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A NARRATIVE OF STARTLING INTEREST!!

EDWARD BARNETT,

A NEGLECTED CHILD OF SOUTH CAROLINA, WHO ROSE TO BE A PEER OF GREATBRITAIN,—AND THE STORMY LIFE OF HIS GRANDFATHER, CAPTAIN WILLIAMS,

OR

THE EARL'S VICTIMS:

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE TERRIBLE END OF THE PROUD EARL DE MONTFORD, THELAMENTABLE FATE OF THE VICTIM OF HIS PASSION,

AND

THE SHADOW'S PUNISHMENT,

'TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION.'

BY TOBIAS ACONITE,

THE MAYOR OF HOLE CUM CORNER.

1855

CHAPTER I.--THE STEWARD.
CHAPTER II.--THE VILLAGE ALE-HOUSE.
CHAPTER III.--THE AGENT.
CHAPTER IV.--THE POOR MAN'S HOME.
CHAPTER V.--THE CAPTURE.
CHAPTER VI.--THE BEGINNING OF RETRIBUTION.
CHAPTER VII.--THE SEAMAN'S STORY.
CHAPTER VIII.--THE END OF TWO VICTIMS.
CHAPTER IX.--THE AGENT'S PUNISHMENT.
CHAPTER X.--RETRIBUTION.
CHAPTER XI.--CONCLUSION.
POSTSCRIPT.--THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.

THE EARL'S VICTIMS.

CHAPTER I.

THE STEWARD.

Earl de Montford sat in a plainly furnished room in his stately mansion.Gorgeously decorated as were the other apartments of his princelyresidence, this apartment, with its plain business-look—its hardbenches for such of the tenantry as came to him or his agent onbusiness—its walls garnished with abstracts of the Game and Poor LawEnactments—its worn old chairs and heavy oak presses, the open doors ofsome of which disclosed bundles of old papers, parchments, etc.—thislittle room, the only one almost ever seen by any save the aristocracyand their followers—exercised and contained frequently more of humanhope and fear than any other or the whole of the others of thissumptuous edifice. Here the toil-worn farmer came to pay his dues to theLord of the Manor—here often too with beating heart and quivering lip,the old servant of the soil came to beg for time—time to enable him byhard pinching to make up his proportion of the sum spent in luxury byhis landlord. Ah! reader! could those old walls reveal the sounds, thetales of human suffering, of heartless avarice, and callousindifference—of sneering assumption and hopeless woe, thy brain wouldbe as fire, thy heart would sicken, and thy blood would boil, tillrushing over every prudent thought, through grinding teeth andpassion-paling lips would start, the one wild word, Revenge!

I have said the room was plainly furnished, but there was oneexception—the chair in which the Earl sat. This was an old one,formerly the chair of state in which the old Barons his ancestors hadpresided at many a scene of wassail, with their retainers. It had beenstuffed and new-covered to suit modern luxury, but the armorial bearingsremained still carved in the wood of the high back, with the proudmotto, "Nulli Secundi," second to none.

The Earl was not alone. His agent, a hard-featured man of business, satat a desk, busy with papers, and a venerable old man, who had been his