The fifth of November

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER CHARLES S BENTLEY AND F KIMBALL SCRIBNER
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets, The same look which she turn'd when he rose —Thomas Moore.
It has not been the intention of the authors of The Fifth of November to write an historical novel, though, throughout the story, they have endeavored to follow as closely as was consistent with the plot in hand, the historical facts collected by the various writers who have made the nature and workings of the Gunpowder Plot a special study. With one or two exceptions, the characters in the present romance have been borrowed from history, and, save in Chapters XXI and XXII, the lines of the story have followed those traced by the hand of the historian.
In presenting to the public this Romance of the Stuarts, indebtedness is acknowledged by the writers to Professor S. R. Gardiner's What the Gunpowder Plot Was, and also to the history of England as set forth by Knight, Hume, Froude and Ridpath.
THE AUTHORS.
New York, February, 1898.

Snow had fallen through the day, and as night approached all objects were covered with a mantle of white. The noises incident to the life of a great city had long since become muffled and indistinct. The footfalls of those who traversed the streets could no longer be heard; and the only sounds which now and again broke the silence, were the voices of my lord's link-men, who, in goodly number, fully armed, carrying flaming torches whose lurid dancing light shone through the blinding snow, appeared at a distance to be a party of ancient saints come forth from their tombs to indulge in a ghostly frolic under cover of the night. The voices of the men, falling upon the snow-laden air, sounded dull and echo-less as they heralded the approach of a chair to some sharp turn or gateway. An armed escort in those days was no mark of royalty or distinction, for it was not well or safe for men to travel the streets alone after nightfall, as many a sinister face and cloaked form lurked hid in the shadow of secluded corners and dark by-ways, awaiting opportunity to cut the purse, or the throat, as need be, of the solitary wayfarer.