The Fall of the Curtain

1901. Begins: Christmas day, good reader. Morning service in the village church was over, and old Gregory Brough, his wife, and his callow brood were trooping over the snow-covered fields of Poyntz Park on their way home to dinner. Squire Brough was a jolly tubby little fellow, carrying his sixty years as lightly as a babe astride of a rocking-horse carries cocked hat and tin sword. His beaming red face and white hair gave him a character that his heart did not belie. As good a squire as ever farmed English acres and proved friend-in-need to the people on his estate was honest old Gregory; and though his income had steadily declined as his olive branches multiplied round about his table he kept a stout heart to the world and faced the future with as breezy a courage as ever Sir Geoffrey Peveril bore into conflict against kennel-blooded, clip-eared, cuckoldy Roundheads. Due to the age and scarcity of the original we reproduced, some pages may be spotty or faded.