Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Cripps, the Carrier, by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore
A WOODLAND TALE.
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE,
AUTHOR OF LORNA DOONE, ALICE LORRAINE, ETC.
NEW EDITION
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED , St. Dunstan's House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 1892.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
( Illustrated, édition de luxe, parchment, 35s.; plainer bindings, 31s. 6d., 21s., and 7s. 6d. )
London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited. Fetter Lane. Fleet Street, E.C.
CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
The little village of Beckley lies, or rather lay many years ago, in the quiet embrace of old Stow Wood, well known to every Oxford man who loves the horn or fusil. This wood or forest (now broken up into many straggling copses) spread in the olden time across the main breadth of the highland to the north of Headington, between the valley of the Cherwell and the bogs of Otmoor. Beckley itself, though once approached by the Roman road from Alchester, must for many a century have nursed its rural quietude, withdrawn as it was from the stage-waggon track from High Wycombe to Chipping Norton, through Wheatley, Islip, and Bletchingdon, and lying in a tangle of narrow lanes leading only to one another. So Beckley took that cheerful view of life which enabled the fox to disdain the blandishments of the vintage, and prided itself on its happy seclusion and untutored honesty.