SONS OF FIRE A Novel By Mary Elizabeth Braddon THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," "ISHMAEL," ETC. _IN THREE VOLUMES_ VOL. I. LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LIMITED STATIONERS' HALL COURT [_All rights reserved_] LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. I. A STRIKING LIKENESS II. ALLAN CAREW'S PEOPLE III. "A HOME OF ANCIENT PEACE" IV. "IN THE ALL-GOLDEN AFTERNOON" V. MORE NEW-COMERS VI. LIKE THE MOTH TO THE FLAME VII. "O THE RARE SPRING-TIME!" VIII. NOT YET IX. "SO GREW MY OWN SMALL LIFE COMPLETE" X. "OUR DREAMS PURSUE OUR DEAD, AND DO NOT FIND" XI. THE MASTER OF DISCOMBE SONS OF FIRE. CHAPTER I. A STRIKING LIKENESS. The meet was at the Pig and Whistle, at Melbury, nine miles off. Rather a near meet--compared with the usual appointments of the South Sarum hounds--the ostler remarked, as Allan Carew mounted a hired hunter in the yard of the Duke's Head, chief, and indeed only possible inn for a gentleman to put up at, in the little village of Matcham, a small but prosperous hamlet, lying in a hollow of the hills between Salisbury and Andover. He had only arrived on the previous afternoon, and he was sallying forth in the crisp March morning, on an unknown horse in an unfamiliar country, to hunt with a pack whose master's name he had heard for the first time that day. "Can he jump?" asked Allan, as he scrutinized the lean, upstanding bay; not a bad kind of horse by any means, but with that shabby, under-groomed and over-worked appearance common to hirelings. "Can't he, sir? There ain't a better lepper in Wiltshire. And as clever as a cat! We had a lady staying here in the winter, Mrs. Colonel Parkyn, brought two 'acks of her own, besides the colonel's two 'unters, and liked this here horse better than any of 'em. She was right down mashed on him, as the young gents say." "I wonder she didn't buy him," said Allan. "She couldn't, sir. Money wouldn't buy such a hunter as this off my master. He's a fortune to us." "I hope I may be of Mrs. Parkyn's opinion when I come home," said Allan. "Now then, ostler, just tell me which way I am to ride to get to the Pig and Whistle by eleven o'clock."