Wilfrid Cumbermede

One summer morning we all got up very early, except Charley, who was unfit for the exertion, to have a ramble in the mountains, and see the sun rise. The fresh friendly air, ful...

Having heard what I was about at the Hall, Charley expressed a desire to take a share in my labours, especially as thereby he would be able to see more of his mother and sister....

My uncle had had the watch cleaned and repaired for me, so that, notwithstanding its great age, it was yet capable of a doubtful sort of service. Its caprices were almost human,...

My companions had soon found out, and I think the discovery had something to do with the kindness they always showed me, that I was a good hand at spinning a yarn: the nautical...

In the same excited mood, but repressing it with all the energy I could gather, I returned to the Hall and made my way to the library. There Charley soon joined me.

I have no time in this selection and combination of the parts of my story which are more especially my history, to dwell upon that portion of it which refers to my own life at O...

I must now go back a little. After my suspicions had been aroused as to the state of Charley’s feelings, I hesitated for a long time before I finally made up my mind to tell him...

The Christmas holidays went by more rapidly than I had expected. I betook myself with enlarged faculty to my book-mending, and more than ever enjoyed making my uncle’s old volum...

The next morning Charley and I went as usual to the library, where, later in the day, we were joined by the two ladies. It was long before our eyes once met, but when at last th...

The moment Mrs Wilson was gone, I expected to see Clara peep out from behind the tapestry in the corner; but as she did not appear, I lifted it, and looked in. There was nothing...

By the time luncheon was over, the horses had been standing some minutes at the lawn-gate, my mare with a side-saddle. We hastened to mount, Clara’s eyes full of expectant froli...

Where possession was impossible, knowledge might yet be reached: could I not learn the story of the ancient weapon? How came that which had more fitly hung in the hall of a grea...

My real object being my personal history in relation to certain facts and events, I must, in order to restrain myself from that discursiveness the impulse to which is an urging...

It may have been a year after this, it may have been two, I cannot tell, when the next great event in my life occurred. I think it was towards the close of an Autumn, but there...

The following Monday, in the evening, Charley arrived, in great spirits, more excited indeed than I liked to see him. There was a restlessness in his eye which made me especiall...

It is an evil thing to break up a family before the natural period of its dissolution. In the course of things, marriage, the necessities of maintenance, or the energies of labo...

I made haste out of the park, but wandered up and down my own field for half an hour, thinking in what shape to put what had occurred before Charley. My perplexity arose not so...

I passed my final examinations with credit, if not with honour. It was not yet clearly determined what I should do next. My goal was London, but I was unwilling to go thither em...

It was months before I could resume my work. Not until Charley’s absence was, as it were, so far established and accepted that hope had begun to assert itself against memory; th...

Mr Coningham was at my door by ten o’clock, and we set out together for Umberden Church. It was a cold clear morning. The dying Autumn was turning a bright thin defiant face upo...

My custom at this time, and for long after I had finally settled down in the country, was to rise early in the morning--often, as I used when a child, before sunrise, in order t...

When I returned home for the Christmas holidays, I told my uncle, amongst other things, all that I have just recorded; for although the affair seemed far away from me now, I fel...

The next day, leaving a note to inform Charley that I had run home for a week, I set out for the Moat, carrying with me the best side-saddle I could find in London.

The next morning he begged a holiday for me and Charley, of whose family he knew something, although he was not acquainted with them. I was a little disappointed at Charley’s be...

Neither of the ladies came to me the next morning. As far as my work was concerned, I was in considerably less need of their assistance, for it lay only between two rooms openin...

It is a simple fact that up to this time I did not know my letters. It was, I believe, part of my uncle’s theory of education that as little pain as possible should be associate...

No wisest chicken, I presume, can recall the first moment when the chalk-oval surrounding it gave way, and instead of the cavern of limestone which its experience might have led...

I had engaged to accompany one of Charley’s barrister-friends, in whose society I had found considerable satisfaction, to his father’s house--to spend the evening with some frie...

Will not linger longer over this part of my history--already, I fear, much too extended for the patience of my readers. My excuse is that, in looking back, the events I have rec...

All places were alike to me now--for the universe was but one dreary chasm whence I could not escape. One evening I sat by the open window of my chamber, which looked towards th...

I trust it will not be regarded as a sign of shallowness of nature that I rose in the morning comparatively calm. Clara was to me as yet only the type of general womanhood, arou...

It was a lovely afternoon, the air hot, and the shadows of the trees dark upon the green grass. The clear sun was shining sideways on the little oriel window of one of the rooms...

All this time the acquaintance between Mary Osborne and myself had not improved. Save as the sister of my friend I had not, I repeat, found her interesting. She did not seem at...

I saw no more of Clara, but sat and read until I grew cold and tired, and wished very much that Mrs. Wilson would come. I thought she might have forgot me in the hurry, and ther...

And now came a dreary time of re-action. There seemed nothing left for me to do, and I felt listless and weary. Something kept urging me to get away and hide myself, and I soon...

One Spring morning we had got up early and sauntered out together. I remember perfectly what our talk was about. Charley had started the question: ‘How could it be just to harde...

I should have now laid claim to my property, but for Mary. To turn Sir Geoffrey with his mother and sister out of it, would have caused me little compunction, for they would sti...

My companion chatted away, lauded my mare, asked if I had seen Clara lately, and how the library was getting on. I answered him carelessly, without even a hint at my troubles.

So many books of rarity and value had revealed themselves, that it was not difficult to make Sir Giles comprehend in some degree the importance of such a possession. He had grow...

On my arrival in London, I found Charley waiting for me, as I had expected, and with his help soon succeeded in finding, in one of the streets leading from the Strand to the riv...

Having gathered strength, and a certain quietness which I could not mistake for peace, I returned to London towards the close of the Spring. I had in the interval heard nothing...

During our journey, Mr Osborne had seldom talked to us, and far more seldom in speech sympathetic. If by chance I came out with anything I thought or felt, even if he did not di...

The excitement of having something to do had helped me over the morning, and the pleasure of thinking of what I had done helped me through half the journey; but before I reached...

The morning then which had thus dawned upon me, was often over-clouded heavily. Yet it was the morning and not the night; and one of the strongest proofs that it was the morning...

I returned to my solitary house as soon as the evening began to grow too dark for my work, which, from the lowness of the windows and the age of the glass, was early. All the wa...

Mrs Herbert attended me during the forenoon, but left me after my early dinner. I made my tea for myself, and a tankard filled from a barrel of ale of my uncle’s brewing, with a...

As soon as Charley went to bed, I betook myself to my grandmother’s room, in which, before discovering my loss, I had told Styles to kindle a fire. I had said nothing to Charley...

The sky clouded as we went; it grew very dark, and the wind began to blow. It threatened a storm. I told Styles a little of what I was about--just enough to impress on him the n...

Before the Winter arrived, I was well, and Charley had recovered from the fatigue of watching me. One holiday, he and I set out alone to accomplish a scheme we had cherished fro...

Before my return to England, I found that familiarity with the sights and sounds of a more magnificent nature had removed my past life to a great distance. What had interested m...

I fear my reader may have thought me too long occupied with the explanatory foundations of my structure: I shall at once proceed to raise its walls of narrative. Whatever furthe...

I cannot help dwelling for a moment on the scene, although it is not of the slightest consequence to my story, when Sir Giles and Lady Brotherton entered the reading-room of the...

I am drawing my story to a close. Almost all that followed bears so exclusively upon my internal history, that I will write but one incident more of it. I have roamed the world,...

It may be said of the body in regard of sleep as well as in regard of death, ‘It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.’ For me, the next morning, I could almost have said,...

The ebbing tide that leaves bare the shore swells the heaps of the central sea. The tide of life ebbs from this body of mine, soon to lie on the shore of life like a stranded wr...

I saw no more of Clara. Mr Coningham came to bid me good-bye, and spoke very kindly. Mr Forest would have got a nurse for me, but Charley begged so earnestly to be allowed to re...

After writing to Mr Osborne to acquaint him with the terrible event, the first thing I did was to go to Clara. I will not attempt to describe what followed. The moment she saw m...

I have given, of course, only an epitome of our conversation, and by the time we had arrived at this point we had also reached the gate of the churchyard. Again we fastened up o...

I suppose I awoke tossing in my misery, for my hand fell upon something cold. I started up and tried to see. The light of a clear morning of late Autumn had stolen into the room...

I met no one at the house-door, or in the kitchen, and walked straight up the stair to my uncle’s room. The blinds were down, and the curtains were drawn, and I could but just s...

The best immediate result of my illness was that I learned to love Charley Osborne dearly. We renewed an affection resembling from afar that of Shakspere for his nameless friend...

But a change had again come over him. He was nervous, restless, apparently anxious. I questioned him about his mother and sister. He had met them as planned, and had, he assured...

My room looked dreary enough. There was no fire, and the loss of the patch of tapestry from the wall gave the whole an air of dilapidation. The wind howled fearfully in the chim...

We were a curious household. I remembered neither father nor mother; and the woman I had been taught to call _auntie_ was no such near relation. My uncle was my father’s brother...

All this has led me, after a roundabout fashion, to what became for some time the chief delight of my Winters--an employment, moreover, which I have taken up afresh at odd times...