CHAPTER I. THE CALL OF SPRING "Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk think." The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the Ridge Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown... more...

It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove, where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was borne in the fair spring of the year. The... more...

I ON THE GARDEN WALL They were sitting astride on the top of the old garden wall. Below them on the one side stretched a sweet old-fashioned English garden lying in the blaze of an August sun. In the distance, peeping from behind a wealth of creepers and ivy was the old stone house. It was at an hour in the afternoon when everything seemed to be at a standstill: two or three dogs lay on the soft green... more...

The Derelict Link Ferris was a fighter. Not by nature, nor by choice, but to keep alive. His battleground covered an area of forty acres—broken, scrubby, uncertain side-hill acres, at that. In brief, a worked-out farm among the mountain slopes of the North Jersey hinterland; six miles from the nearest railroad. The farm was Ferris's, by right of sole heritage from his father, a Civil-War... more...

PART FIRST I The third act of L'Africaine had just come to a close. The minister, on leaving the manager's box, said smilingly, like a man glad to be rid of the cares of State: "Let us go to the greenroom, Granet, shall we?" "Let us go to the greenroom, as your Excellency proposes!" They were obliged to cross the immense stage where the stage carpenters were busy with the... more...

CHAPTER I He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of old New York—he had heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a young New York, the mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack... more...

CHAPTER I The Fifth Day of April, 1676 Upon the village of Camylott there had rested since the earliest peep of dawn a hush of affectionate and anxious expectancy, the very plough-boys going about their labours without boisterous laughter, the children playing quietly, and the good wives in their kitchens and dairies bustling less than usual and modulating the sharpness of their voices, the most... more...

CHAPTER I. A FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT. Just at sunset, one bright spring day, the car that plies up and down the inclined plane leading from the foot of Main street up the hills to the Zoological Gardens, of Cincinnati, started to make the ascent with its load of precious human freight. The car was full of passengers, though not crowded, while among the occupants there were several young people, whose bright... more...

CHAPTER I The Sphinx was smiling its eternal smile. It was two o'clock in the morning. The tourists had returned to Cairo, and only an Arab or two lingered near the boy who held Tamara's camel, and then gradually slunk away; thus, but for Hafis, she was alone—alone with her thoughts and the Sphinx. The strange, mystical face looked straight at her from the elevation where she sat. Its... more...

It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August--the most terrible August in the history of the world. One might have thought already that God's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the sultry and stagnant air. The sun had long set, but one blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the distant west. Above, the... more...