The fugitive lay face down in the fetid undergrowth, drawing in spasmodic lungfuls of air through cracked and swollen lips. Long before, his blue workshirt had been ripped to ribbons and his exposed chest showed a spiderwork of scratches, where branches and brambles had sought to restrain him in his frenzied flight. Across his back from shoulder to shoulder ran a deeper cut around which the caked blood... more...

PROLOGUE Come, sit with me beside the broad hearthstone and gaze into the depths of the fire when it burns low, for not among the leaping flames alone are there to be seen marvelous things. Deep hidden from your eyes at first, but plainly visible as you look closer, are countless forms of brightness and of beauty. You will find them among the shining coals that glimmer in scarlet and gold before you... more...

BRISTOL CATHEDRAL. BRISTOL CATHEDRAL. An Augustinian monastery, founded by Robert Fitzhardinge in 1142, had its church, of Norman architecture, to which additions were made in the early English period. When Edmund Knowle was abbot, from 1306 to 1332, the Norman choir was replaced by that which now exists. His successor, Abbot Snow, built the chapels on the south side of the choir. Abbot Newland,... more...

OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS. Whoever severs himself from Mother Earth and her flowing sources of life goes into exile. A vast part of civilization has ceased to feel the deep relation with our mother. How they hasten and fall over one another, the many thousands of the great cities; how they swallow their food, everlastingly counting the minutes with cold hard faces; how they dwell packed together, close... more...

Chapter I The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest—who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. Afterward, some beast or other, following the faint tracks over marsh and moorland, wearing them deeper; after these again some Lapp gained scent of the path, and took that way from field to field, looking to his... more...

CHAPTER I. The long June day was drawing to its close. Hot and strong the slanting sunbeams beat upon the grimy roofs of the train and threw distorted shadows over the sand and sage-brush that stretched to the far horizon. Dense and choking, from beneath the whirring wheels the dust-clouds rose in tawny billows that enveloped the rearmost coaches and, mingling with the black smoke of the... more...

CHAPTER I A pretty girl looked out of the low-silled coffee-room window of the Quorn Arms at Great Bunbury, and threw a glance of roguish invitation at a watchful young man who was pretending to be busy in the courtyard. Then she disappeared. The young man lost no time in throwing down his broom, and, with a manifestly assumed air of indifference, approached the window. He looked in warily, then... more...

The letter came down the slot too early that morning to be the regular mail run. Pete Greenwood eyed the New Philly photocancel with a dreadful premonition. The letter said: Peter:Can you come East chop-chop, urgent?Grdznth problem getting to be a PRoblem, needexpert icebox salesman to get gators out of hair fast.Yes? Math boys hot on this, citizens not so hot.Please come. Tommy Pete tossed the letter... more...

PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY. A heavy curtain of yellow fog rolled and drifted over the waste of beach, and rolled and drifted over the sea, and beneath the curtain the tide was coming in at Downport, and two pair of eyes were watching it. Both pair of eyes watched it from the same place, namely, from the shabby sitting-room of the shabby residence of David North, Esq., lawyer, and both watched it without... more...

On July 1, 1776, the Continental Congress of the American Colonies faced one of the most important crises this country has ever passed through. Upon what happened that night depended the fate of the resolution before Congress which declared that: "These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and... more...