A Search For A Secret Volume I

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS

CHAPTER II. THE HARMERS OF HARMER PLACE

CHAPTER III. "L'HOMME PROPOSE, DIEU DISPOSE"

CHAPTER IV. THE LAST OF THE HARMERS

CHAPTER V. TESTAMENTARY INTENTIONS

CHAPTER VI. THE BISHOP OF RAVENNA

CHAPTER VII. SOCIETY GRACIOUSLY CONDESCENDS

CHAPTER VIII. INTRODUCED TO THE WORLD

CHAPTER IX. THE OLD STORY

CHAPTER X. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

CHAPTER XI. LAYING A TRAIN

CHAPTER XII. THE EXPLOSION

CHAPTER XIII. A BAD BUSINESS

CHAPTER XIV. MISSING!




CHAPTER I.

EARLY DAYS.


There are towns over which time seems to exercise but little power, but
to have passed them by forgotten, in his swift course. Everywhere else,
at his touch, all is changed. Great cities rise upon the site of fishing
villages; huge factories, with their smoky chimneys grow up and
metamorphose quiet towns into busy hives of industry; while other
cities, once prosperous and flourishing, sink into insignificance; and
the passer by, as he wanders through their deserted streets, wonders and
laments over the ruin which has fallen upon them.

But the towns of which I am speaking--and of which there are but few now
left in England, and these, with hardly an exception, cathedral
towns--seem to suffer no such change. They neither progress nor fall
back. If left behind, they are not beaten in the race, for they have
never entered upon it; but are content to rest under the shelter of
their tall spires and towers; to seek for no change and to meet with
none; but to remain beloved, as no other towns are loved, by those who
have long known them--assimilating, as it were, the very natures of
those who dwell in them, to their own sober, neutral tints.

In these towns, a wanderer who has left them as a boy, returning as an
old, old man, will see but little change--a house gone here, another
nearly similar built in its place; a greyer tint upon the stone; a tree
fallen in the old close; the ivy climbing a little higher upon the
crumbling wall;--these are all, or nearly all, the changes which he will
see. The trains rush past, bearing their countless passengers, who so
rarely think of stopping there, that the rooks, as they hold their grave
conversations in their nests in the old elm-trees, cease to break off,
even for a moment, at the sound of the distant whistle. The very people
seem, although this is but seeming, to have changed as little as the
place: the same names are over the shop doors--the boy who was at school
has taken his grand-sire's place, and stands at his door, looking down
the quiet street as the old man used to do before him; the dogs are
asleep in the sunny corners they formerly loved; and the same horses
seem to be lazily drawing the carts, with familiar names upon them, into
the old market-place. The wanderer may almost fancy that he has awoke
from a long, troubled dream. It is true that if he enters the little
churchyard, he will see, beneath the dark shadows of the yew-trees, more
gravestones than there were of old; but the names are so similar, that
it is only upon reading them over, that he will find that it is true
after all, and that the friends and playfellows of his childhood, the
strong, merry boys, and the fair girls with sunny ringlets, sleep
peacefully there. But it is not full yet; and he may hope that, when his
time shall come, there may be some quiet nook found, where, even as a
child, he may have fancied that he would like some day to rest.