Before You Begin

Before you begin.

On a frost-bitten December morning in 1745, a young Staffordshire yeoman goes fishing instead of watching the soldiers march by — and pulls from the millpool a pike as big as a gate-post. Before the day is out, that great jack has made him the rescuer of a hunted gentlewoman at the bridge, and Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, latinist and farmer, finds himself sworn squire to Mistress Margaret Waynflete and swept out of his quiet fields into the most dangerous adventure of the age. For the Highland army of Bonnie Prince Charlie is marching south, the whole kingdom is in arms, and a lady with a secret is worth a king's ransom to the wrong men.

George W. Gough's 1917 romance is a rousing tale of the Forty-Five told from the saddle and the hedgerow: coaching-inns and misty roads, red-coat dragoons and Highland tartan, a night's work as a highwayman, a sword-point supper with the cruel Lord Brocton, the war-council at Derby, and the bitter winter retreat over Shap. Through it all runs the oldest story of them all — a plain man learning that he loves a lady far above his station, and daring, against every odds, to be worthy of her.

It is a book to be enjoyed first as sheer adventure — the great jack, the disguises, the duels, the impossible loyalties of a losing cause — and cherished after for its warm and gallant heart.

This illustrated edition opens with a gallery of the cast, the map of Oliver's journey, and its great scenes; and as you read, the story unfolds in six visual movements — recap plates you unlock along the way, each gathering together the tale so far, with never a glimpse of what lies ahead. Turn the page, and go a-fishing on that December morning at the Hanyards.