Borderland

It was a dull morning in October, with a gray sky, low-hanging clouds, and muddy lanes. The Tees Valley Hunt breakfasted that morning at Sir Thomas Winthrop’s, and the brothers,...

Otho’s arrival had been in the early part of October. The intimacy between him and Gilbert gradually increased, and the visits of the friends were not by any means confined to o...

One November evening, or rather, late in the afternoon, Otho had dropped in at the Red Gables, where he had found Gilbert and his father. Mr. Langstroth received the young man w...

One night, during the winter which followed the conversation between Otho and Gilbert, a large ball was given at a well-known house in the neighbourhood of Bradstane, and presen...

As the young men rode homewards, Michael again expressed his pleasure at Gilbert’s visit to Balder Hall. Gilbert, for his part, was meditative and rather silent during the first...

Towards the end of every hunting season, those men in Bradstane and its vicinity who belonged to the institution known as the Tees Valley Hunt, were in the habit of meeting at t...

‘On the contrary, I am very glad you have something to do with it. I have more confidence in it since you came. I daresay my reasons for disliking it may sound quite absurd. I k...

‘I wish you’d give a little particular attention to my father. It strikes me that he is not so well as he ought to be, or rather, that he’s worse than usual. I wonder if Rowntre...

‘The goddess Calamity is delicate, and ... her feet are tender. Her feet are soft, he says, for she treads not upon the ground, but makes her path upon the heads of men.’

Soon after breakfast they separated as was their wont. Roger and the doctor came and went as usual, but the November afternoon had grown to darkness before Michael returned, loo...

A November morning, five years later. The sky gray and brooding, the trees still and leafless. Everything outside betokened the drear season of the year, and even the trimly kep...

Otho’s week of freedom was over. His sister had come, and on the day following her arrival, in the afternoon, she rode with him through Bradstane town towards Balder Hall.

Miss Strangforth’s butler threw open the door of an exquisite little upstairs sitting-room, and announced Otho and Eleanor. The latter, whose whole mind had been dwelling in ant...

‘Ah, yes. Those are luxuries for the rich,’ said Magdalen, whose whole person, attire, and surroundings breathed an atmosphere of more than riches, of extravagance. ‘I may say I...

‘Miss Dixon to see you, ma’am,’ said the servant. Eleanor looked on with some interest, as Magdalen greeted the young woman who entered—greeted her in a manner which, though cor...

Michael, tired himself, threw himself on to his tired horse when he left Magdalen’s parlour, and rode down the drive and into the high-road. He had had a long and hard day, and...

Roger Camm, in the meantime, had carried himself, with his roll of music in his hand, to see his betrothed at her father’s house, and was having a less delightful time of it, pe...

It was nearly a fortnight later, and the dusk of evening crept over everything. From the window of her sitting-room, facing south, with a little inclination to west, Eleanor cou...

Michael, after leaving the cottage of the tall young woman with the sick child, and delaying a little, to let his horse drink from the beck, had safely crossed the ford which ha...

‘Look here, Michael, if you ever mean to sit still again, I should be awfully glad if you would begin to do it now, if it’s quite the same to you. A man whirring about the room,...

Three weeks of unmitigated, solid, hard work followed in Michael’s life upon these two eventful afternoons—not work of a kind to make him forget whatever transient gleam of a di...

A few days after this, the subject of the above discussion, the ‘astonishing Miss Askam,’ the new friend of the Johnson family, and the object of Dr. Rowntree’s fervent admirati...

It was two days before Christmas that this great event usually took place,—an event spoken of by Mrs. Johnson as though it had been a solemn feast, with an appointed date in the...

When Michael Langstroth went into the concert-room that night, rather late, he found the place crowded with an audience, watchful and attentive as only country audiences can be,...

When the Thorsgarth party arrived at the concert-room, before all the disturbance had taken place, Magdalen went straight to that waiting-room where the performers sat, and whic...

When the Thorsgarth carriage had driven away, and the Balder Hall one came up, Otho handed Magdalen in, followed her, shut the window, and turned to her. After the bright light...

Roger Camm, leading Ada away, went out into the passage, and stood at the door of the cloak-room, while she put on her shawl and hat, and then came out to him. Her face was stil...

The thought in Michael’s mind, of which he could not, of course, speak to Roger, was, that the girl was not worth making a great fuss about. He found it difficult to speak very...

The day after that unfortunate fracas at the mills was Christmas Day. It will easily be understood that to Roger it did not this year form the most cheerful occasion imaginable....

Gilbert had said to Roger that he was only remaining a few days longer at Thorsgarth; but as a matter of fact, he stayed till over the New Year,—being able, seemingly, to put of...

The worst of winter had stormed itself away, and it was March—the latter end of March. The leonine portion of his reign had endured a long time this year, and though it was now...

‘A strong sense of duty alone induces me to trouble you with a letter, for there is literally no news to tell you. When was there ever any in Bradstane? And just now we are dull...

Despite that cutting east wind, it was a glorious May evening. The trees and fields were coming on grandly, and the sun shone dazzlingly towards his decline, in a heaven of brig...

They left the dogcart outside the station, and Michael went in with Roger to see him off. As he stood beside the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, Roger, leaning...

The withdrawal of Crackpot from the running, on the very day before the race, made a great sensation in the world of the turf. The affair was looked upon with suspicion, especia...

peculiarly sensible to sorrow, and feels it with a keenness resembling resentment, is also very open to joy; and there were joyful influences at work in her life that summer. Mi...

It seemed as if, when Otho came in, joy went out. Eleanor, as she viewed his sinister figure, and saw his haggard countenance, felt a chill steal over her in the midst of the Au...

With Otho’s absence and silence, the uneasiness and the fears which he seemed to bring with him, like so many invisible but potent attendants, gradually died away and were lulle...

Ada had gone home, after leaving the Dower House. The maid had told Michael that Miss Dixon had gone out about eight o’clock, in her bonnet and shawl, without any breakfast, and...

It was late in the evening of the same day. Eleanor and Michael were alone together in her drawing-room. She had not been left alone all day. Unable to bear the solitude and sus...

Michael took his brother home, and so true is it that time and life can and do, if not wipe out, yet blur and deface the recollection of the sternest and most terrible past scen...

As soon as she had been able to brace herself up to it, about three weeks after Ada’s return, Eleanor had driven to Balder Hall to see Magdalen, who was, of course, acquainted w...

It was a week after the marriage, and during that week much business had been accomplished, and many plans laid. Ever since that day, a change had been perceptible in Ada—a chan...

It was July of the same year, and the time drew towards evening. The bright, westering sun was shining into the library at the Red Gables. In one of the deep window-seats, Elean...