Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Athelstane Ford
Für wen es gedacht ist
Readers who love sea voyages, swordplay and sieges, and those drawn to the early days of British India. It also suits anyone who enjoys a first-person tale of love, rivalry and a runaway's road home.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Athelstane Ford is an adventure novel by Allen Upward, who died in 1926. An old man tells it in the first person, looking back on his youth in eighteenth century Norfolk. As a boy he runs away from his strict father's farm and is carried through pirate taverns, a king's warship, a duel at sea and the quarrels of Bengal, in the years when the East India Company grew into a power in India.
You will meet real figures such as Robert Clive, Admiral Watson and the young Nabob Surajah Dowlah, set beside invented ones. There is a scheming cousin, a one-eyed boatswain with a soft heart, and a woman whom both cousins love. The siege of Gheriah, the fall of Calcutta, the Black Hole and the road to Plassy form the backbone of a personal tale of rivalry, love and a son's guilt.
In this summary you get the story in order, then what it is about and how it is told. The ending is kept apart for those who want it. Let us begin on a quiet evening beside Breydon Water, where a restless boy watches the lights of Yarmouth and a horseman comes riding toward him across the wet grass.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A restless boy meets his dangerous cousinFree
- 2A secret flight and a tavern of rogues
- 3A duel in a rocking boat
- 4Clive's ship and the pirate fortress
- 5Calcutta darkens as the Nabob marches
- 6The Black Hole and a captive at court
- 7Clive returns and the plot against the Nabob
- 8Guilt, forgiveness and two cousins
- 9How the old man tells his tale
Punkt 1 von 9
A restless boy meets his dangerous cousin
Athelstane Ford lives at Brandon Grange, a freehold farm near Breydon Water in Norfolk. His father is a stern Independent who reads long chapters of Scripture and speaks little. His mother is gentle, keeps medicine for the sick, and cares only whether a person is Christian or heathen. Each evening the boy walks the dyke and watches the spire of Yarmouth glow, like a gateway to a larger world.
His father has been bargaining with a Norwich wool merchant, Mr. Peter Walpole, to take the boy as an apprentice. The two honest men cannot agree about fifty pounds, so nothing is settled. Athelstane grows more impatient every week. Then his cousin Rupert rides up on a black mare.
Rupert is nearly ten years older and the son of a rich brewer from Lynn. He has a name for wildness, and the family tells how he once paid a gentleman's rate for a swearing fine by laying a silver crown on the table. Athelstane admires him with a mixture of awe and fear. At supper Rupert says only that he spent three years sailing round the Cape to the trading posts of the East India Company.
Upstairs, in the bed the cousins share, he drops his guard. He has a berth to offer on the Fair Maid, lying in the Yarmouth river, and she will sail again for the East Indies with letters of marque against the French. He promises that each of them will come home with a thousand pounds. When Athelstane asks whether she is a privateer, Rupert answers that the king signed the commission, though he admits that captured Frenchmen sometimes lost their lives so they could not tell tales.
Athelstane shudders, yet the fascination is stronger than the dread. He agrees to slip away the next night and meet his cousin at a Yarmouth tavern called the Three-decker. Rupert presses a gold guinea into his hand as a token and falls asleep. The boy lies awake far into the night, dreaming of great deeds.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Athelstane Ford
What is Athelstane Ford about?
It tells how a young Norfolk man runs away from home, falls in with privateers, and is swept into the struggle for Bengal. Love, rivalry with his cousin and loyalty to Clive drive the tale.
Is Athelstane Ford a true story?
No, it is a novel. Athelstane and his cousin are invented, but Robert Clive, Admiral Watson, Surajah Dowlah, Meer Jaffier, the siege of Gheriah, the Black Hole and Plassy are real parts of history.
Who is Rupert Gurney?
Rupert is Athelstane's older cousin, a charming and ruthless seaman who recruits the boy for the Fair Maid, a privateer bound for the East Indies. He is both a model and a rival for Athelstane and for Marian.
What is the Black Hole in the story?
It is the tiny cell in Fort William, Calcutta, where the Nabob's guards lock the English prisoners overnight. Athelstane survives it and tells the experience in a series of vivid scenes.
Is Athelstane Ford easy to follow?
Yes, for the most part, since short chapters, a clear first-person voice and lively dialogue carry the story. The narrator explains the geography and the politics as he goes, so a reader needs no background.