Historical Books

"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:Say, is my kingdom lost?" Shakespeare. It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile... more...

ST. BAT'S "My name is Eagle," said the little girl. The boy said nothing. "My name is Eagle," she repeated. "Eagle de Ferrier. What is your name?" Still the boy said nothing. She looked at him surprised, but checked her displeasure. He was about nine years old, while she was less than seven. By the dim light which sifted through the top of St. Bat's church he did not... more...

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CHAPTER I. The sun of an August afternoon, 1782, was yet blazing upon the rude palisades and equally rude cabins of one of the principal stations in Lincoln county, when a long train of emigrants, issuing from the southern forest, wound its way over the clearings, and among the waving maize-fields that surrounded the settlement, and approached the chief gate of its enclosure. The party was numerous,... more...

THE FUR-TRADER'S SON The son of the merchant Lecour was a handsome youth, and there was great joy in the family at his coming home to St. Elphège. For he was going to France on the morrow; it was with that object that his father had sent to town for him—the little walled town of Montreal. It was evening, early in May, of the year 1786. According to an old custom of the French-Canadians, the... more...

BOOK I FAIR WEATHER AT KINGSBOROUGH I The last day of Circuit Court was over at Kingsborough. The jury had vanished from the semicircle of straight-backed chairs in the old court-house, the clerk had laid aside his pen along with his air of listless attention, and the judge was making his way through the straggling spectators to the sunken stone steps of the platform outside. As the crowd in the... more...

Respectable-looking individual makes his bow and addresses the public. In my daily walks along the principal street of my native town, it has often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy upward, and the vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along this thoroughfare during the more than two centuries of its existence, could be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it... more...

AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a well-known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to find his wife.  She, with the children, had rambled along the shore, and Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the military-looking hall-porter ‘By Jove, how far you’ve gone!  I am quite out of breath,’ Marchmill said, rather... more...

CHAPTER I FOR reasons of my own, I excused myself from accompanying my stepmother to a dinner-party given in our neighborhood. In my present humor, I preferred being alone—and, as a means of getting through my idle time, I was quite content to be occupied in catching insects. Provided with a brush and a mixture of rum and treacle, I went into Fordwitch Wood to set the snare, familiar to hunters of... more...

TALES OF A TRAVELLER PART FIRST STRANGE STORIES BY A NERVOUS GENTLEMAN.   I'll tell you more; there was a fish taken,  A monstrous fish, with, a sword by's side, a long sword,  A pike in's neck, and a gun in's nose, a huge gun,  And letters of mart in's mouth, from the Duke of Florence.    Cleanthes. This is a monstrous lie.    Tony. I do confess it.  Do you... more...