Category: Historical Novels

The Trumpet-Major

The present tale is founded more largely on testimony--oral and written--than any other in this series. The external incidents which direct its course are mostly an unexaggerated reproduction of the recollections of old persons well known to the author in childhood, but now lo...

Chapters

26. Chapter 26

He threw the letter into her lap, and drew back to the other side of the gable-wall. Anne jumped up from her seat, flung away the letter without looking at it, and went hastily...

22. Chapter 22

Bob was silent, and then he, too, looked into the court. At length he arose, walked to his brother, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. 'Jack,' he said, in an altered voice, 'y...

21. Chapter 21

One of the marines set foot on the ladder, but at the same moment a shoe from Bob's hand hit the lantern with well-aimed directness, knocking it clean out of the grasp of the ma...

24. Chapter 24

'Well,' continued the man from the Victory, 'I won't say that your brother's intended ha'n't got some ballast, which is very lucky for'n, as he might have picked up with a girl...

5. Chapter 5

'You can't, nunc, you can't. I don't think you are worse--if I do, dash my wig. But you'll have plenty of opportunities to make me welcome when you are better. If you are not so...

4. Chapter 4

The present writer, to whom this party has been described times out of number by members of the Loveday family and other aged people now passed away, can never enter the old liv...

18. Chapter 18

Bob walked beside Derriman's horse for some distance. Loveday had instantly made up his mind to go and look for the women, and ease their anxiety by letting them know the good n...

16. Chapter 16

After writing this she went to the garden, where Bob was shearing the spring grass from the paths. 'What is John's direction?' she said, holding the sealed letter in her hand.

23. Chapter 23

The wild, herbless, weather-worn promontory was quite a solitude, and, saving the one old lighthouse about fifty yards up the slope, scarce a mark was visible to show that human...

13. Chapter 13

And then he told a tale of Miss Johnson and the --th Dragoons which wrung his heart as much in the telling as it did Bob's to hear, and which showed that John had been temporari...

14. Chapter 14

This was by coming down from the outskirts of the camp in the evening, and seating himself near the brink of the mill-pond as soon as it was quite dark; where he watched the lig...

12. Chapter 12

John continued his sad and heavy pace till walking seemed too old and worn-out a way of showing sorrow so new, and he leant himself against the fork of an apple-tree like a log....

6. Chapter 6

Her mother glanced out of the window. 'And there he is, I suppose,' she said, as John Loveday, tired of looking for Anne at the stile, passed the house on his way to his father'...

19. Chapter 19

The trumpet-major spent the whole afternoon and evening in that long and difficult search for Festus Derriman. Crossing the down at the end of the second hour he met Molly and M...

25. Chapter 25

'You are scalded painfully, and I not at all!' She gazed into his kind face as she had never gazed there before, and when Mrs. Loveday came back with oil and other liniments for...

15. Chapter 15

Anne turned away from him and entered the house, whither in the course of a quarter of an hour he followed her, knocking at her door, and asking to be let in. She said she was b...

17. Chapter 17

In forecasting his grand venture, Buonaparte postulated the help of Providence to a remarkable degree. Just at the hour when his troops were on board the flat-bottomed boats and...

9. Chapter 9

The popular Georgian watering-place was in a paroxysm of gaiety. The town was quite overpowered by the country round, much to the town's delight and profit. The fear of invasion...

10. Chapter 10

'I should have been here this morning; but not so much as a wheelbarrow could I get for my traps; everything was gone to the review. So I went too, thinking I might meet you the...

7. Chapter 7

'No; forbear, forbear,' said Festus, beginning to be frightened at the spirit he had raised. 'I forget; we should drive him into fits, for he's subject to 'em, and then perhaps...

8. Chapter 8

Mrs. Garland touched Anne's elbow several times as they walked, and the young woman at last understood that this was meant as a hint to her to take the trumpet-major's arm, whic...

2. Chapter 2

In the court in front were two worn-out millstones, made useful again by being let in level with the ground. Here people stood to smoke and consider things in muddy weather; and...

11. Chapter 11

On the morning of the Sunday appointed for her coming Captain Bob Loveday set out to meet his bride. He had been all the week engaged in painting the gig, assisted by his brothe...

20. Chapter 20

Then drums and fifes were heard, and in a minute or two they saw Sergeant Stanner advancing along the street with a firm countenance, fiery poll, and rigid staring eyes, in fron...

3. Chapter 3

'Your servant, ma'am,' said the miller, adopting as a matter of propriety the raised standard of politeness required by his higher costume. 'Now, begging your pardon, I can't ha...

1. Chapter 1

The present tale is founded more largely on testimony--oral and written--than any other in this series. The external incidents which direct its course are mostly an unexaggerate...

27. Chapter 27

'Don't say it!' cried Uncle Benjy, covering his eyes. 'Put 'em away. . . . Well, if you _don't_ want 'em--But put 'em away, dear Anne; they are for you, because you have kept my...