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117 Works of Gilbert Parker

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“Swell, you see,” said Jacques Parfaite, as he gave Whiskey Wine, the leading dog, a cut with the whip and twisted his patois to the uses of narrative, “he has been alone there at the old Fort for a long time. I remember when I first see him. It was in the summer. The world […]

He lived in a hut on a jutting crag of the Cliff of the King. You could get to it by a hard climb up a precipitous pathway, or by a ladder of ropes which swung from his cottage door down the cliff-side to the sands. The bay that washed the sands was called Belle […]

I. THE SEARCH She was only a big gulf yawl, which a man and a boy could manage at a pinch, with old-fashioned high bulwarks, but lying clean in the water. She had a tolerable record for speed, and for other things so important that they were now and again considered by the Government at […]

Romany Of The Snows

Story type: Literature

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I When old Throng the trader, trembling with sickness and misery, got on his knees to Captain Halby and groaned, “She didn’t want to go; they dragged her off; you’ll fetch her back, won’t ye?–she always had a fancy for you, cap’n,” Pierre shrugged a shoulder and said: “But you stole her when she was […]

The Plunderer

Story type: Literature

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It was no use: men might come and go before her, but Kitty Cline had eyes for only one man. Pierre made no show of liking her, and thought, at first, that hers was a passing fancy. He soon saw differently. There was that look in her eyes which burns conviction as deep as the […]

The Finding Of Fingall

Story type: Literature

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“Fingall! Fingall!–Oh, Fingall!” A grey mist was rising from the river, the sun was drinking it delightedly, the swift blue water showed underneath it, and the top of Whitefaced Mountain peaked the mist by a hand-length. The river brushed the banks like rustling silk, and the only other sound, very sharp and clear in the […]

I “Read on, Pierre,” the sick man said, doubling the corner of the wolf-skin pillow so that it shaded his face from the candle. Pierre smiled to himself, thinking of the unusual nature of his occupation, raised an eyebrow as if to someone sitting at the other side of the fire,–though the room was empty […]

Little Babiche

Story type: Literature

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“No, no, m’sieu’ the governor, they did not tell you right. I was with him, and I have known Little Babiche fifteen years–as long as I’ve known you…. It was against the time when down in your world there they have feastings, and in the churches the grand songs and many candles on the altars. […]

At Point O’ Bugles

Story type: Literature

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“John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?” “What’s that, Pierre?” said Sir Duke Lawless, starting to his feet and peering round. “Hush!” was Pierre’s reply. “Wait for the rest…. There!” “King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy bugles.” Sir Duke was about to […]

The Spoil Of The Puma

Story type: Literature

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Just at the point where the Peace River first hugs the vast outpost hills of the Rockies, before it hurries timorously on, through an unexplored region, to Fort St. John, there stood a hut. It faced the west, and was built half-way up Clear Mountain. In winter it had snows above it and below it; […]

At Bamber’s Boom

Story type: Literature

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His trouble came upon him when he was old. To the hour of its coming he had been of shrewd and humourous disposition. He had married late in life, and his wife had died, leaving him one child–a girl. She grew to womanhood, bringing him daily joy. She was beloved in the settlement; and there […]

The Bridge House

Story type: Literature

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It stood on a wide wall between two small bridges. These were approaches to the big covered bridge spanning the main channel of the Madawaska River, and when swelled by the spring thaws and rains, the two flanking channels divided at the foundations of the house, and rustled away through the narrow paths of the […]

The Epaulettes

Story type: Literature

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Old Athabasca, chief of the Little Crees, sat at the door of his lodge,staring down into the valley where Fort Pentecost lay, and Mitawawahis daughter sat near him, fretfully pulling at the fringe of her finebuckskin jacket. She had reason to be troubled. Fyles the trader had puta great indignity upon Athabasca. A factor of […]

Malachi

Story type: Literature

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“He’ll swing just the same to-morrow. Exit Malachi!” said Freddy Tarlton gravely. The door suddenly opened on the group of gossips, and a man stepped inside and took the only vacant seat near the fire. He glanced at none, but stretched out his hands to the heat, looking at the coals with drooping introspective eyes. […]

“He stands in the porch of the world–(Why should the door be shut?)The grey wolf waits at his heel,(Why is the window barred?)Wild is the trail from the Kimash Hills,The blight has fallen on bush and tree,The choking earth has swallowed the streams,Hungry and cold is the Red Patrol:(Why should the door be shut?)The Scarlet […]

When Tybalt the tale-gatherer asked why it was so called, Pierre said: “Because of the Great Slave;” and then paused. Tybalt did not hurry Pierre, knowing his whims. If he wished to tell, he would in his own time; if not, nothing could draw it from him. It was nearly an hour before Pierre, eased […]

The Red Patrol

Story type: Literature

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St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, had given him its licentiate’s hood, the Bishop of Rupert’s Land had ordained him, and the North had swallowed him up. He had gone forth with surplice, stole, hood, a sermon-case, the prayer-book, and that other Book of all. Indian camps, trappers’ huts, and Company’s posts had given him hospitality, and had […]

“Why don’t she come back, father?” The man shook his head, his hand fumbled with the wolf-skin robe covering the child, and he made no reply. “She’d come if she knew I was hurted, wouldn’t she?” The father nodded, and then turned restlessly toward the door, as though expecting someone. The look was troubled, and […]

“Here now, Trader; aisy, aisy! Quicksands I’ve seen along the sayshore, and up to me half-ways I’ve been in wan, wid a double-and-twist in the rope to pull me out; but a suckin’ sand in the open plain–aw, Trader, aw! the like o’ that niver a bit saw I.” So said Macavoy the giant, when […]

A Lovely Bully

Story type: Literature

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He was seven feet and fat. He came to Fort O’Angel at Hudson’s Bay, an immense slip of a lad, very much in the way, fond of horses, a wonderful hand at wrestling, pretending a horrible temper, threatening tragedies for all who differed from him, making the Fort quake with his rich roar, and playing […]

The Filibuster

Story type: Literature

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Pierre had determined to establish a kingdom, not for gain, but for conquest’s sake. But because he knew that the thing would pall, he took with him Macavoy the giant, to make him king instead. But first he made Macavoy from a lovely bully, a bulk of good-natured brag, into a Hercules of fight; for, […]

Once Macavoy the giant ruled a tribe of Northern people, achieving the dignity by the hands of Pierre, who called him King Macavoy. Then came a time when, tiring of his kingship, he journeyed south, leaving all behind, even his queen, Wonta, who, in her bed of cypresses and yarrow, came forth no more into […]

There Was A Little City

Story type: Literature

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It lay between the mountains and the sea, and a river ran down past it, carrying its good and ill news to a pacific shore, and out upon soft winds, travelling lazily to the scarlet east. All white and a tempered red, it nestled in a valley with other valleys on lower steppes, which seemed […]

The Forge In The Valley

Story type: Literature

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He lay where he could see her working at the forge. As she worked she sang: “When God was making the world,(Swift is the wind and white is the fire)The feet of his people danced the stars;There was laughter and swinging bells, And clanging iron and breaking breath,The hammers of heaven making the hills,The vales […]

“Height unto height answereth knowledge.” His was the first watch, the farthest fire, for Shaknon Hill towered above the great gulf, and looked back also over thirty leagues of country towards the great city. There came a time again when all the land was threatened. From sovereign lands far off, two fleets were sailing hard […]

By that place called Peradventure in the Voshti Hills dwelt Golgothar the strong man, who, it was said, could break an iron pot with a blow, or pull a tall sapling from the ground. “If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgothar, “I would go and conquer Nooni, the city of our foes.” […]

The Singing Of The Bees

Story type: Literature

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“Mother, didst thou not say thy prayers last night?” “Twice, my child.” “Once before the little shrine, and once beside my bed–is it not so?” “It is so, my Fanchon. What hast thou in thy mind?” “Thou didst pray that the storm die in the hills, and the flood cease, and that my father come […]

The White Omen

Story type: Literature

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“Ah, Monsieur, Monsieur, come quick!” “My son, wilt thou not be patient?” “But she–my Fanchon–and the child!” “I knew thy Fanchon, and her father, when thou wast yet a child.” “But they may die before we come, Monsieur.” “These things are in God’s hands, Gustave.” “You are not a father; you have never known what […]

The Sojourners

Story type: Literature

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“My father, shall we soon be there?” The man stopped, and shading his eyes with his hand, looked long before him into the silver haze. They were on the southern bank of a wide valley, flanked by deep hills looking wise as grey-headed youth, a legion of close comrades, showing no gap in their ranks. […]

The Tent stands on the Mount of Lost Winters, in that bit of hospitable land called the Fair Valley, which is like no other in the North. Whence comes the soft wind that comforts it, who can tell? It swims through the great gap in the mountains, and passing down the valley, sinks upon the […]

In Pipi Valley

Story type: Literature

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“Divils me darlins, it’s a memory I have of a time whin luck wasn’t foldin’ her arms round me, and not so far back aither, and I on the wallaby track hot-foot for the City o’ Gold.” Shon McGann said this in the course of a discussion on the prosperity of Pipi Valley. Pretty Pierre […]

Antoine And Angelique

Story type: Literature

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“The birds are going south, Antoine–see–and it is so early!” “Yes, Angelique, the winter will be long.” There was a pause, and then: “Antoine, I heard a child cry in the night, and I could not sleep.” “It was a devil-bird, my wife; it flies slowly, and the summer is dead.” “Antoine, there was a […]

The Cipher

Story type: Literature

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Hilton was staying his horse by a spring at Guidon Hill when he first saw her. She was gathering may-apples; her apron was full of them. He noticed that she did not stir until he rode almost upon her. Then she started, first without looking round, as does an animal, dropping her head slightly to […]

A Tragedy Of Nobodies

Story type: Literature

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At Fort Latrobe sentiment was not of the most refined kind. Local customs were pronounced and crude in outline; language was often highly coloured, and action was occasionally accentuated by a pistol shot. For the first few months of its life the place was honoured by the presence of neither wife, nor sister, nor mother. […]

Father Corraine stood with his chin in his hand and one arm supporting the other, thinking deeply. His eyes were fixed on the northern horizon, along which the sun was casting oblique rays; for it was the beginning of the winter season. Where the prairie touched the sun it was responsive and radiant; but on […]

The Golden Pipes

Story type: Literature

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They hung all bronzed and shining, on the side of Margath Mountain–the tall and perfect pipes of the organ which was played by some son of God when the world was young. At least Hepnon the cripple said this was so, when he was but a child, and when he got older he said that […]

The Scarlet Hunter

Story type: Literature

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“News out of Egypt!” said the Honourable Just Trafford. “If this is true, it gives a pretty finish to the season. You think it possible, Pierre? It is every man’s talk that there isn’t a herd of buffaloes in the whole country; but this-eh?” Pierre did not seem disposed to answer. He had been watching […]

The Tall Master

Story type: Literature

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The story has been so much tossed about in the mouths of Indians, and half-breeds, and men of the Hudson’s Bay Company, that you are pretty sure to hear only an apocryphal version of the thing as you now travel in the North. But Pretty Pierre was at Fort Luke when the battle occurred, and, […]

Pere Champagne

Story type: Literature

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“Is it that we stand at the top of the hill and the end of the travel has come, Pierre? Why don’t you spake?” “We stand at the top of the hill, and it is the end.” “And Lonely Valley is at our feet and Whiteface Mountain beyond?” “One at our feet, and the other […]

The Crimson Flag

Story type: Literature

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Talk and think as one would, The Woman was striking to see; with marvellous flaxen hair and a joyous violet eye. She was all pulse and dash; but she was as much less beautiful than the manager’s wife as Tom Liffey was as nothing beside the manager himself; and one would care little to name […]

As deep as the sea

Story type: Literature

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“What can I do, Dan? I’m broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last debt to-day. I’ve nothing but what I stand in. I’ve got prospects, but I can’t discount prospects at the banks.” The speaker laughed bitterly. “I’ve reaped and I’m sowing, the same as you, Dan.” The other made a nervous […]

An Unpardonable Liar

Story type: Literature

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CHAPTER I. AN ECHO. “O de worl am roun an de worl am wide–O Lord, remember your chillun in de mornin!It’s a mighty long way up de mountain side,An day aint no place whar de sinners kin hide,When de Lord comes in de mornin.” With a plaintive quirk of the voice the singer paused, gayly […]

“Oh, it’s down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,With the knees pressing hard to the saddle, my men;With the sparks from the hoofs giving light to the eyes,And our hearts beating hard as we rode to the glen! “And it’s back with the ring of the chain and the spur,And it’s back with the sun […]

Three Outlaws

Story type: Literature

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The missionary at Fort Anne of the H. B. C. was violently in earnest. Before he piously followed the latest and most amply endowed batch of settlers, who had in turn preceded the new railway to the Fort, the word scandal had no place in the vocabulary of the citizens. The H. B. C. had […]

Between Archangel’s Rise and Pardon’s Drive there was but one house. It was a tavern, and it was known as Galbraith’s Place. There was no man in the Western Territories to whom it was not familiar. There was no traveller who crossed the lonely waste but was glad of it, and would go twenty miles […]

A Prairie Vagabond

Story type: Literature

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Little Hammer was not a success. He was a disappointment to the missionaries; the officials of the Hudson’s Bay Company said he was “no good;” the Mounted Police kept an eye on him; the Crees and Blackfeet would have nothing to do with him; and the half-breeds were profane regarding him. But Little Hammer was […]

A Hazard Of The North

Story type: Literature

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Nobody except Gregory Thorne and myself knows the history of the Man and Woman, who lived on the Height of Land, just where Dog Ear River falls into Marigold Lake. This portion of the Height of Land is a lonely country. The sun marches over it distantly, and the man of the East–the braggart–calls it […]

God’s Garrison

Story type: Literature

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Twenty years ago there was trouble at Fort o’ God. “Out of this place we get betwixt the suns,” said Gyng the Factor. “No help that falls abaft tomorrow could save us. Food dwindles, and ammunition’s nearly gone, and they’ll have the cold steel in our scalp-locks if we stay. We’ll creep along the Devil’s […]

“He’s too ha’sh,” said old Alexander Windsor, as he shut the creaking door of the store after a vanishing figure, and turned to the big iron stove with outstretched hands; hands that were cold both summer and winter. He was of lean and frigid make. “Sergeant Fones is too ha’sh,” he repeated, as he pulled […]

McGilveray has been dead for over a hundred years, but there is a parish in Quebec where his tawny-haired descendants still live. They have the same sort of freckles on their faces as had their ancestor, the bandmaster of Anstruther’s regiment, and some of them have his taste for music, yet none of them speak […]

The Baron Of Beaugard

Story type: Literature

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“The Manor House at Beaugard, monsieur? Ah, certainlee, I mind it very well. It was the first in Quebec, and there are many tales. It had a chapel and a gallows. Its baron, he had the power of life and death, and the right of the seigneur–you understand?–which he used only once; and then what […]

The man who died at Alma had a Kilkenny brogue that you could not cut with a knife, but he was called Kilquhanity, a name as Scotch as McGregor. Kilquhanity was a retired soldier, on pension, and Pontiac was a place of peace and poverty. The only gentry were the Cure, the Avocat, and the […]

A Fragment Of Lives

Story type: Literature

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They met at last, Dubarre, and Villiard, the man who had stolen from him the woman he loved. Both had wronged the woman, but Villiard most, for he had let her die because of jealousy. They were now in a room alone in the forest of St. Sebastian. Both were quiet, and both knew that […]

An Upset Price

Story type: Literature

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Once Secord was as fine a man to look at as you would care to see: with a large intelligent eye, a clear, healthy skin, and a full, brown beard. He walked with a spring, had a gift of conversation, and took life as he found it, never too seriously, yet never carelessly. That was […]

Medallion’s Whim

Story type: Literature

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When the Avocat began to lose his health and spirits, and there crept through his shrewd gravity and kindliness a petulance and dejection, Medallion was the only person who had an inspiriting effect upon him. The Little Chemist had decided that the change in him was due to bad circulation and failing powers: which was […]

It was soon after the Rebellion, and there was little food to be had and less money, and winter was at hand. Pontiac, ever most loyal to old France, though obedient to the English, had herself sent few recruits to be shot down by Colborne; but she had emptied her pockets in sending to the […]

Parpon The Dwarf

Story type: Literature

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Parpon perched in a room at the top of the mill. He could see every house in the village, and he knew people a long distance off. He was a droll dwarf, and, in his way, had good times in the world. He turned the misery of the world into a game, and grinned at […]

No one ever visited the House except the Little Chemist, the Avocat, and Medallion; and Medallion, though merely an auctioneer, was the only person on terms of intimacy with its owner, the old Seigneur, who for many years had never stirred beyond the limits of his little garden. At rare intervals he might be seen […]

Uncle Jim

Story type: Literature

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He was no uncle of mine, but it pleased me that he let me call him Uncle Jim. It seems only yesterday that, for the first time, on a farm “over the border,” from the French province, I saw him standing by a log outside the wood-house door, splitting maple knots. He was all bent […]

The old woodsman shifted the knife with which he was mending his fishing-rod from one hand to the other, and looked at it musingly, before he replied to Medallion. “Yes, m’sieu’, I knew the White Chief, as they called him: this was his”–holding up the knife; “and this”–taking a watch from his pocket. “He gave […]

For a man in whose life there had been tragedy he was cheerful. He had a habit of humming vague notes in the silence of conversation, as if to put you at your ease. His body and face were lean and arid, his eyes oblique and small, his hair straight and dry and straw-coloured; and […]

Mathurin

Story type: Literature

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The tale was told to me in the little valley beneath Dalgrothe Mountain one September morning. Far and near one could see the swinging of the flail, and the laughter of a ripe summer was upon the land. There was a little Calvary down by the riverside, where the flax-beaters used to say their prayers […]

Medallion put it into his head on the day that Benoit and Annette were married. “See,” said Medallion, “Annette wouldn’t have you–and quite right–and she took what was left of that Benoit, who’ll laugh at you over his mush-and-milk.” “Benoit will want flour some day, with no money.” The old man chuckled and rubbed his […]

The chest of drawers, the bed, the bedding, the pieces of linen, and the pile of yarn had been ready for many months. Annette had made inventory of them every day since the dot was complete–at first with a great deal of pride, after a time more shyly and wistfully: Benoit did not come. He […]

A Worker In Stone

Story type: Literature

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At the beginning he was only a tombstone-cutter. His name was Francois Lagarre. He was but twenty years old when he stepped into the shop where the old tombstone-cutter had worked for forty years. Picking up the hammer and chisel which the old man had dropped when he fell dead at the end of a […]

A Son Of The Wilderness

Story type: Literature

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Rachette told the story to Medallion and the Little Chemist’s wife on Sunday after Mass, and because he was vain of his English he forsook his own tongue and paid tribute to the Anglo-Saxon. “Ah, she was so purty, that Norinne, when she drive through the parishes all twelve days, after the wedding, a dance […]

“Sacre bapteme!” “What did he say?” asked the Little Chemist, stepping from his doorway. “He cursed his baptism,” answered tall Medallion, the English auctioneer, pushing his way farther into the crowd. “Ah, the pitiful vaurien!” said the Little Chemist’s wife, shudderingly; for that was an oath not to be endured by any one who called […]

The five brothers lived with Louison, three miles from Pontiac, and Medallion came to know them first through having sold them, at an auction, a slice of an adjoining farm. He had been invited to their home, intimacy had grown, and afterwards, stricken with a severe illness, he had been taken into the household and […]

I “Ask Mr. Hume to come here for a moment, Gosse,” said Field, the chief factor, as he turned from the frosty window of his office at Fort Providence, one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s posts. The servant, or more properly, Orderly-Sergeant Gosse, late of the Scots Guards, departed on his errand, glancing curiously at […]

John Enderby

Story type: Literature

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I Of all the good men that Lincolnshire gave to England to make her proud, strong and handsome, none was stronger, prouder and more handsome than John Enderby, whom King Charles made a knight against his will. “Your gracious Majesty,” said John Enderby, when the King was come to Boston town on the business of […]

Cumner’s Son

Story type: Literature

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I. THE CHOOSING OF THE MESSENGER There was trouble at Mandakan. You could not have guessed it from anything the eye could see. In front of the Residency two soldiers marched up and down sleepily, mechanically, between two ten-pounders marking the limit of their patrol; and an orderly stood at an open door, lazily shifting […]

We were camped on the edge of a billabong. Barlas was kneading a damper, Drysdale was tenderly packing coals about the billy to make the water boil, and I was cooking the chops. The hobbled horses were picking the grass and the old-man salt-bush near, and Bimbi, the black boy, was gathering twigs and bark […]

An Epic In Yellow

Story type: Literature

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There was a culminating growth of irritation on board the Merrie Monarch. The Captain was markedly fitful and, to a layman’s eye, unreliable at the helm; the Hon. Skye Terryer was smoking violently, and the Newspaper Correspondent–representing an American syndicate–chewed his cigar in silence. “Yes,” Gregson, the Member of Parliament, continued, “if I had my […]

Dibbs, R.N.

Story type: Literature

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“Now listen to me, Neddie Dibbs,” she said, as she bounced the ball lightly on her tennis-racket, “you are very precipitate. It’s only four weeks since you were court-martialed, and you escaped being reduced by the very closest shave; and yet you come and make love to me, and want me to marry you. You […]

A Little Masquerade

Story type: Literature

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“Oh, nothing matters,” she said, with a soft, ironical smile, as she tossed a bit of sugar to the cockatoo. “Quite so,” was his reply, and he carefully gathered in a loose leaf of his cigar. Then, after a pause: “And yet, why so? It’s a very pretty world one way and another.” “Yes, it’s […]

Old Roses

Story type: Literature

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It was a barren country, and Wadgery was generally shrivelled with heat, but he always had roses in his garden, on his window-sill, or in his button-hole. Growing flowers under difficulties was his recreation. That was why he was called Old Roses. It was not otherwise inapt, for there was something antique about him, though […]

My Wife’s Lovers

Story type: Literature

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There were three of them in 1886, the big drought year: old Eversofar, Billy Marshall, and Bingong. I never was very jealous of them, not even when Billy gave undoubted ground for divorce by kissing her boldly in the front garden, with Eversofar and Bingong looking on–to say nothing of myself. So far as public […]

The Stranger’s Hut

Story type: Literature

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I had come a long journey across country with Glenn, the squatter, and now we were entering the homestead paddock of his sheep-station, Winnanbar. Afar to the left was a stone building, solitary in a waste of saltbush and dead-finish scrub. I asked Glenn what it was. He answered, smilingly: “The Strangers’ Hut. Sundowners and […]

The Planter’s Wife

Story type: Literature

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I She was the daughter of a ruined squatter, whose family had been pursued with bad luck; he was a planter, named Houghton. She was not an uncommon woman; he was not an unusual man. They were not happy, they might never be; he was almost sure they would not be; she had long ceased […]

The Lone Corvette

Story type: Literature

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“And God shall turn upon them violently, and toss them like a ball into a large country.”–ISAIH. “Poor Ted, poor Ted! I’d give my commission to see him once again.” “I believe you would, Debney.” “I knew him to the last button of his nature, and any one who knew him well could never think […]

A Sable Spartan

Story type: Literature

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Lady Tynemouth was interested; his Excellency was amused. The interest was real, the amusement was not ironical. Blithelygo, seeing that he had at least excited the attention of the luncheon party, said half-apologetically: “Of course my experience is small, but in many parts of the world I have been surprised to see how uniform revolutionises […]

A Vulgar Fraction

Story type: Literature

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Sometimes when, like Mirza, I retire to my little Hill of Bagdad for meditation, there comes before me the bright picture of Hawaii with its coral-bulwarked islands and the memory of an idle sojourn on their shores. I remember the rainbow-coloured harbour of Honolulu Hilo, the simply joyous Arcadie at the foot of Mauna Loa, […]

Blithelygo and I were at Levuka, Fiji, languidly waiting for some “trader” or mail-steamer to carry us away anywhere. Just when we were bored beyond endurance and when cigars were running low, a Fijian came to us and said: “That fellow, white fellow, all a-same a-you, long a-shore. Pleni sail. Pleni Melican flag.” We went […]

An Amiable Revenge

Story type: Literature

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Whenever any one says to me that civilisation is a failure, I refer him to certain records of Tonga, and tell him the story of an amiable revenge. He is invariably convinced that savages can learn easily the forms of convention and the arts of government–and other things. The Tongans once had a rough and […]

As Sherry and I left the theatre in Mexico City one night, we met a blind beggar tapping his way home. Sherry stopped him. “Good evening,” he said over the blind man’s shoulder. “Good evening, senor,” was the reply. “You are late.” “Si, senor,” and the blind man pushed a hand down in his coat […]

A Friend Of The Commune

Story type: Literature

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“See, madame–there, on the Hill of Pains, the long finger of the Semaphore! One more prisoner has escaped–one more.” “One more, Marie. It is the life here that on the Hill, this here below; and yet the sun is bright, the cockatoos are laughing in the palms, and you hear my linnet singing.” “It turns […]

A Pagan Of The South

Story type: Literature

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When Blake Shorland stepped from the steamer Belle Sauvage upon the quay at Noumea, he proceeded, with the alertness of the trained newspaper correspondent, to take his bearings. So this was New Caledonia, the home of outcast, criminal France, the recent refuge of Communist exiles, of Rochefort, Louise Michel, Felix Rastoul, and the rest! Over […]

“Life in her creaking shoesGoes, and more formal grows,A round of calls and cues:Love blows as the wind blows.Blows!…” “Well, what do you think of them, Molly?” said Sir Duke Lawless to his wife, his eyes resting with some amusement on a big man and a little one talking to Lord Hampstead. “The little man […]

There is a town on the Nile which Fielding Bey called Hasha, meaning “Heaven Forbid!” He loathed inspecting it. Going up the Nile, he would put off visiting it till he came down; coming down, he thanked his fates if accident carried him beyond it. Convenient accidents sometimes did occur: a murder at one of […]

He lived in the days of Ismail the Khedive, and was familiarly known as the Murderer. He had earned his name, and he had no repentance. From the roof of a hut in his native village of Manfaloot he had dropped a grindstone on the head of Ebn Haroun, who contended with him for the […]

The business began during Ramadan; how it ended and where was in the mouth of every soldier between Beni Souef and Dongola, and there was not a mud hut or a mosque within thirty miles of Mahommed Selim’s home, not a khiassa or felucca dropping anchor for gossip and garlic below the mudirieh, but knew […]

“It was the schooner HesperusThat sailed the wintry sea;And the skipper had taken his little daughterTo bear him company.——————-Such was the wreck of the HesperusIn the midnight and the snow!Christ save us all from a death like this,On the reef of Norman’s woe!” Only it was not the schooner Hesperus, and she did not sail […]

Fielding Had An Orderly

Story type: Literature

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His legs were like pipe-stems, his body was like a board, but he was straight enough, not unsoldierly, nor so bad to look at when his back was on you; but when he showed his face you had little pleasure in him. It seemed made of brown putty, the nose was like india-rubber, and the […]

The Eye Of The Needle

Story type: Literature

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In spite of being an Englishman with an Irish name and a little Irish blood, Dicky Donovan had risen high in the favour of the Khedive, remaining still the same Dicky Donovan he had always been–astute but incorruptible. While he was favourite he used his power wisely, and it was a power which had life […]

In a certain year when Dicky Donovan was the one being in Egypt who had any restraining influence on the Khedive, he suddenly asked leave of absence to visit England. Ismail granted it with reluctance, chiefly because he disliked any interference with his comforts, and Dicky was one of them–in some respects the most important. […]

All The World’s Mad

Story type: Literature

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Up to thirty-two years of age David Hyam, of the village of Framley, in Staffordshire, was not a man of surprises. With enough of this world’s goods to give him comfort of body and suave gravity of manner, the figure he cut was becoming to his Quaker origin and profession. No one suspected the dynamic […]

The Man At The Wheel

Story type: Literature

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Wyndham Bimbashi’s career in Egypt had been a series of mistakes. In the first place he was opinionated, in the second place he never seemed to have any luck; and, worst of all, he had a little habit of doing grave things on his own lightsome responsibility. This last quality was natural to him, but […]

A Tyrant And A Lady

Story type: Literature

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When Donovan Pasha discovered the facts for the first time, he found more difficulty in keeping the thing to himself than he had ever found with any other matter in Egypt. He had unearthed one of those paradoxes which make for laughter–and for tears. It gave him both; he laughed till he cried. Then he […]

A Young Lion Of Dedan

Story type: Literature

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Looking from the minaret the Two could see, far off, the Pyramids of Ghizeh and Sakkara, the wells of Helouan, the Mokattam Hills, the tombs of the Caliphs, the Khedive’s palace at distant Abbasiyeh. Nearer by, the life of the city was spread out. Little green oases of palms emerged from the noisy desert of […]

He Would Not Be Denied

Story type: Literature

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“He was achin’ for it–turrible achin’ for it–an’ he would not be denied!” said Sergeant William Connor, of the Berkshire Regiment, in the sergeants’ mess at Suakim, two nights before the attack on McNeill’s zeriba at Tofrik. “Serve ‘im right. Janders was too bloomin’ suddint,” skirled Henry Withers of the Sick Horse Depot from the […]

The Flower Of The Flock

Story type: Literature

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“‘E was a flower,” said Henry Withers of the Sick Horse Depot. “A floower in front garden!” ironically responded Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer, as he lay on his back on the lower deck of the Osiris, waiting for Fielding Pasha’s orders to steam up the river. “‘E was the bloomin’ flower of the flock,” said […]

The Light Of Other Days

Story type: Literature

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I Dimsdale’s prospects had suddenly ceased by the productive marriage of a rich uncle late in life; and then his career began. He went to Egypt at the time when men who knew things had their chance to do things. His information was general and discursive, but he had a real gift for science: an […]

“Hai-yai, so bright a day, so clear!” said Mitiahwe as she entered the big lodge and laid upon a wide, low couch, covered with soft skins, the fur of a grizzly which had fallen to her man’s rifle. “Hai-yai, I wish it would last forever–so sweet!” she added, smoothing the fur lingeringly and showing her […]

“It’s got to be settled to-night, Nance, This game is up here, up forever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they’ll soon be roostin’ in this post, the Injuns are goin’, the buffaloes are most gone, and the fur trade’s dead in these parts. D’ye see?” The woman did not answer the big, […]

The Stroke Of The Hour

Story type: Literature

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“They won’t come to-night–sure.” The girl looked again toward the west, where, here and there, bare poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush, marked a road made across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red, folding up the sky a wide, soft curtain of pink and mauve and […]

Buckmaster’s Boy

Story type: Literature

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“I bin waitin’ for him, an’ I’ll git him ef it takes all winter. I’ll get him–plumb.” The speaker smoothed the barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over sunken gray eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the ledge of high rock […]

Qu’appelle

Story type: Literature

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(Who calls?) “But I’m white; I’m not an Indian. My father was a white man. I’ve been brought up as a white girl. I’ve had a white girl’s schooling.” Her eyes flashed as she sprang to her feet and walked up and down the room for a moment, then stood still, facing her mother–a dark-faced, […]

She went against all good judgment in marrying him; she cut herself off from her own people, from the life in which she had been an alluring and beautiful figure. Washington had never had two such seasons as those in which she moved; for the diplomatic circle who had had “the run of the world” […]

The arrogant Sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it, and the look of one was like a light in a window to a […]

George’s Wife

Story type: Literature

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“She’s come, and she can go back. No one asked her, no one wants her, and she’s got no rights here. She thinks she’ll come it over me, but she’ll get nothing, and there’s no place for her here.” The old, gray-bearded man, gnarled and angular, with overhanging brows and a harsh face, made this […]

Marcile

Story type: Literature

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That the day was beautiful, that the harvest of the West had been a great one, that the salmon-fishing had been larger than ever before, that gold had been found in the Yukon, made no difference to Jacques Grassette, for he was in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, living out those days which pass […]

I Athabasca in the Far North is the scene of this story–Athabasca, one of the most beautiful countries in the world in summer, but a cold, bare land in winter. Yet even in winter it is not so bleak and bitter as the districts southwest of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the […]

He came out of the mysterious South one summer day, driving before him a few sheep, a cow, and a long-eared mule which carried his tent and other necessaries, and camped outside the town on a knoll, at the base of which was a thicket of close shrub. During the first day no one in […]

Her advent to Jansen was propitious. Smallpox in its most virulent form had broken out in the French-Canadian portion of the town, and, coming with some professional nurses from the East, herself an amateur, to attend the sufferers, she worked with such skill and devotion that the official thanks of the Corporation were offered her, […]

“In all the wide border his steed was the best,” and the name and fame of Terence O’Ryan were known from Strathcona to Qu’appelle. He had ambition of several kinds, and he had the virtue of not caring who knew of it. He had no guile, and little money; but never a day’s work was […]

The Error Of The Day

Story type: Literature

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The “Error of the Day” may be defined as the “The difference between the distance or range which must be put upon the sights in order to hit the target and the actual distance from the gun to the target.”–Admiralty Note. A great naval gun never fires twice alike. It varies from day to day, […]

The Whisperer

Story type: Literature

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“And thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.” The harvest was all in, and, […]