Category: Historical Novels
They built in marble; built as they Who hoped these stones should see the day When Christ should come; and that these walls Might stand o’er them till judgment calls.
Scarcely have the sounds of the footsteps of our two friends died away, when another step comes along the cloisters from the opposite direction, and after the pause of a moment...
11. CHAPTER VIII.“We grieve not o’er our abbey lands, e’en pass they as they may, But we grieve because the tyrant found a richer spoil than they; He cast aside, as a thing defiled, the remembra...
20. CHAPTER VII.About twenty miles, or a little more, to the south-east of Glastonbury, over the Dorsetshire border, and not far from Sturminster, stood, three centuries ago, an old and moulder...
16. CHAPTER III.Sir Thomas Stukely of Chagford, gentleman, was a type of the old English justice of his day; a hundred pounds a year, equivalent to a thousand now, represented the condition of...
23. CHAPTER X.In the library of Castle Redfyrne sat Sir John, the present lord of that ancient manor, at a writing table placed in the embrasure of a gothic window, whence he could look over...
26. CHAPTER XIII.The chief entrance into the Abbey was from S. Mary Magdalene Street, which lay on the west of the ruined pile; it led to the Chapel of S. Joseph, and through that chapel, eastwa...
22. CHAPTER IX.When our youthful hero, so suddenly rescued from a bloody death, regained the full consciousness, of which the shock seemed to have deprived him for a time, he felt like one in...
15. CHAPTER II.“My news concerns thee, dear son,” said his adopted father. “Cuthbert, thou hast now attained years of discretion, and thy education has not been neglected; thou art a fair mast...
7. CHAPTER IV.No event of importance followed immediately upon the disclosure of the secret chamber;--the summer passed swiftly and pleasantly away, the orchards were already laden with the g...
5. CHAPTER II.Three centuries and more have rolled away since the dissolution of the monasteries, which once rose in architectural beauty in each district of mediæval England, gladdening the...
24. CHAPTER XI.A month had passed away since the scaffold had lost its victims at Exeter, and although the agents of government had made every enquiry, searched every suspicious nook, and each...
8. CHAPTER V.The day had been very fine, such a day as we sometimes enjoy, even in November; the golden sunbeams had brightened the foliage which yet hung upon many of the trees of the fores...
25. CHAPTER XII.Cuthbert rode at a brisk trot through the woods, sometimes breaking into a gallop; but he was too good a horseman to “take it all out of his steed” at starting, for he felt that...
21. CHAPTER VIII.The dusky shades of night fell upon the ancient Castle of Rougemont, the feudal pile of the proud Norman, and deepened the gloom of its dungeons; and in particular of that one,...
19. CHAPTER VI.It was only his own crest upon a sapphire that he gazed upon, yet his heart gave a leap, and in spite of his self-command his blood flushed up, his face was crimson, and he evid...
17. CHAPTER IV.One of the foulest disgraces resting upon mediæval England, but not upon her alone, was the state of her prisons. In such filth were the prisoners kept, that a peculiar fever, c...
14. CHAPTER I.There are few districts in England more picturesque than the southern slopes of Dartmoor; the deeply wooded glens, the brawling mountain torrents, the huge tors with their rock-...
9. CHAPTER VI.The period of English history of which we are now writing has been aptly called “The Reign of Terror.” England under Thomas Cromwell, and France under Robespierre, were alike ex...
4. CHAPTER I.It was the All-Hallow Even of the year 1538, and the first Evensong of the festival of All Saints had been sung, in the noble Abbey Church of Glastonbury, with all those solemn...
18. CHAPTER V.You descended into it by a winding staircase, excavated in the very thickness of the wall, and entered, after a descent of thirty steps, on opening a huge door of stone, which s...
10. CHAPTER VII.A dead silence reigned around the precincts of the once mighty Abbey, many of the monks had fled, fearing lest they should share the fate which had befallen their superiors, and...
12. CHAPTER IX.No, Cuthbert was not burnt, as the reader has already conjectured, or our tale would come to an untimely close, untimely as the death of our hero, and we will now explain the ma...
6. CHAPTER III.The Compline service was over, and the lads, many of whom slept in the abbey, while others lodged in the town, were retiring to their beds, when a lay brother arrested Cuthbert’...
3. PART I.They built in marble; built as they Who hoped these stones should see the day When Christ should come; and that these walls Might stand o’er them till judgment calls.
2. PART II.--Cuthbert the Foundling.13. PART II.O fair Devonia! Land of the brave and leal, how bright thy skies! How fresh do show thy rich and verdant meads! How clear the streams! which from thy hills do run: How grim the...
1. PART I.--The Last Abbot.