“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

“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.” […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]