Classics Books

CHAPTER I. THE BLANKET-WASHING. Ralph Peden lay well content under a thorn bush above the Grannoch water. It was the second day of his sojourning in Galloway—the first of his breathing the heather scent on which the bees grew tipsy, and of listening to the grasshoppers CHIRRING in the long bent by the loch side. Yesterday his father's friend, Allan Welsh, minister of the Marrow kirk in the... more...

CHAPTER I "THURSTON'S FOLLY" It was a pity that Geoffrey Thurston was following in his grandfather's footsteps, the sturdy dalefolk said, and several of them shook their heads solemnly as they repeated the observation when one morning the young man came striding down the steep street of a village in the North Country. The cluster of gray stone houses nestled beneath the scarred face... more...

"Here's a letter for you, Harry," said George Howard. "I was passing the hotel on my way home from school when Abner Potts called out to me from the piazza, and asked me to bring it." The speaker was a bright, round-faced boy of ten. The boy whom he addressed was five or six years older. Only a week previous he had lost his father, and as the family consisted only of these two, he... more...

Chapter I EN ROUTE Likely enough, I would not have remained in Gafsa more than a couple of days. For it was my intention to go from England straight down to the oases of the Djerid, Tozeur and Nefta, a corner of Tunisia left unexplored during my last visit to that country—there, where the inland regions shelve down towards those mysterious depressions, the Chotts, dried-up oceans, they say, where in... more...

CHAPTER I IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINNING OF A THIRD Trumet in a fog; a fog blown in during the night by the wind from the wide Atlantic. So wet and heavy that one might taste the salt in it. So thick that houses along the main road were but dim shapes behind its gray drapery, and only the gates and fences of the front yards were plainly in evidence to the passers-by. The beach... more...

CHAPTER I IN a large and cool drawing-room of London a few people were scattered about, listening to a soprano voice that was singing to the accompaniment of a piano. The sound of the voice came from an inner room, towards which most of these people were looking earnestly. Only one or two seemed indifferent to the fascination of the singer. A little woman, with oily black hair and enormous dark eyes,... more...

Section I. INTRODUCTORY. 1. Botany is the name of the science of the vegetable kingdom in general; that is, of plants. 2. Plants may be studied as to their kinds and relationships. This study is Systematic Botany. An enumeration of the kinds of vegetables, as far as known, classified according to their various degrees of resemblance or difference, constitutes a general System of plants. A similar... more...

I. WITH THE BUCCANEERS Being an Account of Certain Adventures that Befell Henry Mostyn under Captain H. Morgan in the Year 1665-66.IAlthough this narration has more particularly to do with the taking of the Spanish Vice-Admiral in the harbor of Puerto Bello, and of the rescue therefrom of Le Sieur Simon, his wife and daughter (the adventure of which was successfully achieved by Captain Morgan, the... more...

The third night of the Marco Four's landfall on the moonless Altarian planet was a repetition of the two before it, a nine-hour intermission of drowsy, pastoral peace. Navigator Arthur Farrell—it was his turn to stand watch—was sitting at an open-side port with a magnoscanner ready; but in spite of his vigilance he had not exposed a film when the inevitable pre-dawn rainbow began to shimmer... more...

This is the story of Black Earl Roderick, the story and the song of his pride and of his humbling; of the bitterness of his heart, and of the love that came to it at last; of his threatened destruction, and the strange and wonderful way of his salvation. So shall I begin and tell. He left his gray castle at the dawn of the morning, and with many a knight to bear him company rode, not eager and swift,... more...