Post Haste

MP3 Audio CD. Post Haste

CHAPTER ONE.

A HERO AND HIS WORSHIPPER.

Once upon a time--only once, observe, she did not do it twice--a widow
of the name of Maylands went, in a fit of moderate insanity, and took up
her abode in a lonely, tumble-down cottage in the west of Ireland.

Mrs Maylands was very poor. She was the widow of an English clergyman,
who had left her with a small family and the smallest income that was
compatible with that family's maintenance. Hence the migration to
Ireland, where she had been born, and where she hoped to live
economically.

The tumble-down cottage was near the sea, not far from a little bay
named Howlin Cove. Though little it was a tremendous bay, with mighty
cliffs landward, and jutting ledges on either side, and forbidding rocks
at the entrance, which waged continual warfare with the great Atlantic
billows that rolled into it. The whole place suggested shipwreck and
smugglers.

The small family of Mrs Maylands consisted of three babes--so their
mother styled them. The eldest babe, Mary--better known as May--was
seventeen years of age, and dwelt in London, to which great city she had
been tempted by an elderly English cousin, Miss Sarah Lillycrop, who
held out as baits a possible situation and a hearty welcome.