Peregrine's Progress

A hoarse clamour upon the air, shouts, laughter, the bray of horns, throbbing of drums, clashing of cymbals and tinkling of bells: a pandemonium that deafened me, a blatant upro...

"Not exactly vicious, Tony," I demurred when I had quelled this exuberance, "merely animal spirits. Wildfire is a high-strung creature requiring constant thought and attention a...

"Peregrine--who was it?" he enquired, slipping his hand within my arm and glancing round the glade. "Who was it sang so divinely--can it be, is it--our Diana? But of course it i...

I went at a good, round pace, being determined to cover as much distance as possible ere dawn, since I felt assured that so soon as my indomitable aunt Julia discovered my depar...

"It was at the ambassador's ball and mark you, Perry, there were some uncommonly fine women there, though none of 'em, no, damme, not one to compare with my Loveliness, of cours...

"Ladylike!" said I to myself, leaning forth from my chamber window into a fragrant summer night radiant with an orbed moon. But for once I was heedless of the ethereal beauty of...

Diogenes the sturdy pony trotted at such good pace that where the ways were rough the Tinker's light cart creaked and lurched until the tins wherewith it was festooned rattled a...

I opened my eyes on a bleak dawn full of a pallid, stealthy mist, to find myself cramped in my chair before the open lattice and with Anthony bending over me, his comely feature...

I had been ringing ineffectually at the bell of my chambers for perhaps five minutes and was about to visit the adjacent mews in quest of my groom, when a voice spoke my name, a...

"An' now--wot about my door?" demanded a gruff voice. Starting, I turned to find the landlord at my elbow and immediately my forlornness grew intensified. I felt miserably helpl...

A broad, white road led between grassy banks topped by hedgerows and trees whose wide-flung, rusting leafage cast a pleasant shade, while high in the sunny air a lark carolled f...

"Ye're a little pale--yes, a trifle haggard, Perry, but there's nothing like a romantic pallor to attract the feminine regard and captivate the female heart, my boy--I'm married...

I remember waking to find myself very miserable in a ghastly dawn, where guttering candles flickered in their sockets, casting an unearthly light upon bottles, silverware, and m...

And now ensued a halcyon season, dewy dawns wherein I bathed and sparred with Jessamy, long, sunny days full of labour and an ever-growing joy of Diana's radiant loveliness, nig...

I was busily engaged blowing the bellows of the Tinker's small, portable forge; besides the making and mending of kettles, pots, pans and the like, it seems he was a skilful smi...

We had gone thus no great distance when we heard a sound of hoofs and wheels and perceived an open travelling chaise coming up behind us. The lane was narrow and rutted and thus...

"There's nothing like an onion!" said the Tinker, lifting pot-lid to lunge at the bubbling contents with an inquisitorial fork. "An onion is the king o' vegetables! Eat it raw a...

"Damme, no--ha' patience! Meantime take this--more useful if it comes t' scrimmage!" And he twisted a stake from the flower bed we were trampling and thrust it into my hand. "En...

The silence was broken only by the plodding hoofs of Diogenes, the creak of harness and rattle of wheels, while Diana grew lost in thought and I in contemplation of Diana; the s...

"When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood. O the Roast Beef of Old England And O for old England's Roast Beef!"

We were jolting Tonbridge-wards in the Tinker's cart; the afternoon was very hot, and Diogenes, hearing the murmur of our voices, subsided to a leisured amble like the knowing,...

"The Rubicon," said the Tinker, "the Rubicon is a river as no Roman ever crossed without doo thought. 'The die,' as Julius Caesar remarked when he crossed it, 'the die is cast!'...

Your Heroes of Romance from time immemorial have generally been large men, more or less handsome, superlatively strong, void of all fear, stalwart of body and steadfast of mind;...

"Strange," said my uncle Jervas musingly, "very strange that I should be pleading your gipsy's suit and find you so coldly, mercilessly determined to make that pleading vain! Yo...

"Nineteen to-day, is he!" said my uncle Jervas, viewing me languidly through his quizzing-glass. "How confoundedly the years flit! Nineteen--and on me soul, our poor youth looks...

"Two years! Emptiness! Loneliness! Two years!" Sometimes tears blinded me, sometimes anger shook me, but always was the pain of loss, the yearning for that loved and vanished pr...

Assuredly never were the nostrils of mortal youth saluted with odour more inspiring and altogether more delectable than that which, wooing me from the drowsy arms of Morpheus, a...

Morning with a glory of sun flooding in at the small aperture beneath the gable and through every crack and cranny of timeworn roof and walls; a glory to dazzle my sleepy eyes a...

I awoke uncomfortably warm, to find the high-risen sun pouring his dazzling beams full upon me while, hard by, the Tinker's fire yet smouldered; up I started to rub my eyes and...

Precisely upon the stroke of half-past four I turned under the arch of the "Chequers" inn and, coming into the yard, looked about for Diana. The place was fairly a-throng with v...

The storm had passed and I remember the moon was shining as, turning our backs upon the silent inn of the "Jolly Waggoner," we made off along the road at a good, sharp pace. And...

Starting up, I opened sleepy eyes to be dazzled by a glory of early sunshine, and creeping from the hay wherein I lay half-buried, I came blinking to the open trapdoor and behel...

The Tinker stood resplendent in brass-buttoned coat of bottle green which, if a little threadbare at the seams, made up for this by the astonishing size and sheen of its buttons.

"Love," said his lordship, laying down his fishing rod, "love, from the philosophically materialistic standpoint, is an unease, a disquiet of the mind, fostered in the male by h...

Diogenes, perceiving he was permitted to loiter no more, philosophically betook himself to his heels, or rather hoofs, and trotted briskly supper-wards, up hill and down, until...

I awoke very stiff and sore and full of a black, oppressive melancholy despite the bright sunshine that poured in at every crack and crevice of the old barn. To this depression...

Either George was of different fibre to me, or the rum had been neither hot enough nor sufficiently strong, for on awaking I found myself full of pain, the least movement an ago...

A blusterous wind that fluttered the skirts of my long, caped coat, that filled the night with stir and tumult and flaws of sudden rain; a wind that whirled black masses of ragg...

"My name is Peregrine!" said I in sudden wrath. For a moment she viewed me with her direct, half-sullen gaze, then drooping dark lashes, laughed with a flash of strong white teeth.

Birds were singing joyously, the brook chuckled and laughed merrily amid the shallows, the morning sun shone in glory, and all nature seemed to rejoice, as if care and sadness w...

I was lying beneath a tree, my head softly pillowed and wet with cool water that refreshed me wonderfully; thus I presently turned my head and glanced up into eyes that gazed do...

Surely it was here or hereabouts that, upon a never-to-be-forgotten day, I had acted the craven and, fleeing in panic, yet (heaven be praised!) had rushed back to be beaten into...

At this she wheeled quickly and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I reme...

Starting up in no little amazement, I beheld a man who bore a bundle of brooms upon his shoulder and a pack upon his back, while round his neck dangled ribbands and laces of man...

Exuberant, with blood a-dance and nerves braced and tingling from the sparkling water, we faced each other upon the grassy level, Jessamy and I, stripped to the waist and with m...

I sat upon a hay pile in that same shady corner of the yard behind the "Chequers" inn where once had stood a weather-beaten cart drawn by a four-footed philosopher called Diogenes.

Reaching the other room I found the squint-eyed maid had set forth our supper--a goodly joint of cold beef flanked by a loaf, cheese and a jug of ale. A mere glance at this simp...

So we walked on together, side by side, through leafy byways and winding paths, past smiling cornfield and darkling wood; we talked of the Government, of country and town, of th...

From brake and thicket gemmed with a myriad sparkling dewdrops, birds were singing a jubilant paean, as well indeed they might upon so fair a morning; yet these were but a choru...

Evening was at hand, lights began to wink and flare among booths and shows, and the crowd seemed to be growing even more riotous; thus I, for one, was profoundly thankful to lea...

Stomach is and ever has been a mighty factor in the affairs of mankind: the proud and lowly, the fool and sage, all alike are slaves to its imperious dictates. Let it go empty,...

She was ministering to my scratches and abrasions, and I, sitting on the old hay-pile, watched her, joying in the gentle touch of her white, dexterous hands, her sweet motherlin...

There is, I think, a wistful sadness in the fall of evening, a vague regret for the fading glories of the day which, passing out of our lives for ever, leaves us so much the ric...

A fortnight has elapsed and I sit here in my study at Merivale, idly adding these words to this book of mine which it seems is never destined to be finished. As my pen traces th...

Birds were calling their melodious complaint on the passing of another day and the shadows were lengthening when I came to a cross-roads where stood a timeworn finger-post benea...

At the extreme end of a narrow and somewhat dingy passage we came on a door, from behind which proceeded a din of voices in loud confabulation, together with much jingling of gl...

We stood upon a hill beneath an orbed moon whose splendour dimmed the stars; below us lay a mystery of sombre woods with a prospect of hill and dale beyond, and never a sound to...

This is the tale of Diana, the Gipsy, the Goddess, the Woman, one in all and all in one and that one so wonderful, so elusive, so utterly feminine that I, being but a man and no...