WHERE ENGLAND SETS HER FEET A ROMANCE BY BERNARD CAPES ‘Whate’er the bans the wind may waft her, England’s true men are we and Pope’s men after.’ LONDON: 48 PALL MALL W. COLLINS SONS & CO, LTD. GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND COPYRIGHT. First Impression March 1918 Second Impression April 1918 [DEDICATION.] OCTOBER 1917 TO GARETH WILFRID CAPES LIEUT. HAMPSHIRE REGT. IN PALESTINE THIS EARLIER STORY OF ‘ENGLAND’S TRUE MEN’ CONTENTS. I. THE PRETTY PLEDGE II. THE PLEDGE REDEEMED III. THE JOURNEY WEST IV. THE END OF THE JOURNEY V. THE HOUSE BY THE MOOR VI. SOME NEW FRIENDS VII. THE OLD WELL HOUSE VIII. THE APPARITION IX. TRANSFORMATION X. CONFIDENCES XI. TWO’S COMPANY XII. IL PENSEROSO XIII. DESOLATION XIV. AN EMOTION AND A DISCOVERY XV. THE RETURN OF THE WANDERERS XVI. THE TRUTH AT LAST XVII. CERTAIN VISITORS XVIII. HOPE DEFERRED XIX. MARKING TIME XX. MISTRESS JOAN MEDLEY XXI. THE DECOY XXII. A POIGNANT INTERVIEW XXIII. HOME AGAIN XXIV. COMMITTED XXV. THE FUGITIVE XXVI. AN INCUBUS XXVII. THE VOYAGE XXVIII. THE TAKING OF THE CARACK XXIX. THE VIPER ON THE HEARTH XXX. L’ALLEGRO XXXI. ‘BACK TO A WORLD OF DEATH’ XXXII. RETRIBUTION XXXIII. BEREAVEMENT XXXIV. A LAST DISCOVERY CHAPTER I. THE PRETTY PLEDGE When, in the second year of Elizabeth, the Act of Supremacy was passed, there were found only some two hundred in all of the clergy bold enough to dissent from it. Many, it is true, who conformed, did so without sincerity, fearing to lose their livings, and of these was Mr Robert Angell, Vicar of Clapham, or Clappenham village in Surrey, which was in the advowson of the lords of Larkhall and a very good cure. This Mr Angell, a worthy but weak divine, gained nothing, however, by his accommodation, for being suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, of Romanist sympathies, he was shortly deprived of his benefice, and forced to look elsewhere than to the Establishment for a means to subsistence. In this pass he bethought himself to set up a little private school, or palestra, for the sons of such of his neighbours as were well disposed towards him; and this he did, and with fair success, many coming to receive of him their early grounding in the A.B.C.-darius, Lily’s grammar, the _Sententiæ Pueriles_, and so on by way of Erasmus’s Colloquies to Cæsar and the Georgics, so that they were well ripe for College and University when their time came. For the Vicar was a sound scholar no less than an amiable man, and ruled by love without much authority, being little addicted to the harsh methods which obtained, and indeed were expected, in his day. He had a dame, a stupid woman but as benevolent as himself, and two or three little children, who tumbled up anyhow and were for ever in hot water, save when they most needed it.