Changeling, and Other Stories

"'I 'm not a hard man. I 'm just a man sworn in to do my job. I 'm just a man a big trust's been put in, and I can't fall down. Sis, you missed your chance,' I told her. 'You ou...

"The opportunity is opportune only now." Like some strange gargoyle in an old cathedral the great animal appeared. His eyes, under their threatening hoods, were black and beady...

Around the king's house the little winds of springtime hovered, the little moon of May was in the air. Came the rustle of the grasses, and the minor of the frogs, and the barkin...

He found her in the boarding-house--a trim and rather pale girl, who acted as though she were twenty and looked twenty-eight, but whom the Vital Statistics Bureau had registered...

Now by the ordinance of time and nature the old earl was quietly gathered to his forbears--to Gilles de Kyteler, who came over to Ireland with Strongbow; to Piers Kyteler, who c...

To him the whole conversation, the whole setting, the whole event, was unreal as ghosts are unreal, or objects on a foggy night. Here was this woman, who had been so nigh to him...

"How many have I killed, except in defense? Is it sport for me to leave the cool, moonlit glades, and come to the hot cities to kill men? If I want fighting, are there not the w...

And when Mr. Valance, her husband, had died, for her had come, she thought, the end of the world. Yet now all she could remember were the peace and trust in his quiet face, when...

She put out her hands--she knew not for what reason, perhaps to thrust him away--her slim white hands in the dusk. He seized them. Once again she throbbed from head to foot, and...

"I 'll lay two to one the field," a booky was shouting. His eyes were all but out of his cheeks. His shoulders hunched with effort. His voice exploded as though thrown against a...

"'Kneel down, McCarthy, and give me your hands.' I kneel and give her my hands without protest--her voice is so commanding, so sincere. And there is a strange thing between us n...

No, but his son might have. Sure, why could n't he? Wasn't he reared right among them? And though he came from a superior house, sure, that would only be an advantage. They woul...

Twenty years ago! Could it have been only twenty years ago that he had met and married and parted from Reynardine? It was so misty, so vague, he had come to think of it as centu...

There was the incident in Mombasaland when the fiendish natives had captured a lone hunter of ivory, had crucified him on the ground, smeared with honey for the ants, delirious...

"Ay, and there was others. There was a crowd of reckless fellows in the days before the flood--or after it; I don't know which--and they came from heaven to court the daughters...

He pushed aside the little gate in front of the garden and though he knocked at the door, he tried it, so impatient was he for entry, and finding it on the latch, he opened it a...

They had taken him into a cool corner of the temple, and when she saw him there was no longer doubt in her, or--or hope. He lay there with a great dignity, a new majesty, all th...

A sinister grin passed over Morgan's face. Of a sudden he felt diabolical. Others might respect that sanctuary, but not he! He was n't crazy with sentiment. A hunter, he! He 'd...

And he sensed with a great sinking of his heart that Chip was drawing ahead of him now, drawing away from him in the contest, with the inevitableness of the winner drawing away...

Old wives' tales! Ancient vile superstition! And yet, what wisdom had departed from the world since ancient days! Not spiritual wisdom alone but material wisdom. How were the gr...

When it comes to the publishing of books, people are always pessimistic, and, in my case, always right. Success, I am sufficient of a heretic to believe, matters little, but fri...

"Agnes--" he cleared his throat, and he was honestly husky--"I suppose you have understood that my intentions toward you had a wedding in view. I can make you very happy."