Author of “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “VIXEN,” “ISHMAEL,” ETC.
1896
The wind howled across the level fields, and flying showers of sleet rattledagainst the old leathern coach as it drove through the thickening dusk. Abitter winter, this year of the Royal tragedy.
A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been followed by the hardest frostthis generation had ever known. The Thames was frozen over, and tempestuouswinds had shaken the ships in the Pool, and the steep gable ends and tallchimney-stacks on London Bridge. A never-to-be-forgotten winter, which hadwitnessed 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 sourvisages prevailed, the maypoles were down, the play-houses were clo