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1Author:  Hall James 1793-1868Add
 Title:  Legends of the West  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: The beautiful forests of Kentucky, when first visited by the adventurous footsteps of the pioneers, presented a scene of native luxuriance, such as has seldom been witnessed by the human eye. So vast a body of fertile soil had never before been known to exist on this continent. The magnificent forest trees attained a gigantic height, and were adorned with a foliage of unrivalled splendour. The deep rich green of the leaves, and the brilliant tints of the flowers, nourished into full maturity of size and beauty by the extraordinary fertility of the soil, not only attracted the admiration of the hunter, but warmed the fancy of the poet, and forcibly arrested the attention of the naturalist. As the pioneers proceeded step by step, new wonders were discovered; and the features of the country, together with its productions, as they became gradually developed, continued to present the same bold peculiarities and broad outlines. The same scale of greatness pervaded all the works of nature. The noble rivers, all tending towards one great estuary, swept through an almost boundless extent of country, and seemed to be as infinite in number as they were grand in size. The wild animals were innumerable. The forests teemed with living creatures, for this was the paradise of the brute creation. Here were literally “the cattle upon a thousand hills.” The buffaloe, the elk, and the deer roamed in vast herds, and all the streams were rich in those animals whose fur is so much esteemed in commerce. Here lurked the solitary panther, the lion of our region, and here prowled the savage wolf. The nutritious fruits of the forest, and the juicy buds of the exuberant thickets, reared the indolent bear to an enormous size. Even the bowels of the earth exhibited stupendous evidences of the master hand of creation. The great limestone beds of the country were perforated with spacious caverns, of vast extent and splendid appearance, many of which yielded valuable minerals; while the gigantic bones found buried in the earth, far exceeding in size those of all known animals on the globe, attested the former existence in this region, of brutes of fearful magnitude.
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2Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  The brothers  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: It has been a day of storm and darkness—the morning dawned upon the mustering of the elements—vast towering clouds rose mass upon mass, stratum above stratum, till the whole horizon was over-canopied. Then there was a stern and breathless pause, as if the tempest-demon were collecting his energies in silent resolution; anon its own internal weight appeared to rend the vaporous shroud asunder, and the big rain poured down in torrents. At moments, indeed, the sunbeams have struggled through the driving rack, and darted down their pensiles of soft light, showing even more blithely golden than their wont, from the very contrast of the surrounding gloom. Still—noon arrived, and there was no cessation of the strife. At that hour, the blue lightning was splitting the tortured clouds in twain, and the thunder roaring and crashing close above our heads. The melancholy wailing of the winds among the sculptured pinnacles and ivyed turrets of our Elizabethan mansion—the sobbing and creaking of the immemorial oak-trees, their huge branches wrestling with the gale—the dashing and pattering of the heavy rain—and, deeper and more melancholy than all, the gradually increasing moan of the distant river, have conspired all day long to cast a gloom alike upon the face of nature and the heart of man. Yet now evening has brought back peace, and calm delicious sunshine. “They have prevailed, and we are torn asunder —when, oh when to meet? They dragged me from your bleeding body—they bound me on a horse— they bore me—Oh God! Oh God!—that I should VOL. I.—Q not dare to tell you whither!—No, my beloved, I dare not—such is the sole condition on which the miserable satisfaction of writing these few lines is granted. They tell me that your wounds are slight—that you will have regained your strength ere this shall reach you; they tell me that you will again be in the field of glory: but they tell me that I shall never see you more—they tell me that death—your death, Harry, shall follow on the slightest effort at my rescue—and they tell me truly! You know not— oh! may you never know—the boundless wickedness, the wellnigh boundless power of my persecutor. Never have I done aught, planned aught, for my deliverance, but it has been revealed to him, and blighted in the very bud, almost before I had conceived it. And he—this fearful and malignant being—he has sworn an oath, which I have never heard him break, or bend from, that you shall not have well put foot in stirrup to search out my prison, ere the assassin's knife shall reach your heart! Oh, my beloved, mine is a hard, a miserable duty—my heart overflowing with deep unutterable love, I am compelled to hide myself from him whom to see were the very acme of imagined happiness. I am compelled—I am compelled to pray you, as you value—not life, for what noble spirit ever thinks of life save as of a loan that must be one day repaid— but as you value all that is more dear than life—all that ennobles it, and makes it holy—as you value your ancestral name—your own untarnished fame —ay! and—I will write it, though it chokeme—as you value me, I do beseech you to forget—Oh never! never! think not I meant to say forget me!— but to forego me—to be patient—to bear, as I now bear, in silence—and in hope! Were there a chance—a possibility, however slight or desperate, of your success—I would write, Gird yourself up for the task like a warrior for the battle-field—and follow me to the very ends of the earth; but now I know that so to do could not in aught aid our hopes —aid them, did I say!—aid!—them!it would sever them for ever by the pitiless steel—it would bury them in the darkness of an untimely tomb.
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3Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  The brothers  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: Hastily springing to my feet, I had already donned my clothes, and was buckling on my Milan corslet, when old Martin entered my chamber, fully equipped as a supernumerary subaltern of my regiment. It was one of those customs of the day, which has, since the time of which I write, fallen completely into disuse, that every corps, independent of its regular stands of national and regimental colours, was distinguished by a smaller standard, bearing the coat-armorial of its commanding officer. This usage—which had probably originated during the civil wars, wherein each regiment was, for the most part, raised by its colonel from among his own territorial and feudatory dependants—I was particular to maintain in my own instance the more scrupulously, as being a stranger in a foreign land, and of course conscious that, unless asserted by myself, my personal dignity would not be much regarded by others. It was partly with a view to this, as well as to secure to myself a bold and trusty follower in the field, that I had solicited for the foster-brother of my father an appointment which certainly would appear more suitable for a far younger man. But no one, who had seen Martin Lydford on that morning, would have deemed it possible that nearly two-thirds of a century had passed over the head of the erect and powerful veteran, who unfolded, with a smile of daring exultation, the tattered and time-honoured banner of my ancient house. He wore a heavy antique helmet, with breast and back-pieces of bright steel; immense jack-boots, and high buff gauntlets reaching nearly to his elbows. A long broadsword of English manufacture— which, by-the-way, had done good service in its time on many a stricken field—with a poniard of formidable dimensions, completed his personal equipment. But in addition to these he carried, slung transversely across his shoulders, my petronel, a choice piece of Spanish workmanship, with an exceedingly small bore, and an indented, or, as it is now termed, a rifled[1] [1]The rifle, though a weapon of great rarity, was in use at this period; as is evident from the piece with which the regent Murray was shot, nearly a century earlier than the date of this narrative. It is preserved in the gallery of the Duke of Hamilton, and has a brass barrel slightly but distinctly rifled. barrel. It was not the fashion for officers to carry so cumbersome a weapon, but I was, at the same time, unwilling to lose a friend that had in several instances served my turn, and perhaps saved my life. The old man's eyes were full of tears as he unfurled the colours, which had not floated for many a day in action; but a sunny smile played on his lips. “Harry”—it ran thus—“once more, my own, own Harry!
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4Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  Marmaduke Wyvil, or, The maid's revenge  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: In a sequestered vale of merry England, not many miles from the county town of Worcester, there stands, in excellent preservation, even to the present day, one of those many mansions scattered through the land, which—formerly the manor houses of a race, now, like their dwellings, becoming rapidly extinct, the good old English squires— have, for the most part, been converted into farm-houses; since their old-time proprietors have, simultaneously with the growth of vaster fortunes, and the rise of loftier dignities, declined into a humbler sphere. In the days of which we write, however, Woolverton Hall was in the hands of the same family, which had dwelt there, father and son, for ages. It was a tall, irregular edifice, of bright red brick, composed of two long buildings, with steep flagged roofs and pointed gables, meeting exactly at right angles so as to form a letter L; the longer limb running due east and west, the shorter abutting on the eastern end, and pointing with its gable, southerly. In this south gable, near the top, was a tall, gothic, lanceolated window, its mullions and casings wrought of a yellowish sand-stone, to match the corner stones of all the angles, which were faced with the same material; beneath this window, which, as seen from without, appeared to reach nearly from the floor to the ceiling of the second story, was the date, 1559—the numerals, several feet in length, composed of rusty iron; and above it, on the summit of the gable, a tall weather-cock, surmounted by a vane shaped like a dolphin, which had once been fairly gilded, but now was all dim and tarnished by long exposure to the seasons. To this part of the house there were no chimneys, which was the more remarkable, that the rest of the building was somewhat superfluously adorned with these appendages, rising like columns, quaintly wrought of brickwork in the old Elizabethan style. Corresponding to the gothic window in position, though by no means so lofty, a range of five large square-topped latticed windows, divided each into four compartments by a cross-shaped stone transom, ran all along that front of the other wing, which, with the abutting chapel—for such it seemed to be—formed the interior angle of the L. From the point of the western roof, to match, as it were, the weathercock which crowned the other gable, projected a long beam or horn of stone, at an angle of about ninety degrees, curiously wreathed with a deep spiral groove, not much unlike the tusk of that singular animal, the sword-fish. “I know not, cousin Alice, that I should have written at all by this present opportunity, the barque `Good Providence,' about to sail this morning from Tower Stairs, I being at this time in London; but that some matters came to my ear last night, which I judge all-important to be made known to you forthwith; and should it seem to you, that I am overbold in touching on them, you will, I think, excuse me, seeing that I write only for your personal advantage; and further, that I once unwittingly misled you in relation to one, of whom you have thought favorably. To be brief, cousin Alice, I learned yesternight that the report which Cromwell sent to me at first, was not the truth at all; he not as yet having perused the papers! There was, indeed, a letter to Sir Edward Vavasour from Captain Wyvil; but it related solely to a projected rising in the north, which Wyvil, it would seem, discouraged; and contained not one word touching yourself, or his escape from Woolverton. All that affected you or Master Selby, was written in a long epistle, addressed to yourself, and marked on the outside, `to be delivered privately by Master Bartram.' What more it contained I know not, for it was burnt by the lord general at once, who rated, as I hear, the council very roundly for breaking private seals, and troubling their heads with women's matters. This I conceived it my duty to let you know forthwith, as you, I know, drew false conclusions from the rumor; and I, to my shame be it said, strengthened, so far as in me lay, instead of seeking to allay your indignation. I deem it therefore my bounden duty to let you know these facts; and that although it may have been indiscreet in Captain Wyvil to commit such things at all to writing, he certainly is quite exonerated from all charge of anything base or dishonorable. I am rejoiced to have it in my power to add, that something in the style and tenor of his letter, had affected the lord general so favorably, that I have been able to obtain his promise of a full pardon for yourself, and your father, within the space of six months, and a reversal of the decree of sequestration: so that, by the next spring at farthest, you may return to Woolverton. I have no doubt, moreover, so much was Cromwell gratified by the tone of Captain Wyvil's letter to Sir Edmund, deprecating any partial risings, which could but tend to bloodshed and fresh miseries, without effecting anything to aid the royal cause, and speaking with indignant condemnation of those infamous schemes which we hear of—that, if at any future period he should feel disposed to return to England, a ready abrogation of his outlawry could be obtained; he only binding himself on parole of honor, to take no hostile steps against the existing government. Should you meet with him, as you doubtless will in Paris, whither I fancy, by all we hear of Monsieur Turenne's successes, you will proceed ere long; pray say to him, should he entertain such views, he will at all times find in me, one anxious to assist him by all means in my power. I may add here, that every post that has reached us from the armies, speaks of his gallantry and conduct, as a partisan commander, in the highest terms of commendation. I have inclosed herewith bills on Parisian goldsmiths for one thousand pounds, made payable to your name; which you will indorse upon them, on receiving their value, but not sooner, as in case of loss they are useless until your name is signed upon them. I have preferred this mode, to sending them to my kind friend and cousin, Master Selby, fearing that his secluded habits and tastes for literary occupation, may render him averse, or at least indisposed, to the details of business. Praying you, my dear Mistress Alice, to hold me ever in your remembrance, and to commend me to your good father's friendship, I subscribe myself, “I charge thee come to me, on the very instant. “Thine, “Marmaduke”—thus ran the letter which cost her so much pains—“or, for the first and last time, dear Marmaduke, I have thought much and deeply on our last meeting; and if I cannot quite acquit you of having sinned against me, I must confess that in some sort I have wronged vou; this—for we two shall never meet again in this world—I wish to repair. I do not believe that you have wilfully, or with a preconceived determination, wronged me as you have done. Your constancy was not of that enduring quality—your mind not of that vigorous and resolute stamp to resist absence and brave temptation. This perhaps was not, and should not be esteemed your fault; but the misfortune rather, and frailty of your nature. I have, moreover, seen and learned to know, since we two parted, her who has been happier than I in gaining your affections—may she be happier, likewise, in retaining them! and having seen and known her, I recognize in her free soul and fearless spirit, a spell more potent than any I possess to hold dominion over the love of a mind like yours; to bring out your excellencies—for you have many such—to their brightest lustre, and to inhibit and restrain your foibles. That you should love her, therefore, and that your love for her should surpass that— perhaps but a fancy, born of circumstances and gratitude—which you once entertained for me, I do not marvel. Had you dealt uprightly by me, and candidly, all had been well. Now mark me—if I have anything for which to forgive, I do so—how freely and how happily! and if my words, wrung from me by passion, have wronged you anything, forgive me likewise! But do not, Marmaduke, from this that I write, deceive yourself, or vainly fancy that I repent of my late decision. No! I am fixed—and fixed for ever! Nay! but a thousand times more firmer since I have learned to love that beautiful and noble creature whom I give to you for your wife. Yes—start not as you read—I give to you! Cherish her, love her, honor her! for she is worthy of all cherishing, all love, all honor! Treasure her as the apple of your eye—cleave to her as your sweetest stay in time of trouble. Thus, and thus only can you now show the love that once you felt— the kindness that I hope you will feel for ever—to poor, poor Alice Selby. Yes, Marmaduke, I give her to you! may you be happy! and to be so you must be virtuous and true! I send you, herewith, what will enable you to perform the conditions of Henry Oswald. It is my own to bestow, and with my whole soul do I bestow it. Do not shrink back, do not refuse my gift, Marmaduke—do not, I beseech you. If your proud heart disdain it, think and remember, I am proud likewise; yet I humble myself to entreat you, if ever I have done you aught of unkindness—if you now owe me anything of love, or gratitude, or reparation—refuse not my poor boon! It is now the only thing that can make her, who was once your Alice, happy! By the life which I gave you! by the love which I bore you! by the affections squandered on you! the hopes blighted by you! by your own happiness, and hers to whom the gift shall unite you! I adjure you—hard though the task be to your haughty soul—refuse me not! No, Marmaduke, you will not! The old man, the good old man who loved you—he is dead. I tell you not this to grieve you, for he knew nothing which had passed from me, nor, I believe, suspected anything. His last words were a blessing upon me, and, I doubt not, upon you likewise; and in this knowledge I rejoice daily. I would not for the world, that he had thought me wronged, for that would bitterly have grieved him; and, perhaps, good and forgiving as he was, he would not have then blessed you. He is gone, Marmaduke, and I shall, ere long, follow him! and you will give us both a tear and a green spot in your memory! And you too, Marmaduke—you must one day go hence, and your bright Isabella; and we shall one day meet and know each other, not as now, through a glass darkly, but face to face. And then—then, Marmaduke, let Isabella thank me for having made her yours, and tell me you have made her happy; and that will well 9 repay me for all my transient sorrows. Fear not then—scruple not to accept this my parting gift; two persons only in the wide world besides myself know of it, and trust me, their mouths will be for ever silent. Farewell, then, my beloved! for so in this last parting—so I must call you. Peace, and prosperity, and love, and blessings be about you! Farewell! and when you think of Alice Selby, think of her as one who loved you to the very last, and prayed for you, and blessed you, and will bless you dying!
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5Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  Ringwood the rover  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: The earliest dawning of a lovely summer day, in the year 1659, was pouring its sweet light, unclouded yet with that fierce heat which renders almost insupportable the noontide hours, over the forests which encircled, with a belt of ever-during verdure, the Spanish city of St. Augustine. It was already in those days a place of much importance, with nunneries, and steepled churches, and terraced dwellings, with white walls and jalousies peeping from out the foliage of dark orange groves, and all those beautiful peculiarities of semi-Moorish taste, which lend so much of poetry and of romance to the old towns of Spain. It had its flanking walls, its ditches, and its palisades, presenting their impregnable resistance to the fierce and wily Indian, whom the relentless cruelty of the white colonist, of whatsover nation, had at length goaded into systematic and continual hostility; in seaward bastions, with water-gate and demilune, mounted with heavy cannon, and garrisoned by old Castilians, under an officer who bore the style of royal governor.
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6Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  The village inn, or, The adventure of Bellechassaigne  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: On the western outskirts of a little hamlet, situated on the verge of a great forest, not many miles from Vitry, on the high-road leading from Bar le Due to Paris, there stood in the summer of 1653, a large old-fashioned inn, which has long since yielded, like all things earthly, to the consuming hand of time, but which in its day possessed no limited or narrow reputation. So excellent indeed was its accommodations, so celebrated its cuisine, and so remarkable the courtesy of the aubergist, that the cerf blanc of Lagny la Forêt, was known so well to all who journeyed in that district, that travellers would often turn aside from the direct line of their route in order to enjoy its far-famed hospitality. It was a solitary building of considerable size, situated in a spot of singular and romantic loveliness at the foot of three soft green hills, which sloped down easily on every side except the south, with two small glens between them, each watered by a bright and sparkling rivulet, which meeting at their base, swept off in easy curves through a rich level meadow, and joined a more considerable stream at the distance of a quarter of a mile, or perhaps less, to the southward. The summits of two of these green knolls, for they were indeed little more—those to the north and west, were crowned by the tall trees of the neighboring forest which covered the whole face of the country for miles in that direction, and many scattered oaks and ashes grew straggling down their sides, the outposts as it were and sentinels of the vast verdant host. The third or eastern hill, unlike its neighbors, was cleared almost entirely of wood and very richly cultivated in meadow-land and pastures, divided from each other by lines of thriving fruit-trees, among which wound a narrow sandy road toward the village, lying just out of sight beyond the summit—its tall and lance-like spire standing out clear and sharp against the sky, above the rounded brow. Just in the hollow where the streams blended their bright waters, stood the old inn, a large irregular rambling edifice, with steep projecting gables and latticed windows, no two of them alike; of every shape and size that can be fancied, and a huge oaken porch all overrun with jessamine and woodbine, facing the yellow road. Four or five weeping-willows of vast size grew on the margin of the stream, quite overarching the stone bridge, which spanned it close to the western gable, and bathed the old moss-grown roof with cool and grateful umhrage; while a small strip of garden on either side the door, fenced by a rustic paling and thickly set with sweet-briars and many-colored rose-bushes, completed the attractions of the spot. The stables and out-buildings were all behind the house, concealed from view by the nature of the ground, nor were there any indications that the house itself was one for public entertainment, unless it were an antiquated sign representing the White, Stag whence the inn's name, which swung from a cross-piece morticed into the trunk of one of the great willows, and a long horse-trough supplied with living water by a little aqueduct from a spring in the hill-side, with a stone horseblock by its end.
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7Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  Guarica, the charib bride  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: The heavy dew of the tropics was yet lying bright and unexhaled on every herb and flower; myriads of which, in most profuse variety of odor and bloom, strewed, like one gorgeous carpet, the beautiful savannahs, and wild forest glades of the fair province of Cahay. The sun had not fairly risen, although the warm and rosy light which harbingered his coming, was tinging, with its fairy dyes, the small and fleecy clouds that floated, like the isles of some enchanted sea, over the azure skies. The faint sea-breeze, which murmured still among the fresh green leaves, though it was fast subsiding, was laden with perfumes of such strange richness, that while they gratified they almost cloyed the senses; birds of the most superb and gorgeous plumage were glancing, meteor-like, among the boughs; but the innumerable insect tribes, which almost rival them in beauty, had not as yet been called forth to their life of a day, by the young sunbeams. The loveliness of those sequestered haunts, which had but recently been opened to the untiring and insatiate avarice of the Europeans, exceeded the most wild conceptions, the most voluptuous dreams, of the romancer or the poet. The solemn verdure of the mighty woods thick set with trees, more graceful than the shades of those ægean Isles, where the Ionian muse was born to witch the world for ages—the light and feathery mimosas, the fan-like heads of the tall palms, towering a hundred feet above their humbler, yet still lofty brethren—the giant oaks, their whole trunks overgrown with thousands of bright parasites, and their vast branches canopied with vines and creepers—masses of tangled and impervious foliage—the natural lawns, watered by rills of crystal— the rocks, that reared themselves among the forests, mantled not as the crags of the cold northern climes, with dark and melancholy ivy, but with festoons of fruits and flowers that might have graced the gardens of the fabulous Hesperides. It was upon such a scene, as is but imperfectly and feebly shadowed forth, in the most glowing language, that the sweet dawn was breaking, when, from a distance, through the lovely woodlands, the mellow notes of a horn, clearly and scientifically winded, came floating on the gentle air; again it pealed forth its wild cadences, nearer and louder than before—and then the deep and ringing bay of a full mouthed hound succeeded. Scarcely had the first echo of the woods replied to the unwonted sounds, before a beautiful, slight hind, forcing her way through a dense thicket of briers, dashed with the speed of mortal terror into the centre of a small savannah, through which stole almost silently a broad bright rivulet of very limpid water. Pausing for a second's space upon the brink, the delicate creature stood, with its swan-like neck curved backward, its thin ear erect, its full black eye dilated, and its expanded nostrils snuffing the tainted breeze. It was but for a second that she stood; for the next moment a louder and more boisterous crash arose from the direction whence she had first appeared—the blended tongues of several hounds running together on a hot and recent trail. Tossing her head aloft, she gathered her slight limbs under her, sprung at one vigorous and elastic bound over the rivulet, and was lost instantly to view among the thickets of the further side. A few minutes elapsed during which the fierce baying of the hounds came quicker and more sharply on the ear; and then, from the same brake out of which the bind had started, rushed, with his eyes glowing lika coals of fire, his head high in the air, and his long feathery tail lashing his tawny sides, a formidable blood hound, of that savage breed which was, in after times, so brutally employed against the hapless Indians by their Christian conquerors. Another, and another, and a fourth succeeded, making the vaulted woods to bellow with the deep cadences of their continuous cry. Hard on the blood hounds, crashing through the tangled branches with reckless and impetuous ardor, a solitary huntsman followed splendidly mounted on a fiery Andalusian charger, of a deep chestnut color, with four white legs, and a white blaze down his face, whose long thin mane, and the large cord-like veins that might be seen meandering over his muscular, sleek limbs, attested, as surely as the longest pedigree, the purity of his blood. The rider was a young man of some four or five-and-twenty years, well, and rather powerfully made than otherwise, though not above the middle stature; his long dark hair, black eye, and swarthy skin told of a slight admixture of the Moorish blood; while the expression of his features, though now excited somewhat by the exhilaration of the chase, grave, dignified and noble, bespoke him without a doubt a polished cavalier of Spain. His dress, adapted to the occupation which he so gallantly pursued, was a green doublet belted close about his waist by a girdle of Cordovan leather, from which swung, clinking at every stride of his horse, against the stirrup, a long and basket-hilted bilboa blade, in a steel scabbard, which was the only weapon that he wore, except a short two-edged stiletto, thrust into the belt at the left side. A broad sombrero hat, with a drooping feather, breeches and gloves of chamois leather, laced down the seams with silver, and russet buskins drawn up to the knee, completed his attire. He sat his horse gracefully and firmly; and the ease with which he supported him, and wheeled him to and fro among the fallen trees and rocks, notwithstanding the fiery speed at which he rode, bespoke him no less skillful than intrepid as a horseman. The chase continued for above an hour, during which every species of scenery that the level portions of the isle contained was traversed by the hunter; the open forest, the dense swampy brake, the wide luxuriant savannah—and each at such hot speed, that though he turned aside neither for bush, nor bank, though he plunged headlong down the steepest crags, and dashed his charger, without hesitation, over every fallen tree that barred his progress, and every brook or gulley that opposed him, still it was with no little difficulty that he contrived to keep the hounds in hearing. And now the hapless hind, worn out by the sustained exertions which had at first outstripped the utmost pace of her pursuers, but which availed her nothing to escape from foes against whose most sagacious instinct and unerring scent she had but fleetness to oppose—was sinking fast, and must, as the rider judged by the redoubled speed and shriller baying of his hounds, soon turn to bay, or be run down without resistance. Her graceful head was bowed low toward the earth; big tears streamed down her hairy cheeks; her arid tongue lolled from her frothing jaws; her coat, of late so sleek and glossy, was all embossed with sweat and foam, and wounded at more points than one by the sharp thorns and prickly underwood through which she had toiled so fruitlessly. Still she strove on, staggering and panting in a manner pitiful to witness, when the deep bay of the blood hounds was changed suddenly into a series of sharp and savage yells, as they caught view of their destined prey.
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8Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  The lord of the manor, or Rose Castleton's temptation  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: It was the morning of the first of May, that merriest morning of the year, in the old days of merry England; and never did a brighter dawning illuminate a fairer landscape, than that wherein the incidents occurred, which form the basis of one of those true tales that prove how much there is of wild and strange romance even in the most domestic circles of existence.
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9Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: havin to git some grocerees down to Yorke, I reckons to quit here on Satterdaye, and so be i can fix it counts to see you tewsdaye for sartain. quaile promises to be considerable plentye, and cocke has come on most ongodly thicke, i was down to Sam Blainses one night a fortnite since and heerd a heape on them a drumminge and chatteringe everywheres round aboute. if snipes is come on yit i reckon i coud git awaye a daye or soe down into Jarsey wayes—no more at preasente from
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10Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  My shooting box  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: It wanted scarce an hour of sunset, on a calm, bright October evening—that season of unrivalled glory in the wide woodlands of America, wherein the dying year appears to deck herself, as it is told of the expiring dolphin, with such a gorgeousness of short-lived hues as she had never shown in her full flush of summer life and beauty—it wanted, as I have said, scarce an hour of sunset, and all the near and mountainous horizon was veiled as it were by a fine gauze-like drapery of filmy yellow mist, while every where the level sunbeams were checkering the scenery with lines of long rich light and cool blue shadow, when a small four-wheeled wagon with something sportsmanlike and rakish in its build, might have been seen whirling at a rapid rate over one of the picturesque uneven roads, that run from the banks of the Hudson, skirting the lovely range of the Western Highlands, through one— the fairest—of the river counties of New York. This little vehicle, which was drawn by an exceedingly clever, though somewhat cross-made, chesnut cob, with a blaze on his face, and three white legs, contained two persons, with a quantity of luggage, among which a couple of gun-cases were the most conspicuous, and a brace of beautiful and high-bred English pointers. The driver was a smart natty lad, dressed in a dark gray frock, with livery buttons, and a narrow silver cord for a hat-band; and, while he handled the ribbons with the quick finger and cool head of an experienced whip, he showed his complete acquaintance with the way, by the readiness and almost instinctive decision with which he selected the right hand or the left of several acute and intricate turns and crossings of the road. The other was a young gentleman of some five or six and twenty years, finely and powerfully made, though not above the middle height, with curly light-brown hair and a fair bright complexion, indicative of his English blood. Rattling along the limestone road, which followed the course of a large rapid trout stream, that would in Europe have been termed a river, crossing it now and then on rustic wooden bridges, as it wound in broad devious curves hither and thither through the rich meadow-land, they reached a pretty village, embosomed in tall groves and pleasant orchards, crowning a little knoll with its white cottages and rival steeples; but, making no pause, though a neat tavern might well have tempted the most fastidious traveller, they swept onward, keeping the stream on their right hand, until, as they came to the foot of a small steep ascent, the driver touched his hat, saying—“We have got through our journey now, sir; the house lies just beyond the hill.” He scarce had finished speaking, before they topped the hillock, and turning short to the right hand pulled up before a neat white gate in a tall fence, that separated the road from a large piece of woodland, arrayed in all the gorgeous colors wrought by the first sharp frost of autumn. The well-kept winding lane, to which the gate gave access, brought them, within a quarter of a mile, to a steep rocky bank feathered with junipers, and here and there a hickory or maple shadowing the dense undergrowth of rhododendrons, kalmias and azalias that sprung in rich luxuriance from every rift and cranny of the gray limestone ledges. Down this the road dived, by two rapid zig-zags, to the margin of the little river, which foamed along its base, where it was spanned by a single arch, framed picturesquely of gnarled unbarked timber; and then swept in an easy curve up a small lawn, lying fair to the southern sun, to the door of a pretty cottage, which lay midway the northern slope of the valley, its rear sheltered by the hanging woodlands, which clothed the hills behind it to their very summit. A brilliant light was shining from the windows to the right of the door, as if of a merry fire and several candles mingled; and, in a minute or two after the wheels of the wagon rattled upon the wooden bridge, it was evident that the door was thrown open; for a long stream of mellow light burst out on the fast darkening twilight, and the next moment a tall figure, clearly defined against the bright background, was seen upon the threshold. A minute more and the chesnut cob was pulled up in front of the neat portico, and the young Englishman leaped out and darted up the steps.
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11Author:  Herbert Henry William 1807-1858Add
 Title:  The miller of Martigne  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: Upon a pleasant knoll or hillock, not very far from Rennes, in that most beautiful department of France, which takes its name from the Vilaine, on the post-road from Chateaubriant to La Guerche, the traveller passes through the little hamlet of Martignè. It is but a small place, even now, and in the times of which I write—the dark and bloody days of Mazarin—it was little more than a cluster of white washed cottages, grouped round an old gray church, the spire of which rose sharp and slender, above the foliage of the dense forest, that lay stretched for many a mile around it. About two miles to the northward of the village, the causeway, having scaled a steep and rocky hill, descends almost precipitously toward a strong copious brook, too large to be termed a rivulet, and, at the same time, too small to aspire to the name of river; across which it is carried at the height of two hundred feet above the water, upon a one-arched bridge of Roman brick, the work of those world-conquerors of old.
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12Author:  Cooper James Fenimore 1789-1851Add
 Title:  The ways of the hour  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: In one respect, there is a visible improvement in the goodly town of Manhattan, and that is in its architecture. Of its growth, there has never been any question, while many have disputed its pretension to improvement. A vast expansion of mediocrity, though useful and imposing, rarely satisfies either the judgment or the taste; those who possess these qualities, requiring a nearer approach to what is excellent, than can ever be found beneath the term just mentioned.
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