The Woodman: A Romance of the Times of Richard III

Come back with me, dear reader, come back with me both in time and space; for we must return to the morning before, and to the little hill-top--not far from the spot where the r...

Now the reader must remember that a castle of those days, though fallen from the "high estate" of feudal garrison and constant preparation, was a very different place from a mod...

No, alas, that we cannot do. Let the eager eye stretch as it will, aided by whatever glass the ingenuity of man can devise, or his presumption use, that wide horizon will never...

Years had passed, long years, since the little scene took place which I have described in the preceding chapter. The heads were grey which were then proud of the glossy locks of...

There is certainly something in trust and confidence that is wonderfully winning. Even with man--fierce, bloody, all-devouring man--it is hardly possible to resist sacred confid...

To the surprise of Iola, and certainly not less to that of good Ibn Ayoub, though with Mahommedan gravity he gave no voice to his wonder, Chartley burst into a violent fit of la...

In a small cell, of size and proportion exactly similar to those of the nuns, though somewhat differently arranged and decorated, lay a very beautiful girl sound asleep. A light...

It was a dark night; and the appearance of the cottage or hut was, in the inside at least, gloomy enough. The large wooden boards, which shut out wind and storm, covered the ape...

On the evening of the nineteenth of August, and at the hour of half-past six, was seen riding alone, through the woodland, then lying about three miles to the right of the direc...

Clouds roll over the sky; the large rain drops descend; the lightning flashes; the thunder rolls along the verge of heaven; darkness and tempests rage above; and ruin and desola...

"It was discreet, my lord, it was discreet," said Lord Calverly, as he walked up into the hall with Fulmer by his side; "and take my word for it, that discretion is a quality wh...

Let us take up the history of the woodman, after he and the bishop of Ely had quitted Lord Chartley. They crossed rapidly over the road, hearing the sound of horses advancing, a...

The lighted brand which Chartley carried in his hand hardly remained unextinguished till he and Iola had passed through the deep gateway into the large hall; but there they foun...

There is nothing which should teach man virtue, if not religion, more than the study of history; not by showing that the result of evil action is punishment to the ill-doer, for...

It was like a cloud passing away from a summer sky. It was as when a weary traveller laying down the heavy burden he has carried far, by the side of the road, stretches his free...

Much did the good nuns wonder, why and wherefore such splendid preparations had been made by the abbess, for the reception of a young nobleman and his companions, none of whom,...

Midsummer days dawn early; and, even in that class of life where it is not customary to pass the greater part of night in study or amusement, it rarely happens that the rising s...

The opening of the door of the hall startled Iola from her slumber; and when she found where her head had been resting, a bright warm blush spread over her fair face. Though the...

Human fate, or rather the fate of the whole human race, is but as a web of cloth fixed in the frame of circumstances, with an unseen hand continually throwing the shuttle. The t...

Each of the guests retired to his chamber; but, for some little time, there was a considerable degree of bustle and movement in the castle, pages and servants hurrying to and fr...

"Yield you, yield you!" he exclaimed, turning then to the young nobleman; "'tis vain to resist. We have men enough to take you all, were you told ten times over."

In a small, but rich and beautiful, Gothic chamber, splendidly decorated, and splendidly furnished, sat a gentleman, in the very prime of life, at a table covered with manifold...

The search was over. It had proved, as I have said, vain; and Lord Calverly was in a state of bewildered confusion of mind, which it was impossible to describe. Obey the king's...

The sun had set nearly an hour. The moon had not yet risen, and the forest was all in darkness; but there were many people round the door of the woodman's cottage. Horsemen, and...

I know no labour of the body which fatigues so much as agitation of the mind; but the fatigue which it produces is very often of that kind which refuses repose. The mind, in its...

The hall was as light as day; for Lord Calverly was fond of a glare. The feast was as delicate as he could have desired, and even the critical taste of Sir Edward Hungerford fou...

Another day elapsed, and another. The sunshine mingled with the shade; as is ever the case in human life; but there were no dark clouds. Sometimes, for many hours, Chartley and...

I must now introduce the reader to a scene then very common in England, but which would now be sought for in vain--although, to some of the habits of those times a large class o...

Let us return to the close of supper on the preceding night. The abbess and her two fair nieces, with some other ladies who had been congregated in the castle, retired, first, t...

It was in the month of July, often a wet and rainy month, in this good climate of England; but the rain had exhausted itself, and sunshine had come back again, bright and clear....

Shakspeare made a mistake. The morning was bright and clear, and the sun shone strong and powerfully, drawing up a light mist from a marsh which lay between a part of the earl o...

An old man, with a long white beard, presented himself before the princess countess of Arran, almost the moment after she had knocked, and, in answer to her demand to see the la...

One by one, the guests assembled in the hall of Chidlow castle, for the first meal of the day which, as the reader well knows, was in those days a very substantial affair. Peopl...

Let us now return within the abbey walls for a while, and see what was passing there. The departure of the guests had left behind, at least with some of the fair inmates, that s...

In a large room, of the convent of Black Nuns, near Tewksbury, with a vaulted roof and one window at the farther end, seated at a small table, and with an open parchment book up...

Under some circumstances, and upon some conditions, there are few things fairer on this earth than a walk through a wild forest by moonlight. It must not be, however, one of tho...

Had he been chief warder of a beleaguered fort, Lord Fulmer could not have examined every gate and sally port of the castle more carefully than he did, when he descended from th...

I know not whether the architecture of the middle ages--that peculiar architecture, I mean, which existed in different varieties in England, from a little before the commencemen...

When Iola and her fair cousin were gone, Lord Fulmer gazed for a moment from the window, with a thoughtful and absent look; and then, descending the steps, walked once or twice...

Richard had seated himself, and taken up a paper from the table, which he was perusing attentively, when Lord Fulmer entered. He laid down the letter instantly, however, and gav...

To write a really good play is undoubtedly a much more difficult thing, and the achievement a much more glorious one, than to write a good romance; and yet the dramatist has som...

The trumpet sounded on the green beyond the walls; and by torch and lantern light the young lord and his companions mounted in the court before the chapel, and rode forth to joi...

There was a man walking in the woods, with a slight limp in his gait. He was coarsely but comfortably dressed, and had something very like a Cretan cap upon his head. His face w...

Confusion and agitation pervaded England from end to end. Men gathered together in the streets and talked. Couriers passed between house and house. The fat citizen gossipped wit...

In the course of this work I have mentioned several roads, the direction of each of which will be very easily understood by those who have an acquaintance with the locality, eve...

There was a hand laid upon the latch of the door; for doors, even in great houses, had latches to them, dear reader, in that age of simple contrivances; and Constance asked, "Wh...

priests say, I must not search them. Then, either they are not from God, because they contradict him; or the book is not from God, because it contradicts them. Now in this book...

In a small room, in the stranger's lodging at the abbey of St. Clare of Atherston, lay the form of a wounded man, upon a low bed. A lady sat by the pillow weeping; and the abbes...

Gaps are sometimes pleasant things. With what interest the eye traces a gap in a deep wood; how it roams up the glade, marking a tree out-standing here, a clump of bushes there,...

Of all the hard-working people on the earth, there are none so serviceable to her neighbours as the moon. She lights lovers and thieves. She keeps watch-dogs waking. She is a co...