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Chapter 1: The Knight And Squire. The opening scene of our tale is a wild tract of common land, interspersed with forest and heath, which lies northward at the foot of the eastern range of the Sussex downs. The time is the year of grace twelve hundred and fifty and three; the month a cold and seasonable January. The wild heath around is crisp with frost and white with snow, it appears a dense solitude; away to the east lies the town of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ANGLO-SAXON HALL. It was the evening of Thursday, the fifth of October, in year of grace one thousand and sixty and six. The setting sun was slowly sinking towards a dense bank of clouds, but as yet he gladdened the woods and hills around the old hall of Aescendune with his departing light. The watchman on the tower gazed upon a fair scene outspread before him; at his feet rolled the river, broad and deep, spanned by a rude... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DIARY OF FATHER CUTHBERT. All Saints' Day, 1002. Inasmuch as I, Cuthbert, by the long-suffering of the Divine goodness, am prior of the Benedictine house of St. Wilfrid at Aescendune, it seems in some sort my duty, following the example of many worthy brethren, to write some account of the origin and history of the priory over which it has pleased God to make me overseer, and to note, as occasion serves from time to time, such... more...

CHAPTER I. "THIS IS THE FOREST PRIMEVAL." IT was a lovely eventide of the sunny month of May, and the declining rays of the sun penetrated the thick foliage of an old English forest, lighting up in chequered pattern the velvet sward thick with moss, and casting uncertain rays as the wind shook the boughs. Every bush seemed instinct with life, for April showers and May sun had united to force each leaf and spray into its fairest development, and... more...