The Project Gutenberg EBook of Trevethlan: Volume 1, by William Davy Watson

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Title: Trevethlan: Volume 1
A Cornish Story.

Author: William Davy Watson

Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32981]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TREVETHLAN:
A Cornish Story.

BY
WILLIAM DAVY WATSON, ESQ.,
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
1848.

London:
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
Old Bailey.

TREVETHLAN.

CHAPTER I.

"What, am I poor of late?
'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honour; but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit."

SHAKSPEARE.

Late in September, some thirty years ago, Henry Trevethlan lay dying
in the state-bedchamber of Trevethlan Castle; in Cornwall. It was a
large and lofty apartment, indifferently lighted by Gothic casements
overlooking the sea, and wearing a gloomy and desolate aspect. Old
hangings of tapestry, much faded and worn, covered the walls; the
furniture was scanty and inconvenient; the floor was bare, and the
dark oak had lost its polish; the very logs in the spacious chimney
seemed damped by the cheerlessness of the room, and threw a dull red
glare over the prodigious bed, where death was silently counting the
few sands yet remaining in the upper half of his hour-glass.

As soon as he found himself seriously ill, Mr. Trevethlan had solemnly
charged his medical attendant to warn him of the first approach of