The Sword of the King

I was a child of five years when I first saw my lover, and a gallant sight I thought he made, the more that he found me in sore trouble, and drew me out of it, as is ever his wa...

I have said above of this early friendship between a lad of eleven and a maid not half that age, that it endured five years. For at the end of that period the comradeship indeed...

And then, one Sunday morning of late winter, we heard from the pulpit of Drayton Parish Church how the King was dead, when was read to the congregation there assembled the speec...

Now all this day I had been keeping the house, at my father's strict command, he being most solicitous that for their safety none of his household should meet with the gang of c...

Sir Michael carried with him the one candle he had brought into my chamber, so we stood in the dark as if turned to stone by the sound of the sergeant's voice without, most horr...

A little sidelong eddy, it seemed, from the great tide of public events had washed up into our quiet backwater or creek of country life, setting us all agog with the tragic issu...

Christopher Kidd was a tenant farmer upon the Drayton land. Moreover, he was a suitor, earnest as bashful, for the hand of my little abigail, Prudence Emmet. While, therefore, m...

At an early hour on Monday there were gathered on the level turf that stretched beneath my chamber window some five and twenty men, with as many horses, from whom Sir Michael, w...

Captain Royston's troop was of that portion of the army which, after the pomp of entry into Exeter, had been quartered at Honiton. There, waiting at an equal distance from his o...

With all this we have yet come no further than the noontime of the Monday; but I have yet one more thread to gather up before I come again to my proper part in this tale.

With my horse reduced to some show of order, but yet champing fretfully at his bit and throwing back his head in such manner as but for my quick avoidance had endangered the sou...

Two years after it happened my husband and I did ride over the same course of my crow's flight from Drayton Manor to Royston Chase. And it was matter of some surprise to me, and...

I was now soon to find that it may be easier to assume a part than to throw it off. At His Highness's invitation I was no little dismayed, having at the moment but one desire--t...

The high back of the settle where I sat being between us, Captain Royston upon his return did not perceive me until, having dismissed the sentry and set his candlestick upon a t...

"Hush!" he said gently, thinking me, I suppose, as indeed I was, at the point of calling aloud on the guard. "I am unarmed, and would not hurt you if I could. What is your name?...

When I try to write that part of my story that should here immediately ensue, I find the attempt at first more destructive of the feather than the nib of my pen. If I close my e...

In telling how we came happily through this trouble of Captain Royston's disgrace, I perceive that there is from this point a greater number of those incidents in which, althoug...

And thus my father surprised us, by which accident we were not a little taken aback. My lover, however, rose bravely to the occasion, and very plainly and without any mincing of...

M. de Rondiniacque had little reason to hope for anything better than a second rebuff if he pursued the Prince to plead Royston's cause in the garden. He therefore sat him down...

Meantime, upon the turret roof I was enduring very tediously the flight of these anxious minutes. The spot we used to call the Crow's Nest is marked plain to the unaided eye by...