Chapter I. A MYSTERIOUS MOUNTAIN Magnus minor and my brother Joe were about as chummy as two fellows who had not a single taste in common could well be. Magnus, you know, was an athlete. At least, he was in the fourth eleven, and ran regularly in the quarter-mile open handicap. He got fifty yards […]

“When I was a young fellow,” began my grandfather– There was a general silence and a settling of ourselves in our seats, as the wavering voice of the old man uttered these magical words. No one had asked him to tell a story, some of us had almost forgotten that he was sitting there in […]

Chapter I. THE PLOT It was a bold undertaking, no doubt, at our tender age, to propose to take the world by storm. But others had done it before us. We had read our Wonderful Boys and our Boyhood of Great Men carefully and critically. We had seen that Mozart had composed music at six, […]

Preface. I am always coming across old manuscripts. I am not sure of the date of the following, but I fancy it must have been written for a prize, which, strange to say, it failed to secure. The only conditions were that the story should have lots of “go” in it, that the incidents should […]

Chapter I. THE ARREST It was a ferociously hot day at the beginning of the summer vac. I, as in duty bound, had been spending my first day as a well-conducted, newly broken-up schoolboy should. Being fully impressed with the importance of combining self-improvement with all my recreations, I had been in the morning to […]

Chapter I. THE INTERRUPTED FEAST The Singletons were a small Lowland clan, or rather faction, for their name does not appear in history as a clan. For all that, they were as loyal to their king and as devoted to their chief as any clan in Scotland, and when the time for sacrifice and hard […]

Part I. A DISCOVERY What cannot one discover on an old bookstall? Who would have supposed I should have had the luck to pick up the extraordinary collection of newspaper-cuttings which are here presented to the reader? The extracts speak for themselves. They present in a moderately connected form the story of a famous epoch […]

Chapter I. ON THE TRAIL Michael McCrane had bolted! There was not a shadow of a doubt about it. The moment I reached the bank that eventful morning and saw the manager’s desk open, and the tin cash-box lying empty on the floor, I said at once to myself, “This is McCrane’s doing.” And as […]

A LEGEND OF THE CIVIL WAR. Several summers ago I happened to be spending a few weeks at W–, a small fishing village on the Welsh coast. A beautiful little place it was, nestling in a break of the cliffs which rose majestically above it on either side and stretched in gaunt rugged walls seaward. […]

During one of my terms at G– (and in speaking of that famous old school it is quite unnecessary to mention more than the first letter of its name) a serious epidemic broke out. It affected chiefly the lower half of the upper school, and during the brief period of its duration it assumed so […]

[Copy of a holiday letter from Gus. Cutaway, of the Upper Remove, Shellboro’, to his particular chum and messmate. Joseph Rackett]:– Dear Jossy,–If you want a motto in life, I’ll give you one–“‘Ware kids!” Don’t you have anything to do with kids, unless you want to lose all your pocket money, and be made a […]

THE TOWER OF THE NORTH-WEST WIND On the rugged shore of the Northern Sea, where the summer sun never sets, there stood long ago a grim bleak fortress, called the Tower of the North-West Wind. Before it stretched the sea, which thundered ceaselessly at its base, like a wolf that gnaws at the root of […]

FOREWORD. I have admired tragedy from my earliest days. I believe I must have acted in it in the nursery–at least the scenes I have in my mind appeared to me to be tragic at the time, although it was not of my own will that I participated in them. The occasions, for instance, when […]

Chapter I. Stowaways. We were spending the winter of 185–, my young brother Jack and I, with our grandfather at Kingstairs, a quiet little seaside village not a hundred miles from the Nore. I am not quite clear to this day as to why we were there–whether we were sent for a treat, or for […]

A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. We know that it always is, or should be, embarrassing to a hero to recite the history of his own exploits. So if this simple narrative strikes the reader as defective, he must excuse it for that reason. For I am in this painful position, that as no one else will […]

A SCHOOL EPISODE IN FOUR CHAPTERS. Chapter I. Consultation. The autumn term at Swishford School was more than half over, and boys were waking up to the hope that after all the Christmas holidays, which seemed such a way off six weeks ago, might yet arrive during their lifetime. It was already rumoured that Blunt, […]

Chapter I. I hardly know yet what it was all about, and at the time I had not an idea. I don’t think I was more of a fool than most fellows of my age at Draven’s, and I rather hope I wasn’t an out-and-out cad. But when it all happened, I had my doubts […]

Chapter I. THE STORY Ferriby had broken up. The rats and mice were having their innings in the schoolrooms, and the big bell was getting rusty for want of exercise. The door of the Lower Third had not had a panel kicked out of it for a whole week, and Dr Allsuch’s pictures and sofas […]

I was born a dawdler. As an infant, if report speaks truly, I dawdled over my food, over my toilet, and over my slumbers. Nothing (so I am told) could prevail on me to stick steadily to my bottle till it was done; but I must needs break off a dozen times in the course […]

It was a strange moment in the history of England when the great King Henry the Eighth. (“Bluff King Hal,” as his subjects called him) breathed his last. However popular he may have been on account of his courage and energy, he possessed vices which must always withhold from him the name of a good […]