CHAPTER I. HOW THE BLACK SHEEP CAME FORTH FROM THE FOLD. The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern.... more...

CHAPTER I THE LIGHTHOUSE BUILDERS ". . . For the sakeOf these, my kinsmen and my countrymen,Who early and late in the windy ocean toiledTo plant a star for seamen." The pirate, Ralph the Rover, so legend tells, while cruising off the coast of Scotland searching for booty or sport, sank the warning bell on one of the great rocks, to plague the good Abbot of Arbroath who had put it there. The... more...

THE FLY AND THE GAME. A knight of powder-horn and shotOnce fill'd his bag--as I would not,Unless the feelings of my breastBy poverty were sorely press'd--With birds and squirrels for the spitsOf certain gormandizing cits.With merry heart the fellow wentDirect to Mr. Centpercent,Who loved, as well was understood,Whatever game was nice and good.This gentleman, with knowing air,Survey'd the... more...

CHAPTER I Here is a story that has lain dormant for seven hundred years. At first it was suppressed by one of the Plantagenet kings of England. Later it was forgotten. I happened to dig it up by accident. The accident being the relationship of my wife's cousin to a certain Father Superior in a very ancient monastery in Europe. He let me pry about among a quantity of mildewed and musty manuscripts... more...

CHAPTER I. THE THIEVES' CORNER At the foot of the hill on which stands the Campidoglio at Rome, and close beneath the ruins that now encumber the Tarpeian rock, runs a mean-looking alley, called the Viccolo D'Orsi, but better known to the police as the 'Viccolo dei Ladri,' or 'Thieves' Corner'—the epithet being, it is said, conferred in a spirit the very reverse of... more...

JOY IN SERVICE. This is one of the sentences that dropped from the lips of Christ, which let us into his personal spiritual life and in some measure lay bare his mind. To be permitted thus to share his confidence is one of our greatest privileges. Viewing him from a distance, we may admire his character; viewing him in history, we may confess his incomparable power; viewing him when convincing us of... more...

ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA: THE GIRL OF THE SYRIAN DESERT. [Afterward known as "Zenobia Augusta, Queen of the East."] A.D. 250. MANY and many miles and many days' journey toward the rising sun, over seas and mountains and deserts,—farther to the east than Rome, or Constantinople, or even Jerusalem and old Damascus,—stand the ruins of a once mighty city, scattered over a mountain-walled oasis... more...

CHAPTER I Having resigned his commission, Washington stood not upon the order of his going, but went at once to Virginia, and reached Mount Vernon the next day, in season to enjoy the Christmas-tide at home. It was with a deep sigh of relief that he sat himself down again by his own fireside, for all through the war the one longing that never left his mind was for the banks of the Potomac. He loved... more...

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Sir Walter Scott was the third son of Walter Scott, Esq., Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, and Anne, daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, Professor of Medicine in the University of the above city. His ancestry numbers several distinguished persons; though the well-earned fame of Sir Walter Scott readers his pedigree comparatively uninteresting; inasmuch as it illustrates the saw of an olden poet, that... more...