Historical Books

A Mysterious Relative. It is nice to go home, even from Harton, though we may be leaving all our sports behind us. It used to be specially nice in winter; but you young fellows are made so comfortable at school nowadays that you miss one great luxury of return to the domestic hearth. Why, they tell me that the school-rooms at Harton are warmed! And I know that the Senate House at Cambridge is when men... more...

PROLOGUE And as the sturdy Pilgrim Fathers cut their perilous way through the dense and dangerous depths of the Forest Primeval for the setting up of their hearthstones, so the courageous pioneers of the desolate and treeless West were forced to fight the fury of the winds. The graves of them lie mounded here and there in the uncultivated corners of the fields, though more often one wanders across the... more...

THE MAY-DAY QUEEN This is the book of Lappo Lappi, called by his friends the careless, the happy-go-lucky, the devil-may-take-it, the God-knows-what. Called by his enemies drinker, swinker, tumbler, tinker, swiver. Called by many women that liked him pretty fellow, witty fellow, light fellow, bright fellow, bad fellow, mad fellow, and the like. Called by some women who once loved him Lapinello,... more...

CHAPTER I.  CRIMSON FAVOURS. M. de Tavannes smiled.  Mademoiselle averted her eyes, and shivered; as if the air, even of that close summer night, entering by the door at her elbow, chilled her.  And then came a welcome interruption. “Tavannes!” “Sire!” Count Hannibal rose slowly.  The King had called, and he had no choice but to obey and go.  Yet he hung a last moment over his companion,... more...

CHAPTER I A glorious midsummer day was drawing to a close; its heat had passed; the tall forest trees, whose leaves were pleasantly rustled by the cool breeze of approaching night, flung a bridge of tremulous shadows across the surface of Loch Meg, and all nature was at peace. The tiny lake, though bearing an old-world name, was of the new world, and was one of the myriad forest gems that decked the... more...

CHAPTER I THE HORSE VALLEY ADVENTURE "The first time I saw the boy, Jack Irons, he was about nine years old. I was in Sir William Johnson's camp of magnificent Mohawk warriors at Albany. Jack was so active and successful in the games, between the red boys and the white, that the Indians called him 'Boiling Water.' His laugh and tireless spirit reminded me of a mountain brook. There... more...

The Lady and Sada San ON THE HIGH SEAS. June, 1911. Mate: You once told me, before you went to Italy, that after having been my intimate relative all these years, you had drawn a red line through the word surprise. Restore the abused thing to its own at once. You will need it when the end of this letter is reached. I have left Kentucky after nine years of stay-at-home happiness, and once again I am on... more...

How Uncle Jeff came to “Roaring Water”—The situation of the farm—The inmates of the house—My sister Clarice and Black Rachel—Uncle Jeff—Bartle Won and Gideon Tuttle—Arrival of Lieutenant Broadstreet and his men—The troopers quartered in the hut—Our farm-labourers—Sudden appearance of the redskin Winnemak—His former visit to the farm—Clarice encounters him at the spring—Badly... more...

INTRODUCTORY. A shore of dull green and yellow sand dunes, beyond whose low tops a few sea-worn pines and birch trees show their heads, and at whose feet the gray sea hardly breaks in the heavy stillness that comes with the near thunder of high summer. The tide is full and nearing the turn, and the shore birds have gone elsewhere till their food is bared again at its falling. Only a few dotterels,... more...

CHAPTER I. In the year 1574 A. D. spring made its joyous entry into the Netherlands at an unusually early date. The sky was blue, gnats sported in the sunshine, white butterflies alighted on the newly-opened yellow flowers, and beside one of the numerous ditches intersecting the wide plain stood a stork, snapping at a fine frog; the poor fellow soon writhed in its enemy's red beak. One gulp—the... more...