Her Heart Was True; A Story of the Peninsular War Founded on Fact (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I. AT CORFE. HERE the bold range of downs which form the backbone of the Isle of Purbeck dips, in grim precipices, into the Channel at St. Aldhelm's Head, pious hands, in days of yore, reared a sturdy little chapel. Perched nearly five hundred feet above the sea, at the extreme verge of the 8" lofty headland, and exposed to the full force of the wild sou't westers, raging up Channel from O the Atlantic, it was doubtless I i designed quite as much as a beacon or a lookout, as for a house of prayer, wherein the monks might intercede with good St. Nicholas, the patron saint of mariners, for the safety of vessels passing this iron-bound coast. But in the early days of the present century the coastguard had superseded the monk, and from St. Aldhelm's Chapel the former kept a sharp watch for lurking smugglers, or even the fleet of the victorious Bonaparte himself. The chapel, however, served for yet a third purpose--at least, in the case of a tall, lissom, country girl, who, with hood firmly tied over her yellow hair, toiled thither one spring morning, over the bleak downs. Without pausing at the summit to admire the far-spreading view of sea and down and moor, she entered the low Norman doorway, and, by the light from the single narrow slit window, groped her way to the central column, from which sprung four intersecting arches. The place was silent and deserted, rarely disturbed, save by a coastguardsman on his beat, or some stray sheep benighted on the cliff. But for Bessie Sweetapple's purpose the quieter the better. She groped round the pillar till she found a small cavity on one side of it. Then, with hands that trembled with excitement, she took a pin from her shawl, and crooking it, dropped it into the hole, muttering indistinctly the whil...