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A NEGLECTED CHILD OF SOUTH CAROLINA, WHO ROSE TO BE A PEER OF GREATBRITAIN,—AND THE STORMY LIFE OF HIS GRANDFATHER, CAPTAIN WILLIAMS,
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE TERRIBLE END OF THE PROUD EARL DE MONTFORD, THELAMENTABLE FATE OF THE VICTIM OF HIS PASSION,
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.
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