Fiction Books

Proem. There is a beautiful Northern legend of a man who loved a good fairy, and wooed her and won her for his wife, and then found that she was no more than a woman after all. Grown weary, he turned his back upon her and wandered away over the mountains; and there, on the other side of a ravine from where he was, he saw, as he thought, another fairy, who was lovely to look upon and played sweet music... more...

A NOTABLE QUARTETTE WANTED.—One Thousand cheerful toughs to enlist for the period of the war in the Kangaroo Marines. Boosers, scrimshankers and loonies barred. Gents with big waists and little hearts are warned off. Sharpshooters on the wallaby, able to live on condensed air and boiled snakes, are cordially invited. No parson's references are required. Jackaroos, cattlemen, rouseabouts,... more...

Our Saviour. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had been quietly living for many years at His father's home in Nazareth when John the Baptist began to preach and prepare the people for His coming, as it had been foretold by an Angel before His birth that he should do, and we are told that all the land of Judea, and the people of Jerusalem, roused by his preaching, went to be baptized by him in the... more...

THE AULD ENEMY.“Near a Border frontier, in the time of war,There’s ne’er a man, but he’s a freebooter.”—Satchells.  here are few more remarkable phenomena in the political or social life of Scotland than what is familiarly known as “Border Reiving.” In olden times it prevailed along the whole line of the Borders from Berwick to the Solway, embracing the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh,... more...

A WINTER COURTSHIP. The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in entire solitude, except for the limp leather... more...

CHAPTER I READY FOR FIGHT OR FROLIC "Do you care to go out this evening, Danny boy?" asked Dave Darrin, stepping into his chum's room. "I'm too excited and too tired," confessed Ensign Dalzell. "The first thing I want is a hot bath, the second, pajamas, and the third, a long sleep." "Too bad," sighed Dave. "I wanted an hour's stroll along... more...

CHAPTER I. Early Life and Professional Struggles. My father, an officer in the Hanoverian Army, having died while I was almost a child, I found myself, at the age of 17, governess in the family of the Baron Grovestein in Hamburg, Germany, where I met my present husband, Gustav Schroeder, at that time one of the most "eligible" young gentlemen in that city. Though not particularly handsome,... more...

CHAPTER I “ Ostable!” screamed the brakeman,opening the car door and yelling his loudest, so as to be heard above the rattle of the train and the shriek of the wind; “Ostable!” The brakeman’s cap was soaked through, his hair was plastered down on his forehead, and, in the yellow light from the car lamps, his wet nose glistened as if varnished. Over his shoulders the shiny ropes of rain... more...

CHAPTER I. Buckskin The town lay sprawled over half a square mile of alkali plain, its main Street depressing in its width, for those who were responsible for its inception had worked with a generosity born of the knowledge that they had at their immediate and unchallenged disposal the broad lands of Texas and New Mexico on which to assemble a grand total of twenty buildings, four of which were of... more...

CHAPTER I By easy stages Blue Jeans had arrived at the water tanks. That had not pleased him much, though the water which fell in a musical drip from the stack nearest the rails into what impressed one as a sensible, frugal tub, until it, too, filled and overflowed and betrayed its trivial nature, was sweet on his tongue and grateful to his mare. Arriving anywhere by easy stages had never appealed to... more...