Fiction Books

THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE THE FIRST ACT As the curtain ascends, Rogers and Manson are discovered laying the table for breakfast, the lad being at the upper end of the table, facing the audience, Manson, with his back to the audience, being at the lower end. Rogers is an ordinary little cockney boy in buttons; Manson is dressed in his native Eastern costume. His face is not seen until the point indicated... more...

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AT half-past eight they drove out of the town. The highroad was dry, a lovely April sun was shining warmly, but the snow was still lying in the ditches and in the woods. Winter, dark, long, and spiteful, was hardly over; spring had come all of a sudden. But neither the warmth nor the languid transparent woods, warmed by the breath of spring, nor the black flocks of birds flying over... more...

CHAPTER I "As well give up the Bible at once, as our belief in apparitions."—Wesley. The house cried out to me for help. In the after-knowledge I now possess of what was to happen there, that impression is not more clearly definite than it was at my first sight of the place. Let me at once set down that this is not the story of a haunted house. It is, or was, a beleaguered house; strangely... more...

ACT I Scene—The Thuilleries. Barrere.The tempest gathers—be it mine to seekA friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him.But where? and how? I fear the Tyrant'ssoul—Sudden in action, fertile in resource,And rising awful 'mid impending ruins;In splendor gloomy, as the midnight meteor,That fearless thwarts the elemental war.When last in secret conference we met,He scowl'd upon me with... more...

1. HOW THE BRIGADIER CAME TO THE CASTLE OF GLOOM[] You do very well, my friends, to treat me with some little reverence, for in honouring me you are honouring both France and yourselves. It is not merely an old, grey-moustached officer whom you see eating his omelette or draining his glass, but it is a fragment of history. In me you see one of the last of those wonderful men, the men who were veterans... more...

1. The Brotherhood of the Door An amazing weird mystery story, packed with thrills, danger and startling events."Where leads the Door?" "It leads outside our world." "Who taught our forefathers to open the Door?" "They Beyond the Door taught them." "To whom do we bring these sacrifices?" "We bring them to Those Beyond the Door." "Shall the Door be... more...

I Run With the Fox Better to be proud and huntedThan to ride with the Pink Coats. Better than the smell of warm blood after a quick kill, Bitter and bright the scent of hidden fern. Though the heart fail in the panting sideAnd the eye be clouded with strainingafter the deep copseStill is there thrill in flight —Soft are oak leaves under the swift feet. Sweet are the distant notes of the hunter's... more...

I. I woke up very gradually this morning, and it took me a little while to bethink myself where I had slept—that it had not been in my own room in the Cromwell Road. I lay a-bed, with eyes half-closed, drowsily look looking forward to the usual procession of sober-hued London hours, and, for the moment, quite forgot the journey of yesterday, and how it had left me in Paris, a guest in the smart new... more...

IN THE MAYOR'S PARLOUR THE MAYOR'S PARLOUR Hathelsborough market-place lies in the middle of the town—a long, somewhat narrow parallelogram, enclosed on its longer side by old gabled houses; shut in on its western end by the massive bulk of the great parish church of St. Hathelswide, Virgin and Martyr, and at its eastern by the ancient walls and high roofs of its mediæval Moot Hall. The... more...

I. My name is Louis Roubien. I am seventy years old. I was born in the village of Saint-Jory, several miles up the Garonne from Toulouse. For fourteen years I battled with the earth for my daily bread. At last, prosperity smiled on we, and last month I was still the richest farmer in the parish. Our house seemed blessed, happiness reigned there. The sun was our brother, and I cannot recall a bad crop.... more...