PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. The Rev. Hugh Binning entered upon his pastoral charge at a very eventful period. He was ordained in the interval between the death of Charles I. and the coronation of his son Charles II., which took place at Scone, on the first of January, 1651. In the first year of the incumbency of Binning, the fatal battle of Dunbar was fought in different parts of Scotland; three different... more...

Retief paused before a tall mirror to check the overlap of the four sets of lapels that ornamented the vermilion cutaway of a First Secretary and Consul. "Come along, Retief," Magnan said. "The Ambassador has a word to say to the staff before we go in." "I hope he isn't going to change the spontaneous speech he plans to make when the Potentate impulsively suggests a trade... more...

I"Le Brave Belge!" The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a telegram said that general European war was inevitable; the run and jump on board the Lusitania at New York the night that war was declared by England against Germany; the Atlantic passage on the liner of ineffaceable memory, a suspense broken by fragments of war news by wireless; the arrival in England before the war was a week old;... more...

CHAPTER ONE THE HEADMASTER First of all there is the Headmaster of Fiction. He is invariably called "The Doctor," and he wears cap and gown even when birching malefactors—which he does intermittently throughout the day—or attending a cricket match. For all we know he wears them in bed. He speaks a language peculiar to himself—a language which at once enables you to recognise him... more...

At First Sight. “I muse, as in a trance, when e’er    The languors of thy love-deep eyesFloat on me. I would I were    So tranced, so wrapt in ecstasies,To stand apart, and to adore,    Gazing on thee for evermore!” I saw her first in church. Do you happen to know a quaint, dreamy old region in the west of London, which bricks and mortar have not, as yet, overtaken, nor newfangled... more...

It seems inexcusable to remind the public that one has written a book. Poppa says I ought not to feel that way about it—that he might just as well be shy about referring to the baking soda that he himself invented—but I do, and it is with every apology that I mention it. I once had such a good time in England that I printed my experiences, and at the very end of the volume it seemed necessary to... more...

A QUEER PLACE TO LIVE The village near one end of Pleasant Valley where Farmer Green often went to sell butter and eggs was not the only village to be seen from Blue Mountain. There was another which Farmer Green seldom visited, because it lay beyond the mountain and was a long distance from his house. Though he owned the land where it stood, those that lived there thought they had every right to stay... more...

Michael McGrath, Postmaster. Some men and some scenes so fasten themselves into one's memory that the years, with their crowding scenes and men, have no power to displace them. I can never forget "Ould Michael" and the scene of my first knowing him. All day long I rode, driving in front my pack-pony laden with my photograph kit, tent and outfit, following the trail that would end somewhere... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT OF THE PARISH. The ecclesiastical administration of the English parish from the period of the Reformation down to the outbreak of the great Civil War is a subject which has been much neglected by historians of local institutions. Yet during the reign of Elizabeth, at least, the church courts took as large a share in parish government as did the justices of the... more...

GUY DE MAUPASSANT—A STUDY BY POL. NEVEUX "I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the fertility of... more...