Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. THE NIGHT OF THE BEACONS. It is strange to me, Jock Calder of West Inch, to feel that though now, in the very centre of the nineteenth century, I am but five-and-fifty years of age, and though it is only once in a week perhaps that my wife can pluck out a little grey bristle from over my ear, yet I have lived in a time when the thoughts and the ways of men were as different as though it were... more...

His face red with haste, and his blue eyes glittering, Dan Holcomb burst into the laboratory. "Just look at this, Lucile!" he cried, flinging his hat halfway across the room, and almost dancing in his joy. "Lord! Look at this, will you!" Lucile Travers glanced up from her Bunsen burner, and stared in surprise at Dan's six-foot bulk. She was used to her lover's flaming... more...

It was characteristic of Mr. Philip Quentin that he first lectured his servant on the superiority of mind over matter and then took him cheerfully by the throat and threw him into a far corner of the room. As the servant was not more than half the size of the master, his opposition was merely vocal, but it was nevertheless unmistakable. His early career had increased his vocabulary and his language was... more...

The FIRST Chapter It was once my good fortune to assist in a discovery of some importance to lovers of literature, and to searchers after the new and wonderful. As nearly a quarter of a century has since elapsed, and as two others shared in the discovery, it may seem to the reader strange that the general public has been kept in ignorance of an event apparently so full of interest. Yet this silence is... more...

CHAPTER ONE. Cormac's Fore-Elders. Harald Fairhair was king of Norway when this tale begins. There was a chief in the kingdom in those days and his name was Cormac; one of the Vik-folk by kindred, a great man of high birth. He was the mightiest of champions, and had been with King Harald in many battles. He had a son called Ogmund, a very hopeful lad; big and sturdy even as a child; who when he... more...

INTRODUCTION. As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official description prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to address myself, such attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth, and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a candle to the daylight, or to point out... more...

INTRODUCTION A VOYAGE TO NEW SOUTH WALES SECTION I Transports hired to carry convicts to Botany BayThe Sirius and the Supply commissionedPreparations for sailingTonnage of the transportsPersons left behindTwo convicts punished on board the Sirius The Hyaena leaves the FleetArrival of the fleet at TeneriffeProceedings at that islandSome particulars respecting the town of Santa CruzAn excursion made to... more...

It is well known to every man conversant with the earlier history of this country that, shortly subsequent to the cession of the Canadas to England by France, Ponteac, the great head of the Indian race of that period, had formed a federation of the various tribes, threatening extermination to the British posts established along the Western frontier. These were nine in number, and the following... more...

CHAPTER I THE VOICE OF THE WILDERNESS "It's always the way, Wallace! When a fellow starts on the long trail, he's never willing to quit. It'll be the same with you if you go with me to Labrador. When you come home, you'll hear the voice of the wilderness calling you to return, and it will lure you back again." It seems but yesterday that Hubbard uttered those prophetic words... more...

CHAPTER I Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln, had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are... more...