Author:  Tobias Aconite

Release Date:  June 23, 2005 [eBook #16112]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ISO-646-us (us-ASCII)

***Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK Edward Barnett; A neglected child of south Carolina, who rose to be A peer of great Britain,—­and the Stormy life of his grandfather, captain Williams***

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A Narrative of Startling Interest!!

Edward Barnett,
A neglected child of south Carolina, who rose to be A peer of great
Britain,—­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, the
Lamentable 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

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 princely residence, this apartment, with its plain business-look—­its hard benches for such of the tenantry as came to him or his agent on business—­its walls garnished with abstracts of the Game and Poor Law Enactments—­its worn old chairs and heavy oak presses, the open doors of some of which disclosed bundles of old papers, parchments, etc.—­this little room, the only one almost ever seen by any save the aristocracy and their followers—­exercised and contained frequently more of human hope and fear than any other or the whole of the others of this sumptuous edifice.  Here the toil-worn farmer came to pay his dues to the Lord of the Manor—­here often too with beating