The Distracted Preacher by Thomas Hardy Page B

smaller families of the country, and, like it, has descended in the social scale to the status of a farmhouse. It closely corresponds with the description given in the story, though it is in a better state of repair than in the days of the penurious Derriman. The eye will at once be caught by the arched gateway which screens the main front, and the porter’s lodge above it, reached by a spiral staircase. The visitor should, after having examined the front of this fine old house, walk round to the east side, with its row of gable-ends, and investigate, if he is allowed, the yard at the back, after which he will come to the conclusion that few modern houses can compete in beauty with this ancient residence.
    A mile or so beyond Poxwell the road meets that from Dorchester at Warmwell Cross, and here we are on ground which we have already traversed. We pass the road which turns down to Owermoigne, and take the turn by the Red Lion leading to Lulworth, through Winfrith Newburgh. Beyond West Lulworth is Lulworth Cove, the goal of our journey. This is the “small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs” in which Troy bathed after his night in Puddletown church porch, and at its mouth can be seen “the two projecting spurs of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean.” It is the Lulstead of the novels, where the dead bodies of Stephen Hardcome and his cousin’s wife were washed up, and where Cytherea Graye met Edward Springrove for the first time. It is also one of the places where Mrs. Lizzie Newberry’s associates were in the habit of running their cargoes of smuggled spirit, and seems, indeed, by nature to have been intended for clandestine operations of one sort or another. During the time when the Catholic religion was proscribed in this country, and those who professed it were subjected to the rigours of a harsh penal code, the introduction of priests into England was one of the things most strictly forbidden. Yet many a seminary priest did find his way into the country, and a large number of these were landed, under cover of night, in this secluded basin, and hurried off to the neighbouring Catholic house of Lulworth Castle, the seat of the Weld family. Finally, this is “the three-quarter round Cove, screened from every mortal eye,” where old Solomon Selby, when a young man, saw Bonaparte exploring the land in search of a suitable place for the landing of his fleet of flat-bottomed boats, as narrated in the “Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four.” It is difficult, until one examines the broadsheets and other ephemeral literature of the day, to realize how great was the terror of a French descent upon these shores. Some idea we gain of it from the scenes in “The Trumpet-Major;” but, then, Mr. Hardy has had the advantage of hearing accounts of that time from the lips of actual eye-witnesses, who are now laid to rest. In the novel just mentioned there is a transcription of a Proclamation to the people of England, telling them how they should prepare for the expected invasion. An original copy of this Proclamation may be seen in the Museum at Salisbury, and by it hangs another document of the same kind, which is less well known. It throws so much light upon the state of feeling at the period, that it will not be loss of space to quote it here in extenso.
    â€œFellow-Citizens,—Bonaparte threatens to invade us. He promises to enrich his soldiers with our property: To glut their lust with our Wives and Daughters: To incite his Hell-hounds to execute his vengeance he has sworn to permit everything. Shall we merit, by our cowardice, the titles of Sordid Shopkeepers, Cowardly Scum and Dastardly Wretches, which in every proclamation he gives us: No; we will loudly give him the lie: let us make ourselves ready to shut our Shops and march to give him the reception his malicious calumnies deserve: let every brave young fellow instantly join the