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. 1914. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXI HOW I ESCAPED OUT OF A GREAT PERIL I Thought that I was waiting for breakfast in the Rectory, and that Martha was scolding me, as had been her wont every winter morning, for warming myself before the kitchen fire. Then I remembered that those days were over and gone, and thought that I was tucked up in bed at Folkestone, and listening to Arabella pounding on the door to rouse me. I endeavoured to throw off the bedclothes, and found that my arms were held fast to my side, and there and then consciousness returned to me. I was lying on the floor before the sitting-room fire. A rope bound my arms, and the turn of another was round my ankles. I turned upon my side and looked around me. A broken chair was beneath the table. The work box, with a litter of thread, stockings, tapes, and the shirt, was upturned beside it, and the square jar and broken glasses lay on the drugget in a pool of spilt liquor. The woman entered, placed the candle beside the heavy box upon the table, and went to the door again. "Go and put your mazy head in a bucket of water!" she said. I heard heavy steps pass down the passage to the back of the cottage. She came back, picked up the chair, and placed it against a cabinet. She gathered up the jar and the broken glasses, stepped over me, and threw them into the fire. She knelt down beneath the table, wiped up the spilt liquor with the half-made shirt, rolled it into a ball, and threw it into a corner of the room. She swept the tapes, the thread, and the stockings together, and put them into the work box. Then she rose from her knees and placed the work box out of the way upon the top of one of the cabinets. Her calm callous bearing and the heat of the fire brought back my weakness. She looked round the room and went to the doo...