Sybil, Or, The Two Nations

Egremont was the younger brother of an English earl, whose nobility being of nearly three centuries’ date, ranked him among our high and ancient peers, although its origin was m...

Less than an hour after the arrival of Sybil at Mowbray Castle the scout that Mr Mountchesney had sent off to gather news returned, and with intelligence of the triumph of Gerar...

“It is deuced lucky,” said Mr Berners, “that the Bedchamber business is over, and we are all right. This affair in the midst of the Jamaica hitch would have been fatal to us.”

A few days after his morning walk with Sybil, it was agreed that Egremont should visit Mr Trafford’s factory, which he had expressed a great desire to inspect. Gerard always lef...

In the meantime Gerard and Stephen stopped before a tall, thin, stuccoed house, ballustraded and friezed, very much lighted both within and without, and, from the sounds that is...

There is something mournful in the breaking up of an agreeable party, and few are the roofs in which one has sojourned, which are quitted without some feeling of depression. The...

When Gerard and Morley quitted the Albany after their visit to Egremont, they separated, and Stephen, whom we will accompany, proceeded in the direction of the Temple, in the vi...

“I understand, then,” said Lord Marney to his brother, as on the evening of the same day they were seated together in the drawing-room, in close converse “I understand then, tha...

Time passes with a measured and memorable wing during the first period of a sojourn in a new place, among new characters and new manners. Every person, every incident, every fee...

The clock of St John’s church struck three, and the clock of St John’s church struck four; and the fifth hour sounded from St John’s church; and the clock of St John’s was sound...

It was the valet of Lord Milford that spoke, addressing from the door of a house in Belgrave Square, about noon, a deputation from the National Convention, consisting of two of...

The beam of the declining sun, softened by the stained panes of a small gothic window, suffused the chamber of the Lady Superior of the convent of Mowbray. The vaulted room, of...

About three miles before it reaches the town, the river Mowe undulates through a plain. The scene, though not very picturesque, has a glad and sparkling character. A stone bridg...

Lord Marney left several children; his heir was five years older than the next son Charles who at the period of his father’s death was at Christchurch and had just entered the l...

Behind the printing office in the alley at the door of which we left Sybil, was a yard which led to some premises that had once been used as a work-shop, but were now generally...

“Your lordship’s dinner is served,” announced the groom of the chambers to Lord de Mowbray; and the noble lord led out Lady Marney. The rest followed. Egremont found himself sea...

The last rays of the sun, contending with clouds of smoke that drifted across the country, partially illumined a peculiar landscape. Far as the eye could reach, and the region w...

About noon of this day there was a great stir in Mowbray. It was generally whispered about that the Liberator at the head of the Hell-cats and all others who chose to accompany...

It was Monday morning. Hatton, enveloped in his chamber robe and wearing his velvet cap, was lounging in the best room of the principal commercial inn of Mowbray, over a breakfa...

The summer twilight had faded into sweet night; the young and star-attended moon glittered like a sickle in the deep purple sky; of all the luminous host, Hesperus alone was vis...

It was a wet morning; there had been a heavy rain since dawn, which impelled by a gusty south-wester came driving on a crowd of women and girls who were assembled before the doo...

Wodgate, or Wogate, as it was called on the map, was a district that in old days had been consecrated to Woden, and which appeared destined through successive ages to retain its...

“Where have you been all the morning, Charles?” said Lord Marney coming into his brother’s dressing-room a few minutes before dinner; “Arabella had made the nicest little riding...

During the week of political agitation which terminated with the inglorious catastrophe of the Bedchamber plot, Sybil remained tranquil, and would have been scarcely conscious o...

The building which was still called MARNEY ABBEY, though remote from the site of the ancient monastery, was an extensive structure raised at the latter end of the reign of James...

It is much to be deplored that our sacred buildings are generally closed except at the stated periods of public resort. It is still more to be regretted that when with difficult...

“You lean against an ancient trunk,” said Egremont, carelessly advancing to the stranger, who looked up at him without any expression of surprise, and then replied. “They say ‘t...

It was night: clear and serene, though the moon had not risen; and a vast concourse of persons were assembling on Mowbray Moor. The chief gathering collected in the vicinity of...

Notwithstanding the confidence of Lady St Julians, and her unrivalled information, the health of the king did not improve: but still it was the hay fever, only the hay fever. An...

It was a cloudy, glimmering dawn. A cold withering east wind blew through the silent streets of Mowbray. The sounds of the night had died away, the voices of the day had not com...

On the same night that Sybil was encountering so many dangers, the saloons of Deloraine House blazed with a thousand lights to welcome the world of power and fashion to a festiv...

Night waned: and Sybil was at length slumbering. The cold that precedes the dawn had stolen over her senses, and calmed the excitement of her nerves. She was lying on the ground...

“Very!” replied Warner’s wife. “Our daughter has behaved infamously to us. She has quitted us without saying by your leave or with your leave. And her wages were almost the only...

In a commercial country like England, every half century developes some new and vast source of public wealth, which brings into national notice a new and powerful class. A coupl...

Agitated and overcome by these unexpected and passionate appeals, and these outrageous ebullitions acting on her at a time when she herself was labouring under no ordinary excit...

On the evening of the day that Egremont had met Sybil in the Abbey of Westminster, and subsequently parted from her under circumstances so distressing, the Countess of Marney he...

“Are you going down to the house, Egerton?” enquired Mr Berners at Brookes, of a brother M.P., about four o’clock in the early part of the spring of 1839.

“I have seen a many things in my time Mrs Trotman,” said Chaffing Jack as he took the pipe from his mouth in the silent bar room of the Cat and Fiddle; “but I never see any like...

The reader may not have altogether forgotten Mr Nixon and his comates, the miners and colliers of that district not very remote from Mowbray, which Morley had visited at the com...

“It is not so much the fire, sir,” said Mr Bingley of the Abbey farm to Egremont, “but the temper of the people that alarms me. Do you know, sir, there were two or three score o...

During the strike in Lancashire the people had never plundered, except a few provision shops, chiefly rifled by boys, and their acts of violence had been confined to those with...

When Gerard and his friend quitted the convent they proceeded at a brisk pace, into the heart of the town. The streets were nearly empty; and with the exception of some occasion...

Morley paused as he recognised Egremont; then advancing to Gerard, followed by his companion, he said, “This is Mr Hatton of whom we were speaking last night, and who claims to...

“All very well, my lord,” replied the earl, who ever treated Lord de Mowbray with a certain degree of ceremony, especially when the descendant of the crusaders affected the fami...

“I don’t think I can stand this much longer,” said Mr Mountchesney, the son-in-law of Lord de Mowbray, to his wife, as he stood before the empty fire-place with his back to the...

“What a romantic history! And what a fortunate man is Lord Marney. If one could only have foreseen events!” exclaimed Lady St Julians. “He was always a favourite of mine though....

“It is all right,” said Mr Tadpole. “They are out. Lord Melbourne has been with the Queen and recommended her Majesty to send for the Duke, and the Duke has recommended her Maje...

Two and even three days had rolled over since Mr Tadpole had reported Sir Robert on his way to the palace, and marvellously little had transpired. It was of course known that a...

“And I should like to know why?” said Julia. “Ayn’t we as much concerned in the cause of good government as the men? And don’t we understand as much about it? I am sure the Dand...

When the news had arrived in the morning at Mowbray, that the messengers of the Bishop had met with a somewhat queer reception at the Mowedale works, Gerard prescient that some...

“Nonsense; no; it’s quite ridiculous; quite absurd. Some fellow must get up. Send to the Carlton; send to the Reform; send to Brookes’s. Are your men ready? No; are your’s? I am...

As Sybil approached her home, she recognized her father in the court before their house, accompanied by several men, with whom he seemed on the point of going forth. She was so...

“We must see Warner.” said Devilsdust, “and call a meeting of the people on the Moor for to-morrow evening. I will draw up some resolutions. We must speak out; we must terrify t...

It was the night following the day after the return of Gerard to Mowbray. Morley, who had lent to him and Sybil his cottage in the dale, was at the office of his newspaper, the...

It was the eve of the Derby of 1837. In a vast and golden saloon, that in its decorations would have become, and in its splendour would not have disgraced, Versailles in the day...

We must now for a while return to the strangers of the Abbey ruins. When the two men had joined the beautiful Religious, whose apparition had so startled Egremont, they all thre...

The situation of the rural town of Marney was one of the most delightful easily to be imagined. In a spreading dale, contiguous to the margin of a clear and lively stream, surro...

Urged by Sybil’s entreaties the cab-driver hurried on. With all the skilled experience of a thorough cockney charioteer he tried to conquer time and space by his rare knowledge...

And why was Lord de Mowbray going to the Temple? He had received the day before when he came home to dress a very disagreeable letter from some lawyers, apprising him that they...

“Ah! my father,” exclaimed Sybil, and then with a faint blush of which she was perhaps unconscious, she added, as if apprehensive Gerard would not recall his old companion, “you...

Two days after this conversation in Downing Street, a special messenger arrived at Marney Abbey from the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine. Immediately a...

“Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?” sang out a gentleman in the ring at Epsom. It was full of eager groups; round the betting post a swarming cluster, while the magic cir...

A bloom was spread over the morning sky. A soft golden light bathed with its fresh beam the bosom of the valley, except where a delicate haze, rather than a mist, still partiall...

“Manchester is nothing; these are movements merely to distract. The serious work is not now to be apprehended in the cotton towns. The state of Staffordshire and Warwickshire is...

On the morning of the same day that Mr Egerton and his friend Mr Berners walked down together to the House of Commons, as appears in our last chapter, Egremont had made a visit...

Egremont had recognized Sybil as she entered the garden. He was himself crossing the park to attend a committee of the House of Commons which had sat for the first time that mor...

“It is a great pleasure for me to see you again, Mr Egremont;” said the worthy baronet. “Your father was my earliest and kindest friend. I remember you at Firebrace, a very litt...

At the end of a court in Wodgate, of rather larger dimensions than usual in that town, was a high and many-windowed house, of several stories in height, which had been added to...

“You can’t have that table, sir, it is engaged,” said a waiter at the Athenaeum to a member of the club who seemed unmindful of the type of appropriation which in the shape of a...

“My dear Charles,” said Lady Marney to Egremont the morning after the Derby, as breakfasting with her in her boudoir he detailed some of the circumstances of the race, “we must...

Morley greeted Gerard and his daughter with great warmth, and then looked at Egremont. “Our companion in the ruins of Marney Abbey,” said Gerard; “you and our friend Franklin he...