Lying Prophets: A Novel

Away beyond the village stands a white cottage with the sea lapping at low cliffs beneath it. Plum and apple orchards slope upward behind this building, and already, upon the fo...

Edmund Murdoch's studio stood high on Newlyn hill, and Barron had taken comfortable rooms in a little lodging-house close beside it. The men often enjoyed breakfast in each othe...

Joan Tregenza lived in a white cottage already mentioned: that standing just beyond Newlyn upon a road above the sea. The cot was larger than it appeared from the road and exten...

Between four and five o'clock in the morning of the following day the master of the white cottage came home. His wife expected him and was getting breakfast when Michael tramped...

John Barron made other preparations for his picture besides those detailed to Joan Tregenza. He designed a large canvas and proposed to paint it in the open air according to his...

Joan found her sketch waiting for her the next day when she reached Gorse Point about eleven o'clock; and she also discovered John Barron with a large canvas before him. He had...

"We'm mighty busy, come wan thing an' another," she said. "Mother's gwaine to Penzance wi' my brother to buy his seafarin' kit; and Uncle Chirgwin, as keeps a farm up Drift, be...

John Barron held strong theories about the importance of the mental condition when work was in hand. Once fairly engaged upon a picture, he painted very fast, labored without ce...

Joan Tregenza went home in a dream that day. She did not know where to begin thinking. "Mister Jan" had told her so many astounding things; and her own heart, too, had made bold...

That evening Thomasin had another spasm of face-ache and went to bed soon after drinking tea. Michael was due at home about ten o'clock or earlier, and Joan--having set out supp...

His mother had given Tom an early breakfast at half-past four, and the youngster, agape and dim-eyed at first, speedily brightened up, for he had a willing listener, in the cand...

While John Barren determined that a space of time extending over some days should now separate him from Joan, she, for her part, had scarce left Gorse Point after the conversati...

Having already learned from experience that hard work quickens the flight of time, Joan, returning in happy mood to her home and with no trace of the past tears upon her cheeks,...

The lesson which he had set for Joan Tregenza's learning taught John Barron something also. Eight-and-forty hours he stayed in Newlyn, and was astounded to find during that peri...

That night the change came and the wind veered first to the south, then to the southwest. By morning, gray clouds hid the sky and hourly grew darker and lower. As yet no rain fe...

For a week the rain came down and it blew hard from the west. Then the weather moderated, and there were intervals of brightness and mild, damp warmth that brought a green veil...

Joan had only told her lover a part of what happened in her home when Thomasin broke her suspicions to Gray Michael. He had taken the matter very seriously indeed, delivered a s...

So John Barren set forth, well content to believe that he would never again visit Cornwall, and Joan called at the Penzance post-office on the morning which followed his departu...

A glad heart shortens the longest road, and Joan, whose return journey from the holy well was for the most part downhill, soon found herself back again in Penzance. The fire of...

Thomasin saw that all things about Joan's room were neat, spotless, and in order. For one brief moment a sense of disquiet at the action before her touched the woman's heart and...

When Joan recovered consciousness she found her head and neck wet where her stepmother had flung cold water over her. Thomasin was at that moment burning a feather under her nos...

When Mr. Chirgwin caught sight of Joan his astonishment knew no bounds, and his first thought was that something must certainly be amiss. He stood in the roadway, a picture of s...

With searching of heart, Mary Chirgwin spent time during that afternoon. In one room Joan, happier than she had been for many days, set out her few possessions, boldly hung the...

June came. The wall-flowers were long plucked or dead, the last snows of apple-blossom had vanished away, and the fruit was setting well. The woodlice were already ruining the y...

"Dear Murdoch--Your long screed gave me some pleasure and killed an hour. You relate the even course of your days since my departure from Cornwall, and I envy the good health an...

With summer, Nature, proceeding on her busy way, approached again the annual phenomena of seed-time and harvest. To Joan, as spring had brought with it a world of mothers, so th...

Since her visit to the church at Newlyn, Joan had been in no place of worship save the chapel of the Luke Gospelers. What might be the nature of the service before her she did n...

To the superficial eye dead hopes leave ugly traces; viewed more inquiringly the cryptic significance of them appears; and that is often beautiful. Joan's soul looked out of her...

The significance of the ancient crosses in Joan Tregenza's latest phase of mental growth becomes much finer after learning somewhat more concerning them than she could ever know...

Among the varied ambitions now manifested by Joan was one already hinted at--one which increased to the displacement of smaller interests: she much desired to see again her home...

Michael Tregenza instantly observed Joan where she sat by the window, and, seeing her, stood still. The fish fell from his hand and dropped slithering in a heap on the stone flo...

"A new broom sweeps clean, but 'tis the auld wan as is good for corners," said Uncle Chirgwin, when with his nieces he sat beside the kitchen fire that night and discussed the e...

A space of time six weeks in duration may be hastily dismissed as producing no alteration in Joan's method of thought and life. It swept her swiftly through shortening days and...

In the coomb beneath Drift, flashing as though red-hot from a theater of Cimmerian blackness, certain figures, flame-lighted, flickered hurriedly this way and that about a dark...

At the dawn of the day which followed upon the great storm, while yet the sea ran high and the gale died hard, many tumbling luggers, some maimed, began to dot the wind-torn wat...

Mary Chirgwin did not return to Newlyn after making inquiries at Penzance. There indeed she learned one fact which might prove important, but the possibilities to be read from i...

Mary Chirgwin would allow none but herself to perform the last offices of kindness for her cousin. In poor Joan's pocket she found a wet, crumpled mass of paper which might have...

A fortnight and four days after the funeral of Joan Tregenza there blew a southwest wind over Newlyn, from out a gray sky, dotted with watery blots of darker gray. No added ligh...

He who less than an hour before had hastened hot-footed through the Newlyn streets, whose habitual stern expression had softened before the well-known sights and smells of the g...

Thus the sailor, Noy, wholly imbued with one idea, absolutely convinced that to this end it had pleased Providence to give him life, went forth into the world that he might seek...

According to his custom, Noy worked through the exhibition catalogue for each room before entering it. The hour was an early one, and but few persons had as yet penetrated to th...

The gratification of his desire and the fulfillment of his revenge, though steadfastly foreseen by Joe Noy from the moment when first he set foot in London and began his search,...

Born of the sunshine, on a morning in late December, gray ephemerae danced and dipped and fashioned vanishing patterns against the green of the great laurel at the corner of Dri...