The Project Gutenberg EBook of St George's Cross, by H. G. Keene

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Title: St George's Cross

Author: H. G. Keene

Release Date: November 30, 2004 [EBook #14216]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ST. GEORGE'S CROSS;
OR,
ENGLAND ABOVE ALL.

_An Episode of Channel Island History._

BY

H.G. KEENE

GUERNSEY:
FREDERICK CLARKE, STATES ARCADE.

LONDON:
W.H. ALLEN & CO., 15. WATERLOO PLACE.

1887.

TO THE READER.

The following little tale is neither pure fiction nor absolute historic
truth; being, indeed, little more than an attempt to show a picture of
Channel Island life as it was some two centuries ago. For the background
we have been beholden to Dr. S.E. Hoskins, whose "_Charles the Second in
the Channel Islands_" may be commended to all who may feel tempted to
pursue the matter further.

_August, 1887._

PROLOGUE.

On a bright day in September of the year 1649 Mr. William Prynne, a
suspended Member of Parliament, sat at the window of his lodging in the
Strand, London, where the Thames at high water brimmed softly against
the lawn, bearing barges, wherries, and other small craft, and gleaming
very pleasantly in the slant brightness of an autumn noon.

The unprosperous politician looked upon the fair scene with quiet cheer.
He was a man of austere aspect, and looked farther advanced in middle
life than was actually the case. For he was bearing the unjust weight of
a double enmity; and though his after conduct showed that the world's
injustice by no means threw him off his moral balance, yet it is
impossible for a man to get into a position where every one but himself
seems wrong and not acquire a certain sense of solitude, which, with a
grave nature, will make him graver still. By the Cavaliers he had been
pilloried, mutilated, fined and imprisoned: expelled from the University
where he was a Master-of-Arts, driven out of the Inn-of-Court in which
he had been a Bencher. By the Roundheads, on the other hand, he had been
vis