Joshua Marvel

I make this record for various reasons, the strongest of which is the conviction that I have not long to live. Although my mind is in a state of sad confusion, what I write shal...

When I was a young man, I was an enthusiast. My mother had died when I was a child. My father was a clergyman, and wished to educate me for the church. But my heart was not in m...

Built in the bed of a beautiful valley and on gardened slopes rising from the waters which run to the sea, lies Sydney, the fair city of the South. It is spring although the mon...

The first among the passengers to completely give way was Stephen Homebush. He had observed no manner of discretion in eating his food, and had always swallowed it hastily, so t...

Having made over the whole of his worldly property to Joshua and Ellen "for better or worse," it was reasonable that Praiseworthy Meddler should have considerable weight in the...

In after years, when Joshua was many thousands of miles away from Stepney, Dan loved to linger over the memory of one especially happy day which he, and Joshua, and Ellen and th...

Dan took the Old Sailor in to his confidence, and the impracticable old fellow excitedly proposed that they should leave Stepney and come and live with him in his barge. But as...

Minnie's obliviousness of what was right had never before been presented so clearly to Joshua. He knew well enough that Minnie, although she was aware that it was wrong to steal...

On a pleasant summer evening Dan and Ellen and George Marvel were sitting in the shade of the veranda which surrounded three sides of their house. The house was built of wood, a...

So the simple ways of Joshua's simple life were drawing to a close. He had chosen his career, and to-morrow he would be at the end of the quiet groove in which he had hitherto m...

A silence almost like the silence of the grave reigned in the house of the Marvels. If, by some chance, a blind man had found his way there, he might reasonably have wondered wh...

Simply an old sailor. Having been a very young sailor indeed once upon a time, a great many years ago now, when, quite a little boy, he ran away from home and went to sea out of...

If every farthing of the allowance of pocket-money which Joshua and Dan received from their respective parents had been carefully saved up, it would not have amounted to a very...

Early in the new year letters from Joshua reached home. With what joy they were read! In one of them he wrote: "I remember saying that I should be home in twelve months; but tha...

Here in the grand Australian woods are two tents--gunyahs, Rough-and-Ready calls them--built of tea-tree bark, bound round by vine creepers. They are in the form of a hive, and...

Many moons had passed, and with the exception that Minnie had grown very weak, only one event of importance had occurred since the departure of Rough-and-Ready and Tom the sailm...

There was one canary which they had christened Golden Cloud. It was one of the two canaries that Dan had first trained; and for this and other reasons Golden Cloud was a special...

Joshua, opening his eyes, saw Minnie sitting by his side. She, seeing that he was awake, moved quietly away without a word, and went to where the other women were lying. He had...

The wisdom of Rough-and-Ready's plan of action was soon proved. One night, thunder awoke them from sleep. The thunder that breaks over the housetops, and the lightning that flas...

The foundering of the "Merry Andrew" and the loss of every soul on board were duly recorded in the newspapers, and utterly shattered the happiness of that humble home in Stepney...

In the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex, there lived, amidst the hundreds of thousands of human bees who throng that overcrowded locality, a family composed of four...

Could a map be made of the mental life of a man whose career has been marked by the commonest of commonplace incidents, and from that map a tale were woven, it would transcend i...

While the "Merry Andrew" was lying at Blackwell taking in cargo, Capt. Liddle, like the shrewd captain he was, had caused it to be notified that he would be happy to take a cert...

Upon that same Christmas-eve Solomon Fewster sat in his room a moody unhappy man. He was alone; but if angry thought could have found palpable shape, the room would have been th...

Perhaps one of the most absurd questions that could be put to a person would be to ask him how old he was when he was born. Yet the little old-men's faces possessed by some babi...

The natives were busy preparing for a grand Correboree, which, being interpreted, means a grand gathering and celebration in honor of some imposing event. Scouts were sent out i...

Their plans were commenced the very next day. Susan came round with her work, and gave Ellen her first lesson in dressmaking. Ellen was as skilful with the needle as Susan was,...

"I've noticed it too, mother," said Mr. Marvel, "but I haven't thought of it much, because, to tell you the truth, I don't believe he is quite right here"--touching his forehead.

The nicest mathematical calculations of the probability of events are not uncommonly subjected to shocks which, to those dull and unreflective persons who cannot distinguish bet...

The "Merry Andrew" was nearly ready for sea again, and Joshua, having been duly installed as third mate, was busily employed superintending cargo. The Old Sailor was immensely d...

There are few boys in the world who are without their boy-friends whom they worship, or by whom they are worshipped, with a love far surpassing in its unselfishness the love of...

For two weeks the natives mourned for Minnie. Their grief was sincere, notwithstanding that it was expressed in barbarous fashion--such as painting their bodies white with pipec...

When daylight came--and oh, how they watched for it, and prayed for it!--they saw clearly their great peril. The ship was rolling amongst a mass of sharp rocks jutting upwards f...

The river runs onward like a sparkling stream, now rushing between high banks of forest land, dotted here and there with miniature islands of rocks covered with lichens and shru...

The old gentleman with the hour-glass who never sleeps does not look a day older, and yet four seasons have played their parts and have passed away. The white hairs in George Ma...

"I wish Ellen was at home," said Dan to himself, as he sat alone in the parlor which served as his training-room; "the house is quite lonely without her." Joshua had been gone f...

Here is Praiseworthy Meddler, sitting in the best chair in a corner of the fireplace in the little kitchen in Stepney. In his low shoes and loose trousers, and blue shirt open a...

When Ellen felt the comforting protection of Dan's arms, and heard the words to which he gave utterance in the nobility of his soul, the despair by which she had been overwhelme...

THAT night, as Joshua was lying half-awake and half-asleep, his mind being filled with pleasant sea-pictures, he was surprised to hear his bedroom-door creak. Without moving in...

The events that have been described, proved to be something more than a nine-days' wonder. The neighborhood was remarkably bare of exciting incidents, and nothing so stirring as...

A happier party was never assembled within four walls than is now gathered together within the four walls of Mr. Marvel's kitchen. That it is Christmas-eve is proclaimed by the...

"We're going to look for something for breakfast, Marvel," said Rough-and-Ready. "Don't wake the women--let them have their sleep out. And keep your eye on those two rascals yon...