London Pride Or When the World Was Younger   By: M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon (1835-1915)

OR

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER

BY

M.E. BRADDON

Author of "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," "ISHMAEL," ETC.

1896

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM

CHAPTER II. WITHIN CONVENT WALLS

CHAPTER III. LETTERS FROM HOME

CHAPTER IV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

CHAPTER V. A MINISTERING ANGEL

CHAPTER VI. BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD

CHAPTER VII. AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION

CHAPTER VIII. SUPERIOR TO FASHION

CHAPTER IX. IN A PURITAN HOUSE

CHAPTER X. THE PRIEST'S HOLE

CHAPTER XL. LIGHTER THAN VANITY

CHAPTER XII. LADY FAREHAM'S DAY

CHAPTER XIII. THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT

CHAPTER XIV. THE MILLBANK GHOST

CHAPTER XV. FALCON AND DOVE

CHAPTER XVI. WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?

CHAPTER XVII. THE MOTIVE MURDER

CHAPTER XVIII. REVELATIONS

CHAPTER XIX. DIDO

CHAPTER XX. PHILASTER

CHAPTER XXI. GOOD BYE, LONDON

CHAPTER XXII. AT THE MANOR MOAT

CHAPTER XXIII. PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE

CHAPTER XXIV. "QUITE OUT OF FASHION"

CHAPTER XXV. HIGH STAKES

CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH

CHAPTER XXVII. BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE

CHAPTER XXVIII. IN A DEAD CALM

CHAPTER I.

A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM.

The wind howled across the level fields, and flying showers of sleet rattled against the old leathern coach as it drove through the thickening dusk. A bitter winter, this year of the Royal tragedy.

A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been followed by the hardest frost this generation had ever known. The Thames was frozen over, and tempestuous winds had shaken the ships in the Pool, and the steep gable ends and tall chimney stacks on London Bridge. A never to be forgotten winter, which had witnessed the martyrdom of England's King, and the exile of her chief nobility, while a rabble Parliament rode roughshod over a cowed people. Gloom and sour visages prevailed, the maypoles were down, the play houses were closed, the bear gardens were empty, the cock pits were desolate; and a saddened population, impoverished and depressed by the sacrifices that had been exacted and the tyranny that had been exercised in the name of Liberty, were ground under the iron heel of Cromwell's red coats.

The pitiless journey from London to Louvain, a journey of many days and nights, prolonged by accident and difficulty, had been spun out to uttermost tedium for those two in the heavily moving old leathern coach. Who and what were they, these wearied travellers, journeying together silently towards a destination which promised but little of pleasure or luxury by way of welcome a destination which meant severance for those two?

One was Sir John Kirkland, of the Manor Moat, Bucks, a notorious Malignant, a grey bearded cavalier, aged by trouble and hard fighting; a soldier and servant who had sacrificed himself and his fortune for the King, and must needs begin the world anew now that his master was murdered, his own goods confiscated, the old family mansion, the house in which his parents died and his children were born, emptied of all its valuables, and left to the care of servants, and his master's son a wanderer in a foreign land, with little hope of ever winning back crown and sceptre.

Sadness was the dominant expression of Sir John's stern, strongly marked countenance, as he sat staring out at the level landscape through the unglazed coach window, staring blankly across those wind swept Flemish fields where the cattle were clustering in sheltered corners, a monotonous expanse, crossed by ice bound dykes that looked black as ink, save where the last rays of the setting sun touched their iron hue with blood red splashes. Pollard willows indicated the edge of one field, gaunt poplars marked the boundary of another, alike leafless and unbeautiful, standing darkly out against the dim grey sky. Night was hastening towards the travellers, narrowing and blotting out that level landscape, field, dyke, and leafless wood.