The labourer is now enfranchised, education is universal, railways have made life circulate freer; and we stand now before a great social dissolving view, from which old things are passing away, and what is coming on we can only partly guess, not wholly distinguish.

In revisiting the parish of Bratton Clovelly, the author found little of the outward scenery changed, but the modes of life were in a state of transition. The same hills, the same dear old moors and woods, the same green coombs, the same flowers, the same old church, and the same glorious landscape. The reader will perhaps accept with leniency a slight tale for the sake of the pictures it presents of what is gone for ever, or is fast fading away. Coryndon's Charity, of course, is non-existent in Bratton parish. The names are all taken, Christian and sire, from the early registers of the parish. Village characteristics, incidents, superstitions have been worked in, from actual recollections. The author has tried to be very close in local colour; and, if it be not too bold a comparison, he would have this little story considered, like one of Birket Foster's water-colours, rather as a transcript from nature than as a finished, original, highly-arranged and considered picture.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER

  1. [THE BROTHERS-IN-LAW]
  2. [THE MONEY-SPINNER]
  3. [WELLON'S CAIRN]
  4. [THE WHITE HARE]
  5. ['TIMEO DANAOS ET DONA FERENTES']
  6. [THE PROGRESS OF STRIFE]
  7. [CORYNDON'S CHARITY]
  8. [A MALINGERER]
  9. [CHARLES LUXMORE]
  10. [ON THE STEPS]
  11. [IN THE LINNEY]
  12. [LANGFORD]
  13. [THE REVEL]
  14. [THE LAMB-KILLER]
  15. [A BOLT FROM THE BLUE]
  16. [KEEPING WATCH]
  17. [MRS. VEALE]
  18. [TREASURE TROVE]

RED SPIDER.

CHAPTER I.

THE BROTHERS-IN-LAW.