| 61 | Author: | Child
Lydia Maria Francis
1802-1880 | Add | | Title: | A romance of the republic ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | “Dearly Beloved,—I am so happy that I cannot
wait a minute without telling you about it. I have done a
naughty thing, but, as it is the first time I ever disobeyed
you, I hope you will forgive me. You told me never to
go to the plantation without you. But I waited and waited,
and you did n't come; and we were so happy there,
that lovely day, that I longed to go again. I knew it
would be very lonesome without you; but I thought it
would be some comfort to see again the places where we
walked together, and sang together, and called each other
all manner of foolish fond names. Do you remember how
many variations you rung upon my name, — Rosabella,
Rosalinda, Rosamunda, Rosa Regina? How you did pelt
me with roses! Do you remember how happy we were in
the garden bower? How we sang together the old-fashioned
canzonet, `Love in thine eyes forever plays'? And
how the mocking-bird imitated your guitar, while you were
singing the Don Giovanni serenade? “Dear Sir, — If you can spare an hour this evening to
talk with me on a subject of importance, you will greatly
oblige yours, “Dearest and best Friends,—It would take days
to explain to you all that has happened since I wrote
you that long, happy letter; and at present I have not
strength to write much. When we meet we will talk
about it more fully, though I wish to avoid the miserable
particulars as far as possible. The preparations I
so foolishly supposed were being made for me were for
a rich Northern bride,—a pretty, innocent-looking little
creature. The marriage with me, it seems, was counterfeit.
When I discovered it, my first impulse was to
fly to you. But a strange illness came over me, and
I was oblivious of everything for four months. My good
Tulee and a black woman named Chloe brought me back
to life by their patient nursing. I suppose it was wrong,
but when I remembered who and what I was, I felt sorry
they did n't let me go. I was again seized with a longing
to fly to you, who were as father and mother to me and my
darling little sister in the days of our first misfortune.
But I was too weak to move, and I am still far from being
able to bear the fatigue of such a journey. Moreover, I
am fastened here for the present by another consideration.
Mr. Fitzgerald says he bought us of papa's creditors, and
that I am his slave. I have entreated him, for the sake
of our unborn child, to manumit me, and he has promised
to do it. If I could only be safe in New Orleans, it is my
wish to come and live with you, and find some way to support
myself and my child. But I could have no peace, so
long as there was the remotest possibility of being claimed
as slaves. Mr. Fitzgerald may not mean that I shall ever
come to harm; but he may die without providing against
it, as poor papa did. I don't know what forms are necessary
for my safety. I don't understand how it is that there
is no law to protect a defenceless woman, who has done no
wrong. I will wait here a little longer to recruit my
strength and have this matter settled. I wish it were possible
for you, my dear, good mother, to come to me for two
or three weeks in June; then perhaps you could take back
with you your poor Rosa and her baby, if their lives should
be spared. But if you cannot come, there is an experienced
old negress here, called Granny Nan, who, Tulee says, will
take good care of me. I thank you for you sympathizing,
loving letter. Who could papa's friend be that left me a
legacy? I was thankful for the fifty dollars, for it is very
unpleasant to me to use any of Mr. Fitzgerald's money,
though he tells Tom to supply everything I want. If it
were not for you, dear friends, I don't think I should have
courage to try to live. But something sustains me wonderfully
through these dreadful trials. Sometimes I think
poor Chloe's prayers bring me help from above; for the
good soul is always praying for me. | | Similar Items: | Find |
62 | Author: | Twain
Mark
1835-1910 | Add | | Title: | The celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | IN compliance with the request of a
friend of mine, who wrote me from
the East, I called on good-natured,
garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired
after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley,
as requested to do, and I hereunto append the
result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas
W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never
knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured
that, if I asked old Wheeler about him,
it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley,
and he would go to work and bore me
nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence
of him as long and tedious as it should be useless
to me. If that was the design, it certainly
succeeded. “Dear Mark: We spent the evening very pleasantly at
home yesterday. The Rev. Dr. Macklin and wife, from Peoria,
were here. He is an humble laborer in the vineyard, and takes
his coffee strong. He is also subject to neuralgia—neuralgia in
the head—and is so unassuming and prayerful. There are few
such men We had soup for dinner likewise. Although I am
not fond of it. O Mark! why don't you try to lead a better
life? Read II. Kings, from chap. 2 to chap. 24 inclusive. It
would be so gratifying to me if you would experience a change
of heart. Poor Mrs. Gabrick is dead. You did not know her.
She had fits, poor soul. On the 14th the entire army took up
the line of march from—” “Uncle Mark, if you was here, I could tell you about Moses in
the Bulrushers again, I know it better now. Mr. Sowerby has
got his leg broke off a horse. He was riding it on Sunday.
Margaret, that's the maid, Margaret has took all the spittoons,
and slop-buckets, and old jugs out of your room, because she
says she don't think you're ever coming back any more, you
been gone so long. Sissy McElroy's mother has got another
little baby. She has them all the time. It has got little blue
eyes, like Mr. Swimley that boards there, and looks just like
him. I have got a new doll, but Johnny Anderson pulled one
of its legs out. Miss Doosenberry was here to-day; I give her
your picture, but she said she didn't want it. My cat has got
more kittens—oh! you can't think — twice as many as Lottie
Belden's. And there's one, such a sweet little buff one with a
short tail, and I named it for you. All of them's got names
now—General Grant, and Halleck, and Moses, and Margaret,
and Deuteronomy, and Captain Semmes, and Exodus, and Leviticus,
and Horace Greeley—all named but one, and I am saving
it because the one that I named for You's been sick all the time
since, and I reckon it'll die. [It appears to have been mighty
rough on the short-tailed kitten, naming it for me—I wonder
how the reserved victim will stand it.] Uncle Mark, I do believe
Hattie Caldwell likes you, and I know she thinks you are
pretty, because I heard her say nothing couldn't hurt your good
looks—nothing at all—she said, even if you was to have the
small-pox ever so bad, you would be just as good-looking as you
was before. And my ma says she's ever so smart. [Very.] So
no more this time, because General Grant and Moses is fighting. To Mr. Mark Twain: The within parson, which I have sot
to poettry under the name and style of “He Done His Level
Best,” was one among the whitest men I ever see, and it an't
every man that knowed him that can find it in his heart to say
he's glad the poor cuss is busted and gone home to the States.
He was here in an early day, and he was the handyest man
about takin' holt of any thing that come along you most ever
see, I judge. He was a cheerful, stirrin' cretur', always doin'
something, and no man can say he ever see him do any thing
by halvers. Preachin' was his nateral gait, but he warn't a
man to lay back and twidle his thums because there didn't happen
to be nothin' doin' in his own espeshial line—no, sir, he was
a man who would meander forth and stir up something for hisself.
His last acts was to go his pile on “kings-and,” (calklatin'
to fill, but which he didn't fill,) when there was a “flush” out
agin him, and naterally, you see, he went under. And so he
was cleaned out, as you may say, and he struck the home-trail,
cheerful but flat broke. I knowed this talonted man in Arkansaw,
and if you would print this humbly tribute to his gorgis
abillities, you would greatly obleege his onhappy friend. “St. Clair Higgins,” Los Angeles.—“My life is a failure; I
have adored, wildly, madly, and she whom I love has turned
coldly from me and shed her affections upon another. What
would you advise me to do?” “Arithmeticus,” Virginia, Nevada.—“If it would take a
cannon ball 3⅓ seconds to travel four miles, and 3⅜ seconds to
travel the next four, and 3⅝ seconds to travel the next four, and
if its rate of progress continued to diminish in the same ratio,
how long would it take it to go fifteen hundred millions of
miles?” “Discarded Lover.”—“I loved, and still love, the beautiful
Edwitha Howard, and intended to marry her. Yet, during my
temporary absence at Benicia, last week, alas! she married
Jones. Is my happiness to be thus blasted for life? Have I no
redress?” “Arithmeticus,” Virginia, Nevada.—“I am an enthusiastic
student of mathematics, and it is so vexatious to me to find my
progress constantly impeded by these mysterious arithmetical
technicalities. Now do tell me what the difference is between
geometry and conchology?” Distressing Accident.—Last evening about 6 o'clock, as
Mr. William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South
Park, was leaving his residence to go down town, as has been
his usual custom for many years, with the exception only of a
short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined
to his bed by injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway
horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake
and throwing up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done
so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened
the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although
disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy
and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's
mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding
it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she
should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents
occur, not being vivacious and on the lookout, as a general
thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have
stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious
resurrection, upwards of three years ago, aged 86, being a
Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in
consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed every blasted
thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us all take
warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to conduct
ourselves that when we come to die we can do it. Let us
place our hands upon our hearts, and say with earnestness and
sincerity that from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating
bowl.—First Edition of the Californian. “Dear Sir: My object in writing to you is to have you give
me a full history of Nevada. What is the character of its climate?
What are the productions of the earth? Is it healthy?
What diseases do they die of mostly? Do you think it would
be advisable for a man who can make a living in Missouri to
emigrate to that part of the country? There are several of us
who would emigrate there in the spring if we could ascertain to
a certainty that it is a much better country than this. I suppose
you know Joel H. Smith? He used to live here; he lives in
Nevada now; they say he owns considerable in a mine there.
Hoping to hear from you soon, etc., I remain yours, truly, Dearest William: Pardon my familiarity
—but that name touchingly reminds me of the
loved and lost, whose name was similar. I
have taken the contract to answer your letter,
and although we are now strangers, I feel we
shall cease to be so if we ever become acquainted
with each other. The thought is worthy of
attention, William. I will now respond to
your several propositions in the order in which
you have fulminated them. | | Similar Items: | Find |
64 | Author: | Twain
Mark
1835-1910 | Add | | Title: | The innocents abroad, or, The new Pilgrim's progress ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | FOR months the great Pleasure Excursion to Europe and
the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers
every where in America, and discussed at countless firesides.
It was a novelty in the way of Excursions—its like had not
been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which
attractive novelties always command. It was to be a picnic
on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freighting
an ungainly steam ferry-boat with youth and beauty and
pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to
disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with
a long summer day's laborious frolicking under the impression
that it was fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with
flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday
beyond the broad ocean, in many a strange clime and in many
a land renowned in history! They were to sail for months
over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean; they
were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with
shouts and laughter—or read novels and poetry in the shade
of the smoke-stacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus,
over the side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange
monsters of the deep; and at night they were to dance in the
open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ball-room that
stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending
heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars
and the magnificent moon—dance, and promenade, and
smoke, and sing, and make love, and search the skies for constellations
that never associate with the “Big Dipper” they
were so tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty
navies—the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples
—the great cities of half a world—they were to hob-nob with
nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes,
Grand Moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming season, and
begs to submit to you the following programme: “Monsieur le Landlord—Sir: Pourquoi don't you Mettez some savon in your bed-chambers?
Est-ce que vous pensez I will steal it? La nuit passée you charged me
pour deux chandelles when I only had one; hier vous avez charged me avec glace
when I had none at all; tout les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on
me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice. Savon is a necessary
de la vie to any body but a Frenchman, et je l'aurai hors de cet hôtel or make
trouble. You hear me. Allons. The steamer Quaker City has accomplished at last her extraordinary voyage
and returned to her old pier at the foot of Wall street. The expedition was a success
in some respects, in some it was not. Originally it was advertised as a “pleasure
excursion.” Well, perhaps, it was a pleasure excursion, but certainly it did
not look like one; certainly it did not act like one. Any body's and every body's
notion of a pleasure excursion is that the parties to it will of a necessity be young
and giddy and somewhat boisterous. They will dance a good deal, sing a good
deal, make love, but sermonize very little. Any body's and every body's notion of
a well conducted funeral is that there must be a hearse and a corpse, and chief
mourners and mourners by courtesy, many old people, much solemnity, no levity,
and a prayer and a sermon withal. Three-fourths of the Quaker City's passengers
were between forty and seventy years of age! There was a picnic crowd for you!
It may be supposed that the other fourth was composed of young girls. But it
was not. It was chiefly composed of rusty old bachelors and a child of six years.
Let us average the ages of the Quaker City's pilgrims and set the figure down as
fifty years. Is any man insane enough to imagine that this picnic of patriarchs
sang, made love, danced, laughed, told anecdotes, dealt in ungodly levity? In my
experience they sinned little in these matters. No doubt it was presumed here at
home that these frolicsome veterans laughed and sang and romped all day, and day
after day, and kept up a noisy excitement from one end of the ship to the other;
and that they played blind-man's buff or danced quadrilles and waltzes on moonlight
evenings on the quarter-dock; and that at odd moments of unoccupied time
they jotted a laconic item or two in the journals they opened on such an elaborate
plan when they left home, and then skurried off to their whist and euchre labors
under the cabin lamps. If these things were presumed, the presumption was at
fault. The venerable excursionists were not gay and frisky. They played no
blind-man's buff; they dealt not in whist; they shirked not the irksome journal,
for alas! most of them were even writing books. They never romped, they talked
but little, they never sang, save in the nightly prayer-meeting. The pleasure ship
was a synagogue, and the pleasure trip was a funeral excursion without a corpse.
(There is nothing exhilarating about a funeral excursion without a corpse.) A free,
hearty laugh was a sound that was not heard oftener than once in seven days about
those decks or in those cabins, and when it was heard it met with precious little
sympathy. The excursionists danced, on three separate evenings, long, long ago,
(it seems an age,) quadrilles, of a single set, made up of three ladies and five gentlemen,
(the latter with handkerchiefs around their arms to signify their sex,) who
timed their feet to the solemn wheezing of a melodeon; but even this melancholy
orgie was voted to be sinful, and dancing was discontinued. | | Similar Items: | Find |
67 | Author: | Duganne
A. J. H.
(Augustine Joseph Hickey)
1823-1884 | Add | | Title: | The tenant-house, or,, Embers from poverty's hearthstone ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2001 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | WHEN a stranger, under guidance and protection of
police, or a home missionary, fearlessly breaking
bread with outcasts, penetrates some gloomy court or
narrow alley in the great Christian city of New York, he
beholds destitution and squalor of most repulsive feature:
he discovers tottering buildings crowded with sickly and
depraved human beings; stalwart, malign-looking men,
glancing furtively at every passer-by; brazen-browed women,
with foul words upon their reeking lips; children
of impure thoughts and actions, leering with wicked precocity.
When he enters the wretched abiding-places of
these unhappy people, he may find, amid associations of
vice and uncleanness, many suffering and patient souls
bearing earthly martyrdom with serene trust in their
Heavenly Father, and plucking, even out of their “ugly
and venomous” adversity, the “jewel” of immortal peace.
Such struggling ones do not dwell long in the darkness
and dolor of their probation; for the celestial ladders,
let down from Mercy's throne, rest quite as often upon the
black pavement of a tenant-court as amid the flowers that
tesselate a palace garden; and up, unceasingly, on the
shining rounds, glide disenthralled spirits of the poor and
lowly watchers for their Lord. “Your letter was received yesterday, and I have
spent the hours since in weeping and prayer. I have
prayed for you, dear Charles! with my heart sobbing, well-nigh
to break. O could I ever dream that you would
leave me for another? But I must not chide you—God
knows how I love you, dearest—I would lay down my life
for you cheerfully, without a murmur. But it is a hard
sacrifice you require of me—to give you up to another
woman, Charles! when you have sworn to love no other
one but your Margaret. You tell me you do not love the
lady—that you will marry her only for your worldly prospeets!
O Charles! I feel this is all wrong; but, alas!
what dare I say to you? I am poor—without fortune but
my deep love—God knows, I would resign a throne for
your affection, if I were a queen, instead of a portionless
girl. Charles! what was it that you said?—O Heaven!
did I understand your meaning?—that your love for me
would remain unchanged, and we should be happy after
your marriage! After your marriage, Charles! Do you
not know me better? Do you think I would consent to
do wrong, even of my great love for you? No, Charles!
after your marriage, we must never meet more! Beloved,
bear with me—it is the last time I shall annoy you. You
will wed the lady, Charles! Do not wrong her trust!—
be kind to her when she becomes your—wife! make her
happy! love her—and forget me! I shall not live a
great while, dear Charles; for my heart will break, in
thinking of the past, and of my hopes, all, all withered.
Farewell, dearest! I submit to your wishes, but I must
never see you after you are another's. Adieu, Charles!—
for the last time, my Charles! God bless and protect
you! Dear, dear Charles — husband!—I resign you.
Farewell, forever! “My dearest Rebecca,”—so the note ran—“I am
thinking of you by day, dreaming of you at night, adoring
you always. I have much to tell you, sweet one, and
must see you to-day. Fail not to meet me, at the usual
hour, at our trysting-place, darling of my soul. | | Similar Items: | Find |
68 | Author: | Eggleston
Edward
1837-1902 | Add | | Title: | The Hoosier school-master ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | “WANT to be a school-master, do you? You?
Well, what would you do in Flat Crick
deestrick, I'd like to know? Why, the boys have
driv off the last two, and licked the one afore
them like blazes. You might teach a summer
school, when nothin' but children come. But I 'low it takes
a right smart man to be school-master in Flat Crick in the
winter. They'd pitch you out of doors, sonny, neck and heels,
afore Christmas.” “Dear Sir: Anybody who can do so good a thing as you
did for our Shocky, can not be bad. I hope you will forgive
me. All the appearances in the world, and all that anybody
says, can not make me think you anything else but a good
man. I hope God will reward you. You must not answer
this, and you hadn't better see me again, or think any more of
what you spoke about the other night. I shall be a slave
for three years more, and then I must work for my mother
and Shocky; but I felt so bad to think that I had spoken so
hard to you, that I could not help writing this. Respectfully, “i Put in my best licks, taint no use. Run fer yore life.
A plans on foot to tar an fether or wuss to-night. Go rite
off. Things is awful juberous. “This is what I have always been afraid of. I warned you
faithfully the last time I saw you. My skirts are clear of your
blood. I can not consent for your uncle to appear as your counsel
or to go your bail. You know how much it would injure him in
the county, and he has no right to suffer for your evil acts. O
my dear nephew! for the sake of your poor, dead mother—” | | Similar Items: | Find |
69 | Author: | Eggleston
Edward
1837-1902 | Add | | Title: | The mystery of Metropolisville ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | METROPOLISVILLE is nothing but a memory
now. If Jonah's gourd had not been a
little too much used already, it would serve an
excellent turn just here in the way of an apt
figure of speech illustrating the growth, the
wilting, and the withering of Metropolisville. The last
time I saw the place the grass grew green where once stood
the City Hall, the corn-stalks waved their banners on the very
site of the old store—I ask pardon, the “Emporium”—of
Jackson, Jones & Co., and what had been the square, staring
white court-house—not a Temple but a Barn of Justice—had
long since fallen to base uses. The walls which had echoed
with forensic grandiloquence were now forced to hear only
the bleating of silly sheep. The church, the school-house, and
the City Hotel had been moved away bodily. The village
grew, as hundreds of other frontier villages had grown, in the
flush times; it died, as so many others died, of the financial
crash which was the inevitable sequel and retribution of speculative
madness. Its history resembles the history of other
Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take
the trouble to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble
to read about it, if the history of the town did not involve
also the history of certain human lives—of a tragedy that
touched deeply more than one soul. And what is history
worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is
not of value on account of its temples and statues, but on account
of its men and women. And though the “Main street”
of Metropolisville is now a country road where the dog-fennel
blooms almost undisturbed by comers and goers, though
the plowshare remorselessly turns over the earth in places
where corner lots were once sold for a hundred dollars the
front foot, and though the lot once sacredly set apart (on the
map) as “Depot Ground” is now nothing but a potato-patch,
yet there are hearts on which the brief history of Metropolisville
has left traces ineffaceable by sunshine or storm, in
time or eternity. “I should have come to see you and told you about my
trip to Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town
again. I send this by Mr. Canton, and also a request to the
warden to pass this and your answer without the customary
inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your step-father
and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing
very fast, and I do not think it would be a kindness for me
to conceal from you my belief that she can not live many
weeks. I talked with her and prayed with her as you requested,
but she seems to have some intolerable mental burden.
Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and,
indeed, I never saw a more faithful person than she in my
life, or a more remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a
Christian life. She takes every burden off your mother except
that unseen load which seems to trouble her spirit, and
she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the way, why did
you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends
the real history of the case? There must at least have been
extenuating circumstances, and we might be able to help you. “Dear Sir: You have acted very honorably in writing
me as you have, and I admire you now more than ever. You
fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I never had the slightest claim
or the slightest purpose to establish any claim on Isabel Marlay,
for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did not appreciate
her until it was too late. And now! What have I to
offer to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A
name tarnished forever! No! I shall never share that with
Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best and most sensible of
women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as
you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel.
I love you both. God bless you! “Dear Sir: Your poor mother died yesterday. She suffered
little in body, and her mind was much more peaceful
after her last interview with Mr. Lurton, which resulted in her
making a frank statement of the circumstances of the land-warrant
affair. She afterward had it written down, and signed
it, that it might be used to set you free. She also asked me to
tell Miss Minorkey, and I shall send her a letter by this mail.
I am so glad that your innocence is to be proved at last. I
have said nothing about the statement your mother made to
any one except Miss Minorkey, because I am unwilling to use
it without your consent. You have great reason to be grateful
to Mr. Lurton. He has shown himself your friend, indeed.
I think him an excellent man. He comforted your mother
a great deal. You had better let me put the writing your
mother left, into his hands. I am sure he will secure your
freedom for you. “My Dear, Good Friend: The death of my mother has
given me a great deal of sorrow, though it did not surprise me.
I remember now how many times of late years I have given her
needless trouble. For whatever mistakes her personal peculiarities
led her into, she was certainly a most affectionate mother. I
can now see, and the reflection causes me much bitterness, that I
might have been more thoughtful of her happiness without compromising
my opinions. How much trouble my self-conceit must
have given her! Your rebuke on this subject has been very
fresh in mind since I heard of her death. And I am feeling
lonely, too. Mother and Katy have gone, and more distant relatives
will not care to know an outlaw. “My Dear Miss Marlay: I find that I can not even
visit you without causing remarks to be made, which reflect
on you. I can not stay here without wishing to enjoy your
society, and you can not receive the visits of a `jail-bird,'
as they call me, without disgrace. I owe everything to you,
and it would be ungrateful, indeed, in me to be a source of
affliction and dishonor to you. I never regretted my disgrace
so much as since I talked with you last night. If I could
shake that off, I might hope for a great happiness, perhaps. | | Similar Items: | Find |
70 | Author: | English
Thomas Dunn
1819-1902 | Add | | Title: | Ambrose Fecit, or, The peer and the printer ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | I must have been about eighteen
years old, or thereabouts, when, on a
holiday in June, I walked out, and
strolled by the high road to the country
beyond Puttenham. The highway
led me to a common over which it
crossed; and there, musing over the
commonplace events of the week, I
wandered over the knolls of gravelly
soil, and among the furze-bushes, watching
the donkies as they cropped the
scanty blades of grass, and indulged
occasionally in a tit-bit, in the way of
a juicy thistle. Tired at length, I sat
me down to rest under a thorn-bush
by the road-side, and was thus seated
when I heard the sound of voices.
Looking up, I saw a man approach,
who was leading by the hand a little
girl who appeared to be about ten
years of age. I was struck with the
appearance of the couple, and so scanned
them closely. “My dear young friend—A letter, received
as you left us last night, called me direct to
London, without an opportunity to bid you
more than this farewell, or to express, as I
ought, my sense of your kindness. Zara
sends her love to you, and the enclosed souvenir.
May God have you in his holy keeping. “Herewith you have a copy of my portrait
of little Zara, whose untimely fate in being
whisked away by a grim, grey-bearded ogre,
you have so much lamented. I think that I
have not only caught the features, but the
whole spirit of her extraordinary face. I
should like your criticism on that point, for
you were so fond of her that her expression
must be firmly fixed on your mind. “My dear Ambrose:—Read this letter as
carefully as you like, and then—burn it. “My dear Ambrose:—You have been
nearly four years absent from England,
and I have done my best to send
and keep you away. Now, I write to
you to urge you to come back. | | Similar Items: | Find |
71 | Author: | unknown | Add | | Title: | Good company for every day in the year ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | I CONFESS it, I am keenly sensitive to “skyey influences.”
I profess no indifference to the movements of
that capricious old gentleman known as the clerk of the
weather. I cannot conceal my interest in the behavior of
that patriarchal bird whose wooden similitude gyrates on
the church spire. Winter proper is well enough. Let the
thermometer go to zero if it will; so much the better, if
thereby the very winds are frozen and unable to flap their
stiff wings. Sounds of bells in the keen air, clear, musical,
heart-inspiring; quick tripping of fair moccasoned feet on
glittering ice-pavements; bright eyes glancing above the
uplifted muff like a sultana's behind the folds of her yashmack;
school-boys coasting down street like mad Greenlanders;
the cold brilliance of oblique sunbeams flashing
back from wide surfaces of glittering snow or blazing upon
ice-jewelry of tree and roof. There is nothing in all this to
complain of. A storm of summer has its redeeming sublimities,
— its slow, upheaving mountains of cloud glooming in
the western horizon like new-created volcanoes, veined with
fire, shattered by exploding thunders. Even the wild gales
of the equinox have their varieties, — sounds of wind-shaken
woods, and waters, creak and clatter of sign and casement,
hurricane puffs and down-rushing rain-spouts. But this
dull, dark autumn day of thaw and rain, when the very
clouds seem too spiritless and languid to storm outright or
take themselves out of the way of fair weather; wet beneath
and above, reminding one of that rayless atmosphere of
Dante's Third Circle, where the infernal Priessnitz administers
his hydropathic torment, —
“A heavy, cursed, and relentless drench, —
The land it soaks is putrid”; —
or rather, as everything, animate and inanimate, is seething
in warm mist, suggesting the idea that Nature, grown old
and rheumatic, is trying the efficacy of a Thompsonian
steam-box on a grand scale; no sounds save the heavy plash
of muddy feet on the pavements; the monotonous, melancholy
drip from trees and roofs; the distressful gurgling of
water-ducts, swallowing the dirty amalgam of the gutters; a
dim, leaden-colored horizon of only a few yards in diameter,
shutting down about one, beyond which nothing is visible
save in faint line or dark projection; the ghost of a church
spire or the eidolon of a chimney-pot. He who can extract
pleasurable emotions from the alembic of such a day has a
trick of alchemy with which I am wholly unacquainted. Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is and
standeth convicted, attainted and condemned of High Treason
and other high Crimes; and Sentence upon Saturday
last was pronounced against him by this Court, To be put to
death by the severing of his head from his body; of which
Sentence execution yet remaineth to be done: “It begins: — `Dear Uncle,' (I had always instructed
the child so to call me, rather than father, seeing we can
have but one father, while we may be blessed with numerous
uncles) `I suppose you will wonder how I came to be
at St. Louis, and it is just my being here that I write to
explain. You know how my husband felt about Nelly's
death, but you cannot know how I felt; for, even in my
very great sorrow, I hoped all the time, that by her death,
John might be led to a love of religion. He was very unhappy,
but he would not show it, only that he took even
more tender care of me than before. I have always been
his darling and pride; he never let me work, because he
said it spoiled my hands; but after Nelly died, he was
hardly willing I should breathe; and though he never spoke
of her, or seemed to feel her loss, yet I have heard him
whisper her name in his sleep, and every morning his hair
and pillow were damp with crying; but he never knew I
saw it. After a few months, there came a Mormon preacher
into our neighborhood, a man of a great deal of talent
and earnestness, and a firm believer in the revelation to
Joseph Smith. At first my husband did not take any
notice of him, and then he laughed at him for being a believer
in what seemed like nonsense; but one night he was
persuaded to go and hear Brother Marvin preach in the
school-house, and he came home with a very sober face. I
said nothing, but when I found there was to be a meeting
the next night, I asked to go with him, and, to my surprise,
I heard a most powerful and exciting discourse, not wanting
in either sense or feeling, though rather poor as to argument;
but I was not surprised that John wanted to hear
more, nor that, in the course of a few weeks, he avowed
himself a Mormon, and was received publicly into the sect.
Dear Uncle, you will be shocked, I know, and you will wonder
why I did not use my influence over my husband, to
keep him from this delusion; but you do not know how
much I have longed and prayed for his conversion to a religious
life; until any religion, even one full of errors,
seemed to me better than the hardened and listless state of
his mind. “`My first wife, Adeline Frazer Henderson, departed
this life on the sixth of July, at my house in the city of
Great Salt Lake. Shortly before dying she called upon
me, in the presence of two sisters, and one of the Saints, to
deliver into your hands the enclosed packet, and tell you of
her death. According to her wish, I send the papers by
mail; and, hoping you may yet be called to be a partaker
in the faith of the saints below, I remain your afflicted, yet
rejoicing friend, “To-day I begged John to write, and ask you to come
here. I could not write you since I came here but that
once, though your letters have been my great comfort, and
I added a few words of entreaty to his, because I am dying,
and it seems as if I must see you before I die; yet I fear
the letter may not reach you, or you may be sick: and for
that reason I write now, to tell you how terrible a necessity
urged me to persuade you to such a journey. I can write
but little at a time, my side is so painful; they call it slow-consumption
here, but I know better; the heart within me
is turned to stone, I felt it then — Ah! you see my mind
wandered in that last line; it still will return to the old
theme, like a fugue tune, such as we had in the Plainfield
singing-school. I remember one that went, `The Lord is
just, is just, is just.' — Is He? Dear Uncle, I must begin
at the beginning, or you never will know. I wrote you from
St. Louis, did I not? I meant to. From there, we had a
dreary journey, not so bad to Fort Leavenworth, but after
that inexpressibly dreary, and set with tokens of the dead,
who perished before us. A long reach of prairie, day after
day, and night after night; grass, and sky, and graves;
grass, and sky, and graves; till I hardly knew whether the
life I dragged along was life or death, as the thirsty, feverish
days wore on into the awful and breathless nights, when
every creature was dead asleep, and the very stars in heaven
grew dim in the hot, sleepy air — dreadful days! I was
too glad to see that bitter inland sea, blue as the fresh lakes,
with its gray islands of bare rock, and sparkling sand shores,
still more rejoiced to come upon the City itself, the rows of
quaint, bare houses, and such cool water-sources, and, over
all, near enough to rest both eyes and heart, the sunlit
mountains, `the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.' | | Similar Items: | Find |
72 | Author: | Hall
Baynard Rush
1798-1863 | Add | | Title: | Frank Freeman's barber shop ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Our southern coast, as the reader doubtless knows,
is fringed with a net-work of islands, many of which
have not yet a growth sufficient for introduction to
a school atlas. Some of these miniature lands are
not inhabited and rarely visited; while others are,
at certain seasons, resorts for “marooning”—a picnic
sort of life passed for weeks in extemporaneous
sheds of boards and canvas. A few of the islets
are large enough for one or more plantations; and,
hence, are like immense gardens in which are embowered
lordly mansions with spacious lawns in
front and comfortable “quarters” at convenient
distances—a negro village of neat cabins, usually
white-washed, and always each surrounded with its
own domain of truck-patch, and boasting of its henhouse,
pig-pen, and other offices. “Nephew, I send $2,000—I know your scruples.
But I will positively take no denial. See here—
don't refuse the additional—I'll pitch it in the fire, if
you send any back. You'll have it hard enough
with the remaining $2,000. “Edward, my dearest:—May the Lord sustain
you!—and He will. But we have both been long
prepared for this:—Dr. Jordan thinks there is no
hope of my life beyond next summer! Edward!
can we not meet once—the last? And your dear
wife—my much beloved—my only daughter, since
Sophia preceded me home!—will she not come
again? Ah! Edward! if I might go to my rest—
in your arms and hers! “Edward! oh, Edward!—I would—but, no! no!
you never can believe me now! I call God to witness—I
never, no never, loved any but you—I love
none other now! By the unutterable agony of my
frenzied soul, do not for God's sake, oh! do not
curse me!.... Good God! can it be possible!
I did not mean it! I know not why I did
it! I have not—I have not! I will not! Oh! say,
Edward! is it not a dream?—wake me from it!
Forgive, forgive, forgive me! Bid me come and
lie down at your feet and die! Call me only once
by the dear name—and then kill me! Oh! why,
why did you not command me to stay ever near
you! You were to blame—no! no! how dare I reproach?
One trial, Edward—but one! I would
give the universe—I would give my life—God knows
I would—to stand where I did for a moment....
Vain! I cannot—cannot!—I am going mad!....
But I am not—I am not so fallen! I will not so
fall! I will leap into the sea first!..... Stay!
don't curse me! Pray for me! Yes, yes, I that
laughed at prayer, now with deep groanings of my
soul, and with my face in the dust call on you, Edward!
my wronged husband, and as a minister of
Christ, to pray for me. I am penitent—I have not
sinned—I will die rather! I will plunge into the
ocean. Oh! dear Edward!—husband, dear husband!
and for the last, I write those sacred words—
farewell, farewell!” “Rev. and very dear Brother:—I remain, this
year, at Point Lookout, where we shall establish our
new paper. It is to be called “The Scarifier and
Renovator.” I expect to edit awhile, myself. We'll
make an impression on the soul-killers. Besides, I
can do a vast amount of good here, in other ways.
I have been instrumental, by the blessing of God, in
freeing more than twenty-five, since my last, in
March! Most of them, with a little help from my
secret assistants in the lower countries, succeeded
(you will be rejoiced to learn) in bringing off property
enough to pay expenses, and afford a handsome
remuneration. I forwarded the poor fugitives to the
old fellow—you know where. “Master!—a dear name yet—though I appear as
a traitor!—a name I shall ever love, even if my new
friends(?) constrain me to use their cold language.
Yes, dear master! you knew me better than I know
myself: you would never let me vow! Oh! I remember
that one sermon—`Is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this thing?' They look on me as
noble and free!—alas!—I feel myself a slave now,
and worse than before; I have become in my own
eyes `a dog!'—I have done it. “Rev. and dear Sharpinton:—My soul is fairly
on fire—it fairly cries out, `Away with the accursed
slavers from the earth!' Oh, heavens! doctor,
they've killed our Somerville; and in defence of his
press! Freedom!—where's our right to publish the
truth—the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Don't tell me of freedom! Union or no union!
down with the gag-loving, press-muzzling, slavery-aiding,
colonization-scheming, God-defying, double-dyed,
negro-lashing, humanity-crushing, base, grovelling,
truckling villains, that, in face of the sun, will
assault and pull down a printing-office, and pitch the
types into the street, and shoot down, spite of law,
justice, and rights of man, the noble Somerville, and
standing to defend his rights! It hadn't ought to be
the 19th century! no, it hadn't ought to!— I
know it cannot be done; but, still, follow me, ye
friends of the poor, down-trodden, brute-degraded,
blood-squeezed, and sweat-defrauded sons of Africa!
oh! ye men of tried souls, ye true Americans, and
we will drive the accursed South into the earth-girdling
ocean! I did you a great, a very great wrong—and I am
very sorry for it. And yet I always more than half
believed you must be true. God be thanked—that
dear Edward redeemed you—how would I now feel,
if that infernal dealer had got you!—poor Edward,
how he looked when he got my note and bid up the
$4,000! “* * I told uncle I would write about Sarah
—your dear mother. She died many months ago,
and very suddenly, and full six weeks before we left
the north or arrived at Evergreen. And while you
now mourn that you can never see her again—yet
15
you will rejoice your oversight had nothing to do
with her death. God, Frank, is kind to his people,
that they may not have over much sorrow! | | Similar Items: | Find |
73 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | Title: | The house of the seven gables ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Half-way down a by-street of one of our New England
towns, stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely-peaked
gables, facing towards various points of the compass,
and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The
street is Pyncheon-street; the house is the old Pyncheon-house;
and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted
before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the
title of the Pyncheon-elm. On my occasional visits to the
town aforesaid, I seldom fail to turn down Pyncheon-street,
for the sake of passing through the shadow of these two
antiquities, — the great elm-tree, and the weather-beaten
edifice. | | Similar Items: | Find |
74 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | Title: | The snow-image ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun
shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm,
two children asked leave of their mother to run out and
play in the new-fallen snow. The elder child was a
little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and
modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful,
her parents, and other people who were familiar
with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was
known by the style and title of Peony, on account of
the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which
made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet
flowers. The father of these two children, a certain
Mr. Lindsey, it is important to say, was an excellent
but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in
hardware, and was sturdily accustomed to take what
is called the common-sense view of all matters that
came under his consideration. With a heart about as
tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and
impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one
of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to
sell. The mother's character, on the other hand, had a
strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty, — a
delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived
out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive
amid the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood. | | Similar Items: | Find |
75 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Add | | Title: | The cavaliers of England, or, The times of the revolutions of 1642 and 1688 ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | It is the saddest of all the considerations which weigh upon
the candid and sincere mind of the true patriot, when civil dispute
is on the eve of degenerating into civil war, that the best,
the wisest, and the bravest of both parties, are those who first
fall victims for those principles which they mutually, with equal
purity and faith, and almost with equal reason, believe to be
true and vital; that the moderate men, who have erst stood
side by side for the maintenance of the right and the common
good — who alone, in truth, care for either right or common
good — now parted by a difference nearly without a distinction,
are set in deadly opposition, face to face, to slay and be slain
for the benefit of the ultraists — of the ambitious, heartless, or
fanatical self-seekers, who hold aloof in the beginning, while
principles are at stake, and come into the conflict when the
heat and toil of the day are over, and when their own end, not
their country's object, remains only to be won. “You know too much — you know too much!” cried Jasper,
furious but undaunted. “One of us two must die, ere either
leaves this room.” “Agnes: By God's grace I am safe thus far; and if I can
lie hid here these four days, can escape to France. On Sunday
night a lugger will await me off the Greene point, nigh the
35
mouth of Solway. Come to me hither, to the cave I told thee
of, with food and wine so soon as it is dark. Ever my dearest,
whom alone I dare trust. | | Similar Items: | Find |
78 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Add | | Title: | Persons and pictures from the histories of France and England ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | England was happy yet and free under her Saxon kings.
The unhappy natives of the land, the Britons of old time, long
ago driven back into their impregnable fastnesses among the
Welsh mountains, and the craggy and pathless wilds of Scotland,
still rugged and hirsute with the yet uninvaded masses of
the great Caledonian forest, had subsided into quiet, and disturbed
the lowland plains of fair England no longer; and so
long as they were left free to enjoy their rude pleasures
of the chase and of internal welfare, undisturbed, were content to
be debarred from the rich pastures and fertile corn-fields which
had once owned their sway. The Danes and Norsemen, savage
Jarls and Vikings of the North, had ceased to prey on the
coasts of Northumberland and Yorkshire; the seven kingdoms
of the turbulent and tumultuous Heptarchy, ever distracted by
domestic strife, had subsided into one realm, ruled under laws,
regular, and for the most part mild and equable, by a single
monarch, occupied by one homogeneous and kindred race,
wealthy and prosperous according to the idea of wealth and
prosperity in those days, at peace at home and undisturbed
from without; if not, indeed, very highly civilized, at least
supplied with all the luxuries and comforts which the age knew
or demanded—a happy, free, contented people, with a patriarchal
aristocracy, and a king limited in his prerogatives by the
rights of his people, and the privileges of the nobles as secured
by law. “My dear wife—farewell! Bless my boy—pray for me, and
let the true God hold you both in his arms. “I received your letter with judignation, and with scorn
return you this answer, that I cannot but wonder whence you
gather any hopes that I should prove, like you, treacherous to
my sovereign; since you cannot be ignorant of my former
actions in his late majesty's service, from which principles of
loyalty I am no whit departed. I scorn your proffers; I disdain
your favor; I abhor your treason; and am so far from
delivering up this island to your advantage, that I shall keep
it to the utmost of my power for your destruction. Take this
for your final answer, and forbear any further solicitations: for
if you trouble me with any more messages of this nature, I will
burn the paper, and hang up the messenger. This is the immutable
resolution, and shall be the undoubted practice of him
who accounts it his chiefest glory to be his majesty's most loyal
and obedient subject. It would have been a difficult thing, even in England, that
land of female loveliness, to find a brighter specimen of youthful
beauty than was presented by Rosamond Bellarmyne, when
she returned to her home, then in her sixteenth year, after witnessing
the joyful procession of the 29th of May, which terminated
in the installation of the son in that palace of Whitehall
from which his far worthier father had gone forth to die. “We hereby grant free permission to the Count de Grammont
to return to London, and remain there six days, in prosecution
of his lawful affairs; and we accord to him the license
to be present at our palace of Whitehall, on the occasion of
his betrothal to our gracious consort's maid-of-honor, the beautiful
Mistress Elizabeth Hamilton. | | Similar Items: | Find |
79 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Add | | Title: | Wager of battle ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | In the latter part of the twelfth century—when, in the reign
of Henry II., fourth successor of the Conqueror, and grandson
of the first prince of that name, known as Beauclerc, the
condition of the vanquished Saxons had begun in some sort to
amend, though no fusion of the races had as yet commenced,
and tranquillity was partially restored to England—the greater
part of the northern counties, from the Trent to the mouths
of Tyne and Solway, was little better than an unbroken chase
or forest, with the exception of the fiefs of a few great barons,
or the territories of a few cities and free borough towns; and
thence, northward to the Scottish frontier, all was a rude and
pathless desert of morasses, moors, and mountains, untrodden
save by the foot of the persecuted Saxon outlaw. “King Henry II. to the Sheriff of Lancaster and Westmoreland,
greeting—Kenric, the son of Werewulf, of Kentmere, in
Westmoreland, has showed to us, that whereas he is a free
man, and ready to prove his liberty, Sir Foulke d'Oilly, knight
and baron of Waltheofstow and Fenton in the Forest of Sherwood,
in Yorkshire, claiming him to be his nief, unjustly vexes
him; and therefore we command you, that if the aforesaid
Kenric shall make you secure touching the proving of his
liberty, then put that plea before our justices, at the first assizes,
when they shall come into those parts, to wit, in our
good city of Lancaster, on the first day of December next ensuing,
because proof of this kind belongeth not to you to
take; and in the mean time cause the said Kenric to have
peace thereupon, and tell the aforesaid Sir Foulke d'Oilly that
he may be there, if he will, to prosecute thereof, against the
aforesaid Kenric. And have there this writ. “In the case of Kenric surnamed the Dark, accused of
deer-slaying, against the forest statute, and of murder, or
homicide, both alleged to have been done and committed
in the forest of Sherwood, on the 13th day of September
last passed, the grand inquest, now in session, do find that
there is no bill, nor any cause of process. | | Similar Items: | Find |
80 | Author: | Holland
J. G.
(Josiah Gilbert)
1819-1881 | Add | | Title: | The bay-path ![](https://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/icons/default/i_tei.gif) | | | Published: | 2003 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | It snowed incessantly. Far up in the fathomless grey the
shooting flakes mingled in dim confusion, or crossed each
other's lines in momentary angles, or came calmly down for
a brief space, and then fled traceless into the tempest; and
all, as they met the breath of the blast, became its burden,
and were swept in blinding and spiteful clouds to the earth.
All around, the storm was vocal. The pines hissed like
serpents, and the old oak, catching the wild roar of his
children in the far north-east, as it came on and on, over
writhing and bowing forests, took up the same strong
strain, and, struggling like a giant, sent it off triumphantly
to the south-western hills. “To John Searles, constable of Springfield. These are
in his majesty's name to require you presently uppon the
recite hereof that you attach the body of John Woodcock
uppon an execution granted to Mr George Moxon by the
Jury against the said John Woodcock for an action of
slander: and that you keepe his body in prison of irons until
he shall take some course to satisfie the said George
Moxon: or else if he neglect or refuse to take a ready
course to satisfie the said execution of £6 13s 4d granted
by the jury that then you use what means you can to put
him out to service and labor till he make satisfaction to the
said Mr George Moxon for the said £6 13s 4d, and also to
satisfie yourself for such charges as you shall be at for the
keeping of his person: And when Mr Moxon and yourself
are satisfied, then you are to discharge his person out of
prison. Fail not at your peril.*
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