IN PAPPS'S RESTAURANT The interior of Papps's, like most Western restaurants, was divided into a double row of little cabins with a passage between, each cabin having a swing door. Garth Pevensey found the place very full; and he was ushered into a cubby-hole which already contained two diners, a man and a woman nearing the end of their meal. They appeared to be incoming settlers of the... more...

CHAPTER 1. DUNBAR ''Twas on a night, an evening brightWhen the dew began to fa',Lady Margaret was walking up and down,Looking over her castle wa'.' The battlements of a castle were, in disturbed times, the only recreation-ground of the ladies and play-place of the young people. Dunbar Castle, standing on steep rocks above the North Sea, was not only inaccessible on that side,... more...

Why does my heart beat so?Did not a shadow pass?It passed but a moment ago.Who can have trod in the grass?What rogue is night-wandering?Have not old writers saidThat dizzy dreams can springFrom the dry bones of the dead?And many a night it seemsThat all the valley fillsWith those fantastic dreams.They overflow the hills,So passionate is a shade,Like wine that fills to the topA grey-green cup of jade,Or... more...

The little man had a head like an old-fashioned light bulb and a smile that seemed to say he had secrets from the rest of the world. He didn't talk much, just an occasional "Oh," "Mm" or "Ah." Krayton figured he must be all right, though. After all he'd been sent to Computer City by the Information Department itself, and his credentials must have been checked in a... more...

Squeezed in between other old dingy houses down a dirty, narrow street paved with cobble-stones, and having, in place of sidewalks, gutters filled with gray slop-water, stood a house, older and dingier than the rest. It had a battered and knock-kneed look, and it leant on the houses on either side of it, as if it were unable to stand up alone. The door was just on a level with the street, and in rainy... more...

THE MIGHTY FOE One afternoon, a hundred and one years ago, old Hans took little Bettina to visit her godmother, Frau Schmidt, who lived in a red-roofed house not far from the old church of St. Michael's in Jena. Bettina loved to go to Frau Schmidt's. First, there was Wilhelm, her godmother's son, who was so good to her, and cut her toys out of wood, and told her all kinds of fine... more...

A Tale of Wild Justice. I. Beside a high-road in the extreme West of England stands a house which you might pass many times without suspecting it of a dark history or, indeed, any history worth mention. The country itself, which here slopes westward from the Mining District to Mount's Bay, has little beauty and—unless you happen to have studied it—little interest. It is bare, and it comes near... more...

A SUFFOLK PARSON. The chief aim of this essay is to present to a larger public than the readers of a country newspaper my father’s Suffolk stories; but those stories may well be prefaced by a sketch of my father’s life.  Such a sketch I wrote shortly after his death, for the great ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’  It runs thus:— “Robert Hindes Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk, was born at... more...

THE UPPER DORDOGNE. I had left the volcanic mountains of Auvergne and had passed through Mont-Dore and La Bourboule, following the course of the Dordogne that flowed through the valley with the bounding spirits of a young mountaineer descending for the first time towards the great plains where the large towns and cities lie with all their fancied wonders and untasted charm. But these towns and cities... more...

n the gray darkness the curved fangs of a saber-toothed tiger gleamed white and ghostly. The man-figure that stood half crouched in the mouth of the cave involuntarily shivered.Rawson learns to his cost that the life-spark of a fabled race glows in the black heart of a dead, Western volcano."Gwanga!" he said. "He goes, too!" But the man did not move more than to shift a club to his... more...