Mr. Jervis, Volume I by B. M. Croker — Read

It was true that Mrs. Gordon and her daughters resided in a dull, out-of-the-way part of the world; but they could not help themselves. They lived at Hoyle, in the first instance, because it was cheap; and, in the second place, because living at Hoyle had now become second nature to Mrs. Gordon, and nothing short of a fire or an earthquake could remove her.

Hoyle is in the south of England, within a stone's throw of a shingly beach, and commands a full view of the white shores of France. It is an old-fashioned hamlet, at least fifty years behind the age, where the curfew is still sounded, the sight of a telegraph envelope is only interpreted as a messenger of death, and is cut off from the bustling outer world by the great expanse of Romney Marsh. In deference to this _fin de siècle_ age, a single line of rail crawls across the seaside desert, and once or twice a day a sleepy train stops just one mile short of the village. The village of Hoyle was once a chartered town, and was built many centuries before trains were invented. It was even out of the track of the lively stage-coaches, and owed its wealth and rise -- and fall -- entirely to its convenient proximity to the sea, its seclusion, its charming view of the opposite coast. Yes, its solid prosperity -- low be it spoken -- was due to smuggling. The High Street is lined by picturesque red-brick houses, which are occupied by the descendants of -- shall we say sailors? -- a well-to-do primitive, most respectable community, though from yonder upper window the present tenant's grandfather shot a preventive officer stone dead; and in the chimney of the next cottage (a most innocent-looking abode) three men who were in trouble lay concealed for a whole week. The capacious cellars of the Cause is Altered inn, were, within living memory, no strangers to bales of silk and casks of brandy.