Category: Novels

A Man from the North

There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before schooldays a...

Chapters

19. CHAPTER XIX

Richard's eye travelled expectantly over the tanned crowd of men in flannels and gaily attired girls which lined the platform of Littlehampton station, but Adeline was not to be...

7. CHAPTER VII

Albert Jenkins was nineteen years of age, and lived with his parents and seven brothers and sisters in Camberwell; his father managed a refreshment bar in Oxford Street. He had...

9. CHAPTER IX

In the centre of the reading-room at the British Museum sit four men fenced about by a quadruple ring of unwieldy volumes which are an index to all the knowledge in the world. T...

12. CHAPTER XII

The door of the sitting-room opened, and Mr. Aked's niece stood before him, her finger on her lips and her eyebrows raised in a gesture of warning. She suddenly smiled, almost l...

16. CHAPTER XVI

On the Wednesday evening Richard took tea at the Crabtree, so that he might go down by train to Parson's Green direct from Charing Cross. The coffee-room was almost empty of cus...

26. CHAPTER XXVI

Richard had long been anticipating the advent of the New Year, when new resolutions were to come into force. A phrase from a sermon heard at Bursley stuck in his memory: _Every...

17. CHAPTER XVII

The nurse suggested that Richard should remain at Carteret Street for the rest of the night, using the sofa in the sitting-room. Contrary to his expectation, he slept well and d...

5. CHAPTER V

Mr. Curpet, of the firm of Curpet and Smythe, whose name was painted in black and white on the dark green door, had told him that the office hours were from nine-thirty to six....

8. CHAPTER VIII

Wearied of sitting, Richard folded his overcoat pillow-wise, put it under his head, and extended himself on the polished yellow wood. But in vain were his eyes shut tight. Sleep...

14. CHAPTER XIV

He distinctly made out Adeline's head and bust above him. Her white apron was pressed against the bannisters, as with extended arms and hands grasping the stair-rail she leaned...

6. CHAPTER VI

An inconstant, unrefreshing breeze, sluggish with accumulated impurity, stirred the curtains, and every urban sound--high-pitched voices of children playing, roll of wheels and...

15. CHAPTER XV

In Adeline's idiosyncrasy there was a subtle, elusive suggestion of singularity, of unexpectedness, which Richard in spite of himself found very alluring, and he correctly attri...

13. CHAPTER XIII

Every solicitor's office has its great client, whose affairs, watchfully managed by the senior partner in person, take precedence of all else, and whom every member of the staff...

27. CHAPTER XXVII

The next morning was bright with sunshine; the frost had broken, and the streets were beginning to be muddy. Richard went out, his mind empty, and dully dejected. At Sloane Stre...

28. CHAPTER XXVIII

There happened to be a room to let on the same floor as Richard's own. The rent was only five shillings per week, and he arranged to take it and use it as a bedroom, transformin...

4. CHAPTER IV

He walked home to Raphael Street. The house was dead, except for a pale light in his own room. At the top of the bare, creaking stairs he fumbled a moment for the handle of his...

25. CHAPTER XXV

The special train for Southampton, drawn up against the main-line platform at Waterloo, seemed to have resigned itself with an almost animal passivity to the onslaught of the cr...

21. CHAPTER XXI

They sat by the window and talked till the day began to fade and the lamplighter had passed up the street. Several matters of business needed discussion,--the proving of Mr. Ake...

29. CHAPTER XXIX

One Saturday afternoon towards the end of February, he suddenly decided to read through so much of the draft novel as was written; hitherto he had avoided any sort of revision....

10. CHAPTER X

In answer to his ring a girl came to the door. She was rather short, thin, and dressed in black, with a clean white apron. In the half light of the narrow lobby he made out a ma...

24. CHAPTER XXIV

They sat in the sitting-room at Carteret street. Richard had not seen her since the dinner at the vegetarian restaurant, and these were almost the first words she addressed to h...

3. CHAPTER III

Although he had visited London but once before, and then only for a few hours, he was not unfamiliar with the topography of the town, having frequently studied it in maps and an...

22. CHAPTER XXII

During that time Richard spent many evenings with Adeline, at the theatre, at concerts, and at Carteret Street. When they were going up to town, he called for her in a hansom. S...

11. CHAPTER XI

Richard's Sabbaths had become days of dismal torpor. A year ago, on first arriving in London, he had projected a series of visits to churches famous either for architectural bea...

32. CHAPTER XXXII

Sunday was stiflingly hot. At Sloane Street the roof of every Putney omnibus was already laden with passengers, and Richard on his way to Carteret Street to make the acquaintanc...

23. CHAPTER XXIII

They had been to the National Gallery; it was Saturday afternoon. Adeline said that she would go home; but Richard, not without a little trouble, persuaded her to dine in town f...

30. CHAPTER XXX

Richard was soon forced to the conclusion that the second writing of his novel was destined to be a failure. For a few days he stuck doggedly to the task, writing stuff which, a...

2. CHAPTER II

The antique four-wheeler, top-heavy with luggage, swung unsteadily round by Tattersall's and into Raphael Street. Richard thrust down the window with a sharp bang, indicative of...

20. CHAPTER XX

During the journey to town Adeline would talk of nothing but her intention to taste all the amusements which London had to offer. She asked numberless questions with the persist...

18. CHAPTER XVIII

Nearly three weeks later came the following letter from Adeline. In the meanwhile she had had a rather serious relapse, and he had seen her only once or twice for a few minutes.

31. CHAPTER XXXI

They were upon Chelsea Embankment in the late dusk of a Saturday evening in May. A warm and gentle wind stirred the budding trees to magic utterances. The long, straight line of...

1. CHAPTER I

There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that come...