Tristram of Blent

Tristram of Blent, by Anthony Hope

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tristram of Blent, by Anthony Hope 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: Tristram of Blent An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House
Author: Anthony Hope
Release Date: April 4, 2007 [EBook #20981]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRISTRAM OF BLENT ***

Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders

TRISTRAM of BLENT
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A MAN OF MARK MR WITT'S WIDOW FATHER STAFFORD A CHANGE OF AIR HALF A HERO THE PRISONER OF ZENDA THE GOD IN THE CAR THE DOLLY DIALOGUES COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO THE HEART OF PRINCESS OSRA PHROSO SIMON DALE RUPERT OF HENTZAU THE KING'S MIRROR QUISANTE

TRISTRAM of BLENT
An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House
By ANTHONY HOPE
New York MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. MCMI
Copyright, 1900 and 1901, by ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS
THIRD EDITION
Trow Directory Printing & Bookbinding Company New York

A TABLE of the CONTENTS Page
I. A SUPPRESSED PASSAGE 1 II. MR CHOLDERTON'S IMP 10 III. ON GUARD 22 IV. SHE COULD AN' SHE WOULD 34 V. THE FIRST ROUND 48 VI. THE ATTRACTION OF IT 61 VII. THE MOMENT DRAWS NEAR 74 VIII. DUTY AND MR NEELD 88 IX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION 101 X. BEHOLD THE HEIR! 114 XI. A PHANTOM BY THE POOL 129 XII. FIGHTERS AND DOUBTERS 143 XIII. IN THE LONG GALLERY 158 XIV. THE VERY SAME DAY 173 XV. AN INQUISITION INTERRUPTED 190 XVI. THE NEW LIFE 205 XVII. RIVER SCENES AND BRIC-��-BRAC 220 XVIII. CONSPIRATORS AND A CRUX 233 XIX. IN THE MATTER OF BLINKHAMPTON 248 XX. THE TRISTRAM WAY--A SPECIMEN 264 XXI. THE PERSISTENCE OF BLENT 279 XXII. AN INSULT TO THE BLOOD 296 XXIII. A DECREE OF BANISHMENT 312 XXIV. AFTER THE END OF ALL 328 XXV. THERE'S THE LADY TOO! 342 XXVI. A BUSINESS CALL 358 XXVII. BEFORE TRANSLATION 375 XXVIII. THE CAT AND THE BELL 391 XXIX. THE CURMUDGEON 407 XXX. TILL THE NEXT GENERATION 420

I
A SUPPRESSED PASSAGE
Mr Jenkinson Neeld was an elderly man of comfortable private means; he had chambers in Pall Mall, close to the Imperium Club, and his short stoutish figure, topped by a chubby spectacled face, might be seen entering that dignified establishment every day at lunch time, and also at the hour of dinner on the evenings when he had no invitation elsewhere. He had once practised at the Bar, and liked to explain that he had deserted his profession for the pursuit of literature. He did not, however, write on his own account; he edited. He would edit anything provided there was no great public demand for an edition of it. Regardless of present favor, he appealed to posterity--as gentlemen with private means are quite entitled to do. Perhaps he made rather high demands on posterity; but that was his business--and its. At any rate his taste was curious and his conscience acute. He was very minute and very scrupulous, very painstaking and very discreet, in the exercise of his duties. Posterity may perhaps like these qualities in an editor of memoirs and diaries; for such were Mr Neeld's favorite subjects. Sometimes he fell into a sore struggle between curiosity and discretion, having impulses in himself which he forbore to attribute to posterity.
He was in just such a fix now--so he thought to himself--as he perused the manuscript before him. It was the Journal of his deceased friend Josiah Cholderton, sometime Member of Parliament (in the Liberal interest) for the borough of Baxton in Yorkshire, Commercial Delegate to the Congress of Munich in '64, and Inventor of the Hygroxeric Method of Dressing Wool. No wonder posterity was to be interested in Cholderton! Yet at times--and especially during his visits to the Continent--the diarist indulged himself in digressions about people he encountered; and these assumed now and then a character so personal, or divulged episodes so private, that the editor had recourse to his blue pencil and drew it with a sigh through pages which he had himself found no small relief from the severer record of Cholderton's services to the commerce of his country. Mr Neeld sat now with blue pencil judicially poised, considering the following passage in his friend's recollections. The entry bore date Heidelberg, 1875.
"At the widow's" (Mr Cholderton is speaking of a certain Madame de Kries) "pleasant villa I became acquainted with a lady who made something of a sensation in her day, and whom I remember both for her own sake and because of a curious occurrence connected with her. A year and a half before (or thereabouts) society had been startled