Читать книгу The Wizard of West Penwith: A Tale of the Land's-End - William Bentinck Forfar - Страница 3

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In writing my Cornish Tales I have always endeavoured to pourtray the Cornish character in all its native wit and humour, for which the genuine west-country miners are so proverbial. And I have generally taken for the foundation of my Stories incidents which have really happened in the localities wherein the actions of my little dramas have been laid.

The scene of my present story is laid in the neighbourhood of the Land's-End, and most of the characters were well-known there in days gone by;—the names only being fictitious.

The fall of the horse over the cliff is still in the remembrance of some old people in the neighbourhood; and the circumstance is related by the Guides who shew the beauties of the Land's-End scenery to strangers. The marks of the horse's hoofs in the grass at the edge of the cliff are preserved to this day.

The Wizard (or Conjuror as he was called) was a notorious character at St. Just, some fifty years ago;—and the horrid murder related in these pages; and the mistaken identity of the guilty parties are also veritable facts.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown were well-known characters, and are drawn from real life.

This brief sketch of some of the scenes and characters to be found in this little volume may perhaps add an interest to it, and induce a large number of the lovers of Cornish lore to honour it with a perusal.

Plymouth,

March, 1871.

CHAPTER	PAGE
I.	Mr. Freeman	3
II.	The Wreck near the Land's-End	8
III.	Alrina	12
IV.	The Unexpected Meeting	16
V.	John Brown and his favorite mare Jessie	21
VI.	The Family Party	25
VII.	Murder most foul	30
VIII.	The Wizard	36
IX.	Love and Mystery	40
X.	Alrina's troubles increase	42
XI.	Frederick Morley obstinately determines to ride the mare	45
XII.	The awful ride	47
XIII.	Its consequences	50
XIV.	Mrs. Brown tells the Conjuror a bit of her mind	53
XV.	The mysterious stranger at the Penzance Ball	56
XVI.	Josiah's astonishment at the effect produced by the display of his Treasure-trove	60
XVII.	The borrowed feathers of the peacock fail to conceal entirely the plumage of the jackdaw	64
XVIII.	The birds have taken flight	67
XIX.	The mysterious encounter	71
XX.	Aristocratic connections	76
XXI.	The Love-chase	81
XXII.	Alrina's first Love-letter	88
XXIII.	The Secret	92
XXIV.	Man is born to trouble and disappointment as the sparks fly upwards	98
XXV.	Retrospection and recrimination	106
XXVI.	Squire Pendray gets on his stilts and views Lieut. Fowler from a lofty eminence	113
XXVII.	The step in the wrong direction	117
XXVIII.	By doing a little wrong, great good is accomplished in the end	122
XXIX.	Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Trenow indulge in a croom o' chat, while Cap'n Trenow gives some sage advice in another quarter	125
XXX.	The two sisters pierced through the heart	134
XXXI.	Out of Scylla and into Charybdis	139
XXXII.	Alrina's troubles are increased by an unexpected discovery	143
XXXIII.	Alrina visits a kind friend and makes a proposal	149
XXXIV.	Captain Courland's return and his wife's anxiety	154
XXXV.	The desperate plunge	159
XXXVI.	The broken reed	168
XXXVII.	Josiah's lonely midnight watch in the Conjuror's house	174
XXXVIII.	The Search	179
XXXIX.	The unexpected meeting and mysterious communication	184
XL.	Miss Pendray's singular accident	191
XLI.	Mysterious sounds are heard issuing out of the earth at midnight. The curious cottage on the heath	195
XLII.	The poor dumb girl's sudden resolve, and its consequences	202
XLIII.	The Confession	206
XLIV.	Mrs. Brown enjoys another croom o' chat with Mrs. Trenow, and receives an unexpected visitor	210
XLV.	An awful catastrophe	219
XLVI.	The dreaded interview	224
XLVII.	Mysteries explained	229
XLVIII.	A brilliant Cornish diamond discovered and placed in a golden casket	232
XLIX.	The wedding-bells	239