To Vernon Watney We two confess twin loyalties⁠— Wychwood beneath the April skies Is yours, and many a scented road That winds in June by Evenlode. Not less when autumn fires the brake, Yours the deep...

Last year my friend, Mr. Sebastian Derwent, on becoming senior partner of the reputable firm of solicitors which bears his name, instituted a very drastic clearing out of cupboards and shelves in the ...

The road which had begun as a rutted cart-track sank presently to a grassy footpath among scrub oaks, and as the boughs whipped his face the young man cried out impatiently and pulled up his horse to ...

By midday Alastair, riding at leisure, had crossed the first downs of Cotswold and dropped upon the little town of Charlbury, drowsing by Evenlode in a warm October noon. He had left the fog of mornin...

In the circle of the lantern’s light the horseman, a big shambling fellow, stood swaying as if in extreme fatigue, now steadying himself by a hand on the animal’s neck, now using the support of the gr...

Next morning Alastair rode west, and for the better part of a fortnight was beyond Severn. He met Sir Watkin at Wynnstay and Mr. Savage in Lanthony vale, and then penetrated to the Pembroke coast wher...

In his dreams Alastair was persistently conscious of Mr. Kyd’s face, which hung like a great sun in that dim landscape. Fresh-coloured and smiling at one moment, it would change suddenly to a thing pe...

Alastair stole a glance at his neighbour’s face and found it changed from their first meeting. It had lost its dumb misery and⁠—for the moment⁠—its grey pallor. Now it was flushed, ardent, curiously f...

The butler Giles conducted him through long corridors to the door which separated the manor proper from its ancient Edwardian tower, and then up stone stairways to a room under the roof which had once...

The face before him had the tightened look of a sudden surprise: then it relaxed into recognition; but it showed no fear, though the young man’s visage was grim enough. “You are Mr. Kyd’s servant?” “Y...

“Yesterday morning your Prince was encamped outside Carlisle. By now the place may have fallen.” “Who told you?” Alastair asked. “I have my own messengers who journey in Old England,” said Midwinter. ...

The whole staff of the Sleeping Deer were around the door when my lady Norreys, making dainty grimaces at the weather, tripped over the yards of snow-powdered cobbles between the step of her coach and...

Four nights later Alastair was in his little bedroom at the Sleeping Deer, dressing by the light of two homemade candles. He had been taken to this inn by Midwinter because of the honesty of the landl...

The sinking at the heart disappeared long before Alastair reached his attic, and was replaced by a violent heat of anger. He lit a candle, for the dark irked him, and sat on his bed with his face as s...

The hours passed slowly, for Alastair was in a ferment of hope and fear, into which like lightning-flashes in a dark sky shot now and then a passion of fury, as he remembered Claudia Norreys. He had n...

Five hours’ sleep were not enough to rest his body, but they were all that his unquiet mind would permit. He woke to a sense of great weariness combined with a feverish impulse to drive himself to the...

The night was mild and dark, and the high road which the two men followed was defined only by the faint glimmer of the rain-pools that lay in every rut. The smell of wet earth was in their nostrils, a...

Duchess Kitty descended from her chair of justice and came to the fireside, where she let her furs slip from her and stood, a figure of white porcelain, warming her feet at the blaze. “There was some ...

The night was growing colder, and the moon in her first quarter was sinking among heavy woolpack clouds. The Spainneach’s whisper had been enough for Alastair, who in his sojourn at the Sleeping Deer ...

Fresh horses were found, and at four in the morning, four hours before daylight in that murky weather, Alastair and Johnson left the inn. At the first crossroads Midwinter joined them. “Set your mind ...

Three hours’ hard riding should have brought them to the tail of the Highland army, but the horses were still in their stalls when the night fell. For, as he sat by the fire with Johnson, the latches ...

Thus far Mr. Derwent’s papers. With the farewell on the Cumberland moor Alastair Maclean is lost to us in the mist. Of the nature of Ramoth-Gilead let history tell; it is too sad a tale for the romanc...

See Boswell’s Life of Johnson, anno 1754. ↩...