Fiction Books

CHAPTER I—START IN LIFE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull.  He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom... more...

I was born at York on the first of March in the sixth year of the reign of King Charles the First. From the time when I was quite a young child, I had felt a great wish to spend my life at sea, and as I grew, so did this taste grow more and more strong; till at last I broke loose from my school and home, and found my way on foot to Hull, where I soon got a place on board a ship. When we had set sail... more...

he telephone wouldn't stop ringing. Over and over it buzzed into my sleep-fogged brain, and I couldn't shut it out. Finally, in self-defense I woke up, my hand groping for the receiver. "Hello. Who is it?" "It's me, Don. Jack Anderson, over at the factory. Can you come down right away?" His voice was breathless, as if he'd been running hard. "What's the... more...

Chapter I BANG! Bang! The pistol shots were almost simultaneous. A cow peacefully grazing fifty yards away received one of the bullets in her back. She had nothing to do with the quarrel all the same. Neither of the adversaries was hit. Who were these two gentlemen? We do not know, although this would be an excellent opportunity to hand down their names to posterity. All we can say is that the elder... more...

ON ROCKHAVEN "It ain't more'n onct in a lifetime," said Jess Hutton to the crowd of friends in his store, "that luck comes thick 'n' fat to any on us 'n' so fer that reason I sent over to the mainland fer suthin' o' a liquid natur; 'n' now take hold, all hands, 'n' injie yerselves on Jess." With that he began setting forth upon... more...

CHAPTER I A WAIF OF THE NIGHT Parson Dan chuckled several times as he sipped his hot cocoa before the fire. It was an open fire, and the flames licked around an old dry root which had been brought with other driftwood up from the shore. This brightly-lighted room was a pleasing contrast to the roughness of the night outside, for a strong late October wind was careening over the land. It swirled about... more...

CHAPTER I. IN ST. JACOB STRAAT. "The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life." "It is the Professor von Holzen," said a stout woman who still keeps the egg and butter shop at the corner of St. Jacob Straat in The Hague; she is a Jewess, as, indeed, are most of the denizens of St. Jacob Straat and its neighbour, Bezem Straat, where the fruit-sellers live—"it is the Professor von... more...

CHAPTER I. Rowland Mallet had made his arrangements to sail for Europe on the first of September, and having in the interval a fortnight to spare, he determined to spend it with his cousin Cecilia, the widow of a nephew of his father. He was urged by the reflection that an affectionate farewell might help to exonerate him from the charge of neglect frequently preferred by this lady. It was not that the... more...

With her white cotton canvas swelling gently out and then softly drooping flat against her cordage, the Shawnee, sperm whaler of New Bedford, with the dying breath of the south-east trade, was sailing lazily over a sea whose waters were as calm as those of a mountain lake. Twenty miles astern the lofty peaks of Tutuila, one of the islands of the Samoan group, stood out clearly in the dazzling sunshine,... more...

RODMAN THE KEEPER.The long years come and go,And the Past,The sorrowful, splendid Past,With its glory and its woe,Seems never to have been.—Seems never to have been?O somber days and grand,How ye crowd back once more,Seeing our heroes' graves are greenBy the Potomac and the Cumberland,And in the valley of the Shenandoah!When we remember how they died,—In dark ravine and on the mountain-side,In... more...