Historical Books

CHAPTER I. ON THE ROAD. Some winters ago I passed several weeks at Tallahassee, Florida, and while there made the acquaintance of Colonel J——, a South Carolina planter. Accident, some little time later, threw us together again at Charleston, when I was gratified to learn that he would be my compagnon du voyage as far north as New York. He was accompanied by his body-servant, "Jim," a fine... more...

Chapter I. Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides It may be, my dear grandchildren, that at one time or another I have told you nearly all the incidents which have occurred during my adventurous life. To your father and to your mother, at least, I know that none of them are unfamiliar. Yet when I consider that time wears on, and that a grey head is apt to contain a failing memory, I am prompted to... more...

THE BLACK WOLF'S BREED FOREWORD It is fitting that old men, even those whose trade is war, should end their days in peace, yet it galls me grievously to sit idly here by the fire, in this year of grace 1746, while great things go on in the world about me. The feeble hound at my feet, stretching his crippled limbs to the blaze, dreams of the chase, and bays delighted in his sleep. Nor can I do more... more...

X THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY The poet Longfellow—or was it Confucius, the inventor of wisdom?—remarked: "Life is real, life is earnest; And things are not what they seem." As mathematics are—or is: thanks, old subscriber!—the only just rule by which questions of life can be measured, let us, by all means, adjust our theme to the straight edge and the balanced column of the great goddess... more...

CHAPTER I. "You are obstinate and ungrateful. You would rather see me suffer and die, than bend your stubborn pride in the effort to obtain relief for me. You will not try to save me." The thin, hysterically unsteady voice ended in a sob, and the frail wasted form of the speaker leaned forward, as if the issue of life or death hung upon an answer. The tower clock of a neighboring church began... more...

CHAPTER I. "There is a courtesy of the heart. Is it akin to love?"—Goethe.. It is the perfection of summer, early June, before the roses have shaken off their sweetness, and Grandon Park is lovely enough to compare with places whose beauty is an accretion of centuries rather than the work of decades. Yet these grand old trees and this bluff, with a strata of rock manifest here and there, are... more...

In 1682, when I was thirty years of age and Mistress Mary Cavendish just turned of eighteen, she and I together one Sabbath morning in the month of April were riding to meeting in Jamestown. We were all alone except for the troop of black slaves straggling in the rear, blurring the road curiously with their black faces. It seldom happened that we rode in such wise, for Mistress Catherine Cavendish, the... more...

A WOMAN IN BROWN A tall, well-favoured youth, coming from the farther South, boarded the train for Richmond one raw, gusty morning. He carried his left arm stiffly, his face was thin and brown, and his dingy uniform had holes in it, some made by bullets; but his air and manner were happy, as if, escaped from danger and hardships, he rode on his way to pleasure and ease. He sat for a time gazing out of... more...

CHAPTER IHOW MR. OXENHAM SAW THE WHITE BIRD"The hollow oak our palace is,Our heritage the sea." All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for autumn floods, toward the pleasant upland on the west. Above... more...

CHAPTER I. THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA It is established beyond doubt that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time. This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers who accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word, as we shall see. And let me add here and now that however wild and irresponsible a rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he was a man of honour, incapable of... more...