Fiction Books

CHAPTER I.With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves,Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,She seems a sea wasp flying on the waves.Dryden.It was between the hours of ten and twelve on a fine night of February, in the year sixteen hundred and fifty-six, that three men moored a light skiff in a small bay, overshadowed by the heavy and sombre... more...

CHAPTER I GETTING IN Early in November, 1915, I sailed from New York to Rotterdam. I spent nearly a month in Holland completing my preparations, and at length one grey winter morning I took the step that I dreaded. I had left Germany six months before with a feeling that to enter it again and get safely out was hopeless, foolish, dangerous, impossible. But at any rate I was going to try. At Zevenaar,... more...

CHAPTER I. A MERCILESS ENEMY. “All tickets, please!” The blue-uniformed conductor, with a lantern under his arm, and his punch in hand, entered the smoking-car of the Boston express. It was between seven and eight o’clock on the night of the tenth of December. The train was speeding eastward through the wintry landscape of the State of Maine. Among the passengers in the smoking-car was a... more...

A PRESENT FROM CHINA It was the first thing I saw that night as I swung into my chambers. Fact is, for the moment, it was the only thing I saw. Somehow, its splash of yellow there under the shaded lamp seemed to catch my eye and hold it. I screwed my glass tight and examined the thing with interest. Nothing remarkable; just a tiny, oblong package, bearing curious foreign markings, its wrapper plainly... more...

CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION OF HEAD-DRESSES. Fig. 1 is a front view of a head-dress of Lady Arderne, (who died about the middle of the fifteenth century.) The caul of the head-dress is richly embroidered, the veil above being supported by wires, in the shape of a heart, with double lappets behind the head, which are sometimes transparent, as if made of gauze. Such gauze veils, or rather coverings for the... more...

THE BILBOES There is no doubt that our far-away grandfathers, whether of English, French, Dutch, Scotch or Irish blood, were much more afraid of ridicule than they were even of sinning, and far more than we are of extreme derision or mockery to-day. This fear and sensitiveness they showed in many ways. They were vastly touchy and resentful about being called opprobrious or bantering names; often... more...

I THE GIRL MONKEY AND THE STRING OF PEARLS One day the king went for a long walk in the woods. When he came back to his own garden, he sent for his family to come down to the lake for a swim. When they were all ready to go into the water, the queen and her ladies left their jewels in charge of the servants, and then went down into the lake. As the queen put her string of pearls away in a box, she was... more...

I An observant traveller, homing to England by the Ostend-Dover packet in the April of some five years ago, relished the vagaries of a curious couple who arrived by a later train, and proved to be both of his acquaintance. He had happened to be early abroad, and saw them come on. They were a lady of some personal attraction, comfortably furred, who, descending from a first-class carriage, was met by a... more...

CHAPTER I.—The Old House YOU may still see the old Scotch house where Randal was born, so long ago. Nobody lives there now. Most of the roof has fallen in, there is no glass in the windows, and all the doors are open. They were open in the days of Randal's father—nearly four hundred years have passed since then—and everyone who came was welcome to his share of beef and broth and ale. But now... more...

Murray’s Highland Home—A Visit from Admiral Triton—Adair and his Nephew appear—Murray appointed to the Opal, Adair First Lieutenant—Preparations for Departure—Admiral Triton and Mrs Deborah invite Mrs Murray to stay at Southsea—The Opal and her Crew—A Poetical Lieutenant—Parting between Miss Rogers and Adair—The Opal sails for the East Coast of Africa. Alick Murray had not... more...