Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth

It was too late and too dark last night to see the old house at Stow. We will look round us, then, this bright October day, while Sir Richard and Amyas, about eleven o'clock in...

“Take aim, you noble musqueteers, And shoot you round about; Stand to it, valiant pikemen, And we shall keep them out. There's not a man of all of us A foot will backward flee;...

Five years are past and gone. It is nine of the clock on a still, bright November morning; but the bells of Bideford church are still ringing for the daily service two hours aft...

“When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt, Did march to the siege of the city of Gaunt, They muster'd their soldiers by two and by three, But the foremost in battle...

“God will relent, and quit thee all thy debt, Who ever more approves, and more accepts Him who imploring mercy sues for life, Than who self-rigorous chooses death as due, Which...

Every one who knows Bideford cannot but know Bideford bridge; for it is the very omphalos, cynosure, and soul, around which the town, as a body, has organized itself; and as Edi...

“It was among the ways of good Queen Bess, Who ruled as well as ever mortal can, sir, When she was stogg'd, and the country in a mess, She was wont to send for a Devon man, sir.”

“The daughter of debate, That discord still doth sow, Shall reap no gain where former rule Hath taught still peace to grow. No foreign banish'd wight Shall anker in this port Ou...

She was sitting in the little farm-house beside the mill, buried in the green depths of the valley of Combe, half-way between Stow and Chapel, sulking as much as her sweet natur...

“Full seven long hours in all men's sight This fight endured sore, Until our men so feeble grew, That they could fight no more. And then upon dead horses Full savorly they fed,...

Now I am sorry to say, for the honor of my country, that it was by no means a safe thing in those days to travel from Plymouth to the north of Devon; because, to get to your jou...

“Great was the crying, the running and riding, Which at that season was made in the place; The beacons were fired, as need then required, To save their great treasure they had l...

“Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In always climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silenc...

All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with...

“Full fathom deep thy father lies; Of his bones are corals made; Those are pearls which were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something...

And now began that great sea-fight which was to determine whether Popery and despotism, or Protestantism and freedom, were the law which God had appointed for the half of Europe...

Amyas slept that night a tired and yet a troubled sleep; and his mother and Frank, as they bent over his pillow, could see that his brain was busy with many dreams.

“It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign, the deformed beautiful, the sick whole, the...

Amyas would have certainly taken the yellow fever, but for one reason, which he himself gave to Cary. He had no time to be sick while his men were sick; a valid and sufficient r...

It is the spring of 1582-3. The gray March skies are curdling hard and high above black mountain peaks. The keen March wind is sweeping harsh and dry across a dreary sheet of bo...

“My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me--Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men...

Let us take boat, as Amyas did, at Whitehall-stairs, and slip down ahead of him under old London Bridge, and so to Deptford Creek, where remains, as it were embalmed, the famous...

What if the spectators who last summer gazed with just pride upon the noble port of Plymouth, its vast breakwater spanning the Sound, its arsenals and docks, its two estuaries f...

But a most troublesome member; for now began in her that perilous crisis which seems to endanger the bodies and souls of all savages and savage tribes, when they first mingle wi...

It is the evening of the 15th of February, 1587, and Mrs. Leigh (for we must return now to old scenes and old faces) is pacing slowly up and down the terrace-walk at Burrough, l...

P. Henry. Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running! Falstaff. O' horseback, ye cuckoo! but a-foot, he will not budge a foot. P. Henry. Yes, Jack, upon ins...

About six weeks after the duel, the miller at Stow had come up to the great house in much tribulation, to borrow the bloodhounds. Rose Salterne had vanished in the night, no man...

He settled down quietly enough at Bideford on his parole, in better quarters than he had occupied for many a day, and took things as they came, like a true soldier of fortune; t...

“So you see, my dear Mrs. Hawkins, having the silver, as your own eyes show you, beside the ores of lead, manganese, and copper, and above all this gossan (as the Cornish call i...

“Far, far from hence The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills, and there The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, And by the sea and in the brakes The gr...

It was the first of October. The morning was bright and still; the skies were dappled modestly from east to west with soft gray autumn cloud, as if all heaven and earth were res...

Land! land! land! Yes, there it was, far away to the south and west, beside the setting sun, a long blue bar between the crimson sea and golden sky. Land at last, with fresh str...

My next chapter is perhaps too sad; it shall be at least as short as I can make it; but it was needful to be written, that readers may judge fairly for themselves what sort of e...