Book 1
Book 1 - Chapter 1. I Am A Subject Of Contention
_ BOOK I CHAPTER I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION
One midnight of a winter month the sleepers in Riversley Grange were awakened by a ringing of the outer bell and blows upon the great hall-doors. Squire Beltham was master there: the other members of the household were, his daughter Dorothy Beltham； a married daughter Mrs. Richmond； Benjamin Sewis, an old half-caste butler； various domestic servants； and a little boy, christened Harry Lepel Richmond, the squire‘s grandson. Riversley Grange lay in a rich watered hollow of the Hampshire heath-country； a lonely circle of enclosed brook and pasture, within view of some of its dependent farms, but out of hail of them or any dwelling except the stables and the head-gardener‘s cottage. Traditions of audacious highwaymen, together with the gloomy surrounding fir-scenery, kept it alive to fears of solitude and the night； and there was that in the determined violence of the knocks an

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