Fiction Books

BOOK ONE SMOKE I THE HESITATING STEP To have reared a towering schemeOf happiness, and to behold it razed,Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopesFrustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;But— A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it—clouds heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly, desperately,... more...

ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. It was eleven o'clock at night when Surgeon Wyley of His Majesty's ship Bonetta washed his hands, drew on his coat, and walked from the hospital up the narrow cobbled street of Tangier to the Main-Guard by the Catherine Port. In the upper room of the Main-Guard he found Major Shackleton of the Tangier Foot taking a hand at bassette with Lieutenant Scrope of Trelawney's... more...

CHAPTER I Events have moved so rapidly in our little town of St. Ia, that it is difficult to set them down with the clearness they deserve. We Cornish people are an imaginative race, just as all people of a Celtic origin are, but we never dreamed of what has taken place. One week we were sitting idly in our boats in the bay, the next our lads had heard the call of their country, and had hurried away in... more...

Melsh Dick is the last survivor of our woodland divinities. His pedigree reaches back to the satyrs and dryads of Greek mythology; he claims kinship with the fauns that haunted the groves of leafy Tibur, and he lorded it in the green woods of merry England when The woodweele sang and wold not cease,Sitting upon the spraye,Soe lowde he wakened Robin HoodIn the greenwood where he lay. But he has long... more...

Chapter One. The “Stella Maris” and Mrs Vansittart. “Well, young man, what do you think of her?” The question was addressed to me in a very pleasantly modulated female voice, carrying just the slightest suspicion of an American accent. For the fraction of a second I was a wee bit startled. I had not had the ghost of a suspicion that anyone was nearer me than the gang of labourers who were... more...

THE FROST-KING:OR,THE POWER OF LOVE. THREE little Fairies sat in the fields eating their breakfast; each among the leaves of her favorite flower, Daisy, Primrose, and Violet, were happy as Elves need be. The morning wind gently rocked them to and fro, and the sun shone warmly down upon the dewy grass, where butterflies spread their gay wings, and bees with their deep voices sung among the flowers;... more...

CHAPTER I Outside one of the park gates there was a little house. In the prosperous days of the La Sarthe it had been the land steward's—but when there was no longer any land to steward it had gone with the rest, and for several years had been uninhabited. One day in early spring Halcyone saw smoke coming out of the chimney. This was too interesting a fact not to be investigated; she resented... more...

The Ability to communicate ideas from one individual to another," said a professor of sociology to his class, "is the principal distinction between human beings and their brute forbears. The increase and refinement of this ability to communicate is an index of the degree of civilization of a people. The more civilized a people, the more perfect their ability to communicate, especially under... more...

We have our prejudices in England.  Or, if that assertion offends any of my readers, I will modify it: we have had our prejudices in England.  We have tortured Jews; we have burnt Catholics and Protestants, to say nothing of a few witches and wizards.  We have satirized Puritans, and we have dressed-up Guys.  But, after all, I do not think we have been so bad as our Continental friends.  To be... more...

THE RIDER OF THE BLACK HORSE The trail from the Diamond K broke around the base of a low hill dotted thickly with scraggly oak and fir, then stretched away, straight and almost level (except for a deep cut where the railroad gang and a steam shovel were eating into a hundred-foot hill) to Manti. A month before, there had been no Manti, and six months before that there had been no railroad. The railroad... more...