A pixy in petticoats

The first thing John Burrough saw, when he had crossed the bog, was a crumpled newspaper lying upon the turf beside the river. He paused to regard it with a frown. Crusoe himsel...

Burrough was thirty-five, at which age most men have closed the romantic chapter of their lives. Most men also go forth as knight-errants to seek their adventures; Burrough had...

Towards evening Burrough had the vision again. In the interval he had made inquiries. Her name was Beatrice Pentreath; her home was in Cornwall; and she lived with a maiden aunt...

Like everybody else Burrough was affected by the weather, but unlike most he appreciated wind and rain. When in London he revelled in a fog. Upon Dartmoor he felt himself exhila...

When Beatrice came out to offer her morning devotions to the sun the first sight which greeted her eyes was Ann Cobbledick, her landlady. The good soul was seated upon a stool,...

Burrough reached the secret nook early. He proceeded in his methodical manner to make the place tidy, just as he would have tidied a room. He hid the sheep’s carcase beneath the...

Burrough thought he knew what Beatrice meant when she mentioned the advice she would have given to the king of Trevalyor. Cast everything aside, and work. That was her advice. S...

“Is it naughty?” her niece enquired. “Shall she suck her finger and look penitent? Well, she ain’t a going to. She’s afflicted with the blues, on account of the vagaries of this...

The next morning a letter reached Burrough containing an offer to take his cottage for the next two months at a weekly rental of three guineas. The letter came from an agent in...

Burrough was not going to be made a fool of again. Upon that point his mind was perfectly clear. He did not intend to pursue the elusive vision of Beatrice across the moor and b...

It was high noon, and the day was the first of the week. Willum Cobbledick walked out of the church and into the “Plume of Feathers.” He was wearing an old cassock, short in fro...

Beatrice had promised to meet Burrough at the moor gate on Monday morning, that they might start for Cranmere. The weather was gloriously fine. There was scarcely any breeze. A...

“Now we’re getting into the land of pixies,” quoth Beatrice, as she tried to lift a big shell which was lying sideways against a clump of heather. “This is the sixth. It must be...

An hour later two storm-tossed beings were fighting their way step by step beside the Taw river, which was there little more than a meandering crack in the peat. They were compl...

Charmingly she made room for him upon the bed of heather. She placed herself snugly between the wall and his shoulder, with her feet toasting upon the hearthstone, and merely ga...

It was early morning when Burrough awoke. He had never intended going to sleep, but drowsiness had come, and he had succumbed to it. He blinked his eyes when the clear light met...

When Miss Pentreath came down to breakfast she beheld her niece sitting in the open window, stroking Floss Cobbledick, the cottage cat. Beatrice looked as fresh as if she had be...

It was two weeks after Burrough and the dummy had been bowled over by the same projectile. The remains of the wooden man had gone to feed camp fires; those of the other were rec...

It was late when the doctor came riding over the moor. Burrough had been employing the time in trying to extract information from his nurse, but that austere person remained as...

The first beauty of the moor is young bracken, gorse is the second, and the third and best is heather. It was out at last, the pink heather, making the slopes rosy; so Beatrice...

When Burrough came into his lonely cottage the first thing that struck him was the silence. Usually the wind was sighing and moaning; the water was roaring down the gorge beneat...

It was not often that Mrs. Cobbledick had an idea, but when one did come she made the most of it. The idea of her life was butter, not that made by others--she had repeatedly re...

More than a month passed before Burrough heard anything of Beatrice. During that time he worked as hard as he could. His days were singularly monotonous. The morning he occupied...

To Burrough’s surprise and delight, another little note came in Beatrice’s quaint handwriting--each word was like a long-legged spider--the envelope postmarked Sennen, as before...

The cold wind and showers of sleet which had visited Dartmoor were the results of a storm upon the Atlantic. There had been high seas upon North Cornwall, seas which tossed the...

Even on Dartmoor the hours after noon on Saturday may not be violated by work. It is a time of beer-drinking, debt-renewing, and ballad-singing; when the heads of families are g...

It was very dark upon the moor that night. There was a cold mist, and through it came from time to time stinging snow showers which could hardly be faced, because of the bittern...