John Garnet's position, and gave...

Plodding wearily on, in the shuffling, dogged, continuous jog-trot that takes a tired hunter home, Cassock presently pricked his ears, and increased the pace of his own accord,...

Lady Bellinger at least was pleased. When her lord, reflecting that the robbery he had sustained would render abortive his journey to the West, ordered the horses' heads to be t...

It is only fair to state that Lord Bellinger writhed and struggled with a vigour not to have been expected from his attenuated frame, much to the delight of his captors, who wer...

On the last day of April, 1763, John Wilkes, refusing to enter into his recognisances to appear before the Court of Queen's Bench, was committed to the Tower by warrant of my Lo...

"Hold on, Parson! you've been and dropped your knife!" said a rough voice in Abner Gale's ear, while a dexterous snatch twitched the weapon out of his fingers. "Shame! gentlemen...

In the surgery Katerfelto began to prepare for the reception of his visitors. Standing at a bright little mirror, he was soon immersed in the task. A spot of carmine on the chee...

In the first ten minutes of a run with hounds everything else must needs be forgotten, for in these minutes men cast to the winds all earthly considerations but one, viz., how t...

They occupied separate apartments now. There had been a time indeed when Lord and Lady Bellinger might have competed for the flitch of bacon at Dunmow, so well satisfied was eac...

Tancred, a marvel of canine sagacity, had good reason for deserting his comrades, to engage in some quiet researches of his own. It is unnecessary to inform those who love stag-...

He did _not_ thank him. The Charlatan, who had closely shaven his venerable beard, and adopted, with their reserved demeanour, the precise and sombre habit of the Jesuits, was s...

"He understood me at once," thought Nelly, whose headache left her the moment she entered her own room. "How gentle he always seems, and how nice. I wonder who and what he is? G...

The speaker, a lame old ostler, clattering about his stable-yard in wooden clogs, with a bucket in each hand, addressed himself to an unseen individual at the taproom window, wh...

The travellers spent their first night agreeably enough. The weather was fine, the inn at Hounslow roomy and luxurious. My lady seemed pleased with the fresh eggs, the country c...