DRIVEN FROM HOME. A boy of sixteen, with a small gripsack in his hand, trudged along the country road. He was of good height for his age, strongly built, and had a frank, attractive face. He was naturally of a cheerful temperament, but at present his face was grave, and not without a shade of anxiety. This can hardly be a matter of surprise when we consider that he was thrown upon his own resources,... more...

CHAPTER XVII. THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. In the month of August, 1099, the Crusade, to judge by appearances, had attained its object. Jerusalem was in the hands of the Christians, and they had set up in it a king, the most pious and most disinterested of the crusaders. Close to this ancient kingdom were growing up likewise, in the two chief cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, Antioch and Edessa,... more...

ORRAIN CHAPTER I THE CRY IN THE RUE DES LAVANDIERES My father, René, Vidame d'Orrain, was twice married. By his first wife he had one son, Simon, who subsequently succeeded to his title and estates, and was through his life my bitter enemy. By his second wife, whom he married somewhat late in life, he had two sons—the elder, Anne, known as the Chevalier de St. Martin from his mother's... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SCEPTER WHICH WAS A STICK The king sat in his private garden in the shade of a potted orange tree, the leaves of which were splashed with brilliant yellow. It was high noon of one of those last warm sighs of passing summer which now and then lovingly steal in between the chill breaths of September. The velvet hush of the mid-day hour had fallen. There was an endless horizon of turquoise... more...

CHAPTER I. RECOVERY.   Something I know. Oft, shall it come about    When every heart is full of hope for man,  The horizon straight is darkened, and a doubt    Clouds all. The work the youth so well began  Wastes down, and by some deed of shame is finished.    Ah, yet we will not be dismayed:  What seemed the triumph of the Fiend at length    Might be the effort of some dying... more...

Chapter I. Virgie and the Benighted Traveler. "Virgie, I shall have to give up the race." "Papa!" "My strength is failing rapidly. It was all that I could do to creep home to-night. My trembling limbs, my labored breathing, and this dreadful cough, all warn me that I must set my house in order, and make provision for your future." It was an apparently old man who spoke thus, and... more...

I If his father had been a brown bear and his mother a badger, the result in outward appearance would have been Gulo, or something very much like him. But not all the crossing in the world could have accounted for his character; that came straight from the Devil, his master. Gulo, however, was not a cross. He was himself, Gulo, the wolverine, alias glutton, alias carcajou, alias quick-hatch, alias... more...

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. Sedley was one of those characters who exert a personal fascination over their own age without leaving any works behind them to perpetuate the charm to posterity. He was the son of Sir John Sedley of Aylesford, in Kent, and was born in 1639. When the Restoration took place he repaired to London, and plunged into all the licence of the time, shedding, however, over the putrid pool... more...

How Spring was Coming. “Hallo, old Yellowbill! what’s brought you out so early?” said a fine fat thrush, one bright spring morning, stopping for a moment to look at his companion, and leaving the great broken-shelled snail he had rooted out of the ivy bush curling about upon the gravel path. “Hallo, old Yellowbill! what’s brought you out so early?” “What’s that to you, old... more...

CHAPTER I. DESPONDENCY AND CONSOLATION. Before I begin to tell you some of the things I have seen and heard, in both of which I have had to take a share, now from the compulsion of my office, now from the leading of my own heart, and now from that destiny which, including both, so often throws the man who supposed himself a mere on-looker, into the very vortex of events—that destiny which took form... more...