The Drummer's Coat

In a deep wooded valley in the north of Devon stands the village of Ashacombe. It is but a little village, of some twenty or thirty cottages with white cob walls and low thatche...

It was the 22nd of July 1820, and the shadows were beginning to lengthen over Ashacombe village on a burning summer's afternoon. The men were still at work, and most of the wome...

Though there was more than one snug little room at Bracefort which other people might have turned into a schoolroom, yet Lady Eleanor always preferred, in the summer at any rate...

The two gentlemen dismounted at the gate giving their horses to their groom, and then walked towards Lady Eleanor together. Both were dressed in blue coats, buff waistcoats, and...

Notwithstanding Colonel George's hopes, Tommy Fry remained dumb during the next day, and the next, and the next; and Lady Eleanor became seriously alarmed. She sent for the apot...

The day of misfortunes brought about very much such results as Colonel George had foreseen. Old Sally Dart, it is true, recovered, though she was sadly shaken; and she declared,...

So another fortnight passed away, and nothing happened to disturb the usual peace of Ashacombe. Nothing was seen or heard of the idiot or his mother nor of any one who correspon...

And what had become of Dick and Elsie? The account given by the Corporal had, of course, been perfectly true. It was Dick who had been the first to see the hunted stag about a q...

It was but a very little house in which the children found themselves; and it took some time for them to make it out, for there was no light but that of a feeble rushlight in a...

It need hardly be said that when her first joy over the recovery of the children was over, Lady Eleanor's instant thought was for the strange woman and her idiot son, who had be...

Great was Lady Eleanor's distress when she heard from the Corporal what had happened. "Ah, if only Colonel Fitzdenys had been here!" she repeated more than once; but she could t...

The village was not a little awed by the strange turn that affairs had taken, for the two noisiest tongues in it had been silenced, Mrs. Fry's by the restoration of her Tommy's...

"Years agone, long afore you ever come this way, my Lady, my father lived not above seven or eight mile herefrom, up to Loudacott; you must surely have heard the name of the pla...

wayside; they couldn't go no farther and had lain down to die together; and I wished that it had been Jan and me; but I had the boy on my back and I went on. Well, I won't tell...

There was a long silence when Lucy Dart came to the end of her story. There were parts of it that struck home to Lady Eleanor, for was not she also the widow of a soldier who ha...