The Black Tor

The Black Tor, by George
Manville Fenn

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Title: The Black Tor A Tale of the Reign of James the First
Author: George Manville Fenn
Illustrator: W. S. Stacey
Release Date: May 4, 2007 [EBook #21298]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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BLACK TOR ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Black Tor, by George Manville Fenn, A Tale of the Reign of
James the First.

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As always with this author there is plenty of action in this book. Two
teenage boys of about the same age come from families which have
been in intense rivalry for centuries. Each of them lives in a castle set
among the wild and desolate hills of Derbyshire, an almost
mountainous area in the Midlands of England, known generally as the
Peak District.
The boys know each other but as enemies. Yet events occur which draw
them together as allies, but they dare not call themselves friends. A
roguish band of ex-soldiers have arrived in the district, and set up
camp out on the moors, from whence they descend to steal from, rob
and loot the houses of the poorer folk.
The boys privately form an alliance using the men working on their
fathers' land as a private army, to attack and rid the land of these
desperadoes. Their first attack results in dreadful failure. But then they
revise their ideas of what they can use for weaponry, and are finally
successful.
Yet another excellent book from the prolific pen of this great author.
NH
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THE BLACK TOR, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN, A TALE OF THE
REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST.
CHAPTER ONE.
ONE CAPTAIN PURLROSE.
About as rugged, fierce-looking a gang of men as a lad could set eyes
on, as they struggled up the steep cliff road leading to the castle, which
frowned at the summit, where the flashing waters of the Gleame swept
round three sides of its foot, half hidden by the beeches and birches,

which overhung the limpid stream. The late spring was at its brightest
and best, but there had been no rain; and as the men who had waded the
river lower down, climbed the steep cliff road, they kicked up the white
limestone dust, and caked their wet high boots, which, in several
instances, had opened holes in which toes could be seen, looking like
curious reptiles deep in gnarled and crumpled shells.
"Beggars! What a gang!" said Ralph Darley, a dark, swarthy lad of
perhaps seventeen, but looking older, from having an appearance of
something downy beginning to come up that spring about his chin, and
a couple of streaks, like eyebrows out of place, upon his upper lip. He
was well dressed, in the fashion of Solomon King James's day; and he
wore a sword, as he sat half up the rugged slope, on a huge block of
limestone, which had fallen perhaps a hundred years before, from the
cliff above, and was mossy now, and half hidden by the ivy which
covered its side.
"Beggars," he said again; "and what a savage looking lot."
As they came on, it began to dawn upon him that they could not be
beggars, for if so, they would have been the most truculent-looking
party that ever asked for the contributions of the charitable. One, who
seemed to be their leader, was a fierce, grizzled, red-nosed fellow,
wearing a rusty morion, in which, for want of a feather, a tuft of heather
was stuck; he wore a long cloak, as rusty-looking as his helmet; and
that he carried a sword was plain enough, for the well-worn scabbard
had found a very convenient hole in the cloak, through which it had
thrust itself in the most obtrusive manner, and looked like a tail with a
vicious sting, for the cap of the leathern scabbard had been lost, and
about three inches of steel blade and point were visible.
Ralph Darley was quick at observation, and took in quickly the fact that
all the men were armed, and looked shabbier than their leader, though
not so stout; for he was rubicund and portly, where he ought not to
have been, for activity, though in a barrel a tubby space does indicate
strength. Neither were the noses of the other men so red as their leader's,
albeit they were a villainous-looking lot.

"Not beggars, but soldiers," thought Ralph; "and they've been in the