The Project Gutenberg EBook of Belles and Ringers, by Hawley Smart
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Belles and Ringers
Author: Hawley Smart
Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20529]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELLES AND RINGERS ***
Produced by Al Haines
BELLES AND RINGERS
BY
HAWLEY SMART,
AUTHOR OF
"BOUND TO WIN;" "FALSE CARDS;" "TWO KISSES;" "COURTSHIP," ETC.
NEW EDITION.
LEVER BROTHERS, LTD.,
PORT SUNLIGHT, NEAR BIRKENHEAD.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
TODBOROUGH GRANGE
CHAPTER II.
THE CONSPIRATORS TRIUMPH
CHAPTER III.
THE COMMONSTONE BALL
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROCKCLIFFE GAMES
CHAPTER V.
AN EXCURSION TO TROTBURY
CHAPTER VI.
A SHORT CUT HOME
CHAPTER VII.
"THE PLAY'S THE THING!"
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. WRIOTHESLEY
CHAPTER IX.
SATURDAY AT HURLINGHAM
CHAPTER X.
MRS. WRIOTHESLEY'S LITTLE DINNER
CHAPTER XI.
THE RINGING OF THE BELLES
BELLES AND RINGERS.
CHAPTER I.
TODBOROUGH GRANGE.
Todborough Grange, the seat of Cedric Bloxam, Justice of the Peace, and
whilom High Sheriff for East Fernshire, lies low. The original Bloxam,
like the majority of our ancestors, had apparently a great dislike to
an exposed situation; and either a supreme contempt for the science of
sanitation, or a confused idea that water could be induced to run
uphill, and so, not bothering his head on the subject of drainage, as
indeed no one did in those days, he built his house in a hole, holding,
I presume, that the hills were as good to look up at as the valleys to
look down upon. It was an irregular pile of gabled red brick, of what
could be only described as the composite order, having been added to by
successive Bloxams at their own convenience, and without any regard to
architectural design. It was surrounded by thick shrubberies, in which
the laurels were broken by dense masses of rhododendrons. Beyond these
again were several plantations, and up the hill on the east side of the
house stretched a wood of some eighty acres or so in extent.
As a race, the Bloxams possessed some of the leading Anglo-Saxon
|