Jinny the Carrier

NORMALLY the nonagenarian preserved scant memory of the happenings of the present, vivid though his youthful recollections were: But the great wedding-cake, served up at every m...

JINNY’S passage through Long Bradmarsh with her overflowing freight of fares and live stock was like a triumphal progress. The loungers outside “The King of Prussia” actually ra...

_Wit she hath without desire_ _To make known how much she hath;_ _And her anger flames no higher_ _Than may fitly sweeten wrath._ _Full of pity as may be,_ _Though perhaps not s...

_Permit me of these unknown lands t’inquire,_ _Lands never till’d, where thou hast wandering been,_ _And all the marvels thou hast heard and seen:_ _Do tell me something of the...

PITTER-PATTER was the dominant note of the rest of the year. The prayer for rain had been only too successful, and the blackbirds whistled their thanksgiving over their worms. B...

TIME hung heavy on Will’s hands the first few days of his return, as heavy as the meals heaped before him by the adoring Martha. There was as much for “bever” as for breakfast,...

AS old England has always been rich in “characters,” in those grotesque or gnarled individualities that have escaped the common mould, the superabundance of sects, which, in con...

THUS it was that the days passed without any literate and discreet female descending on Frog Farm or any rejuvenation appearing in Martha’s bonnet; and the unread letter lay—gua...

THE darkest season in Jinny’s life—outwardly a feast of light—was come to the crowning mockery of its August splendour. Day after day there was the lazy pomp of high summer; mas...

THE floods of ’52 are still remembered in East Anglia. The worst and most widespread were in November, but “February Fill-Dyke” brought the more localized catastrophe in Little...

_Fair was the day, but fairer was the maid_ _Who that day’s morn into the green-woods stray’d._ _Sweet was the air, but sweeter was her breathing,_ _Such rare perfumes the roses...

BLACKWATER HALL, the home of Daniel Quarles and his granddaughter, was none of your old manor-houses with mullioned windows and carven music-galleries, fallen in grandeur and re...

IT had rained that April more continuously than capriciously, but this morning April showed at last her fairer face. The sunshine held as yet no sense of heat, only the bracingn...