L.T. Meade
"David's Little Lad"
Chapter One.
This is the Story within the Story.
Yes, I, Gwladys, must write it down; the whole country has heard of it, the newspapers have been full of it, and from the highest to the lowest in the land, people have spoken of the noble deed done by a few Welsh miners. But much as the country knows, and glad and proud as the country is, I don’t think she knows quite all—not exactly what mother and I know; she does not know the heart history of those ten days. This is the story within the other well-known story, which I want to write here.
On a certain sunny afternoon in September, 1876, I was seated up in the window of the old nursery. I say in the window, for I had got my body well up on the deep oak seat, had flattened my nose against the pane, and was gazing with a pair of dismal eyes down on the sea, and on some corn-fields and hay-fields, which in panoramic fashion stretched before my vision.
Yes, I was feeling gloomy, and my first remark, after an interval of silence, was decidedly in keeping with my face and heart.