The Story of Francis Cludde

What was to be done? That was the question, and a terrible question it was. Behind us we had the inhospitable country, dark and dreary, the night wind sweeping over it. In front...

Only to feel that we were moving was a relief, though our march was very slow. Master Bertie carried the child slung in a cloak before him, and, thus burdened, could not well go...

I am told by people who have been seasick that the sound of the waves beating against the hull comes in time to be an intolerable torment. But bad as this may be, it can be noth...

A younger generation has often posed me finely by asking, "What, Sir Francis! Did you not see _one_ bishop burned? Did you not know _one_ of the martyrs? Did you _never_ come fa...

He was a young man, and a Dutchman, but not a Dutchman of the stout, burly type which I had most commonly seen in the country. He had, it is true, the usual fair hair and blue e...

A moment later the servants in the hall heard a scream--a scream of such horror and fear that they scarcely recognized a human voice in the sound. They sprang to their feet scar...

They none of them believed me, it seemed; and smarting under Mistress Anne's ridicule, hurt by even the Duchess's kindly incredulity, what could I do? Only assert what I had ass...

The bitterness of that hour long past, when he had left me for death, when he had played with the human longing for life, and striven without a thought of pity to corrupt me by...

The noise of the bell, and the cry which accompanied it, roused me from my first sleep in London, and that with a vengeance; the bell being rung and the words uttered within thr...

On the boundary line between the two counties of Warwick and Worcester there is a road very famous in those parts, and called the Ridgeway. Father Carey used to say--and no bett...

The first streak of daylight found me already footing it through the forest by paths known to few save the woodcutters, but with which many a boyish exploration had made me fami...

We coasted along in this silent fashion, nearly as far as the hamlet and bridge, following, but farther inshore, the course which Master Lindstrom and I had taken when on our wa...

As the day went on, therefore, I looked eagerly for Mistress Anne's return, but she appeared no more, though I maintained a close watch on the cabin-door. All the afternoon, too...

They took me back to the room in the tower, it being now nearly ten o'clock. Master Lindstrom would fain have stayed with me constantly to the end, but having the matter I have...

"You were a blind bat or you would have found it out for yourself," she continued scornfully. "A babe would have guessed it, knowing as much of your father as you did."

"This is a serious matter," said Master Bertie thoughtfully, as we sat in conclave an hour later round the table in the parlor. Mistress Anne was attending to Dymphna upstairs,...

Chancellor was lodged in the great chamber on the southern side of the courtyard, a room which we called the Tapestried Chamber, and in which tradition said that King Henry the...

The north wall of the church at Coton End is only four paces from the house, the church standing within the moat. Isolated as the sacred building, therefore, is from the outer w...

I had not seen the first moonbeams pierce the broken casement of the tower-room, but I was there to watch the last tiny patch of silver glide aslant from wall to sill, and sill...

We had stood thus for a few moments when a harsh voice, hailing us from above, put an end to our several thoughts and forebodings. We looked up and I saw half a dozen night-capp...

I shook my head, too completely at sea even to hazard a conjecture. Master Bertie shook his head also, keeping his eyes glued to the door, as if he could not believe Anne had re...

Tell him all? I stood thinking, my hand on the key. The voices of the rearmost of the conspirators sounded more and more faintly as they passed up the shaft, until their last ac...

Late, as I have heard, on the afternoon of November 20, 1558, a man riding between Oxford and Worcester, with the news of the queen's death, caught sight of the gateway tower at...

Master Bertie turned in his saddle, and looked at it. The light was fading into the early dusk of a November evening, but the main features of four cross streets, the angle betw...

"We must first help ourselves," Sir Anthony answered sharply; rousing himself with wonderful energy from the prostration into which my story had thrown him. "I will send after h...

We had confronted too many dangers during the last three years not to be able to face this one with a good courage; and presently Master Bertie, taking a seat, requested to be t...