Moonfleet

There was the turnkey's belt lying on the floor, with the keys and manacles fixed to it, just as it had failed and come off him at the fatal moment. Elzevir picked it up, tried...

The night was cold, and I had nothing on me save breeches and boots, and those drenched with the sea, and had been wrestling with the surf so long that there was little left in...

Though nothing of the vault except the roof was visible from where I lay, and so I could not see these visitors, yet I heard every word spoken, and soon made out one voice as be...

We stood for a moment holding one another's hands; then Ratsey spoke. 'John, these two months have changed thee from boy to man. Thou wast a child when I turned that morning as...

The while chalk was a bulwark between us and the foe; and though one or two of them loosed off their matchlocks, trying to get at us sideways, they could not even see their quar...

The ship that was to carry us swung at the buoy a quarter of a mile offshore, and there were row-boats waiting to take us to her. She was a brig of some 120 tons burthen, and as...

Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry; Still, as they run, they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind And snatch...

Maskew got ugly looks from the men, and sour words from the wives, as he went up through the village that afternoon, for all knew what he had done, and for many days after the a...

No human creature stirred to go or come, No face looked forth from shut or open casement, No chimney smoked, there was no sign of home From parapet to basement--_Hood_

The bucket was large, for all that the turnkey had tried to frighten me into think it small, and I could crouch in it low enough to feel safe of not falling out. Moreover, such...

Then banks came down with ruin and rout, Then beaten spray flew round about, Then all the mighty floods were out, And all the world was in the sea _--Jean Ingelow_

The village of Moonfleet lies half a mile from the sea on the right or west bank of the Fleet stream. This rivulet, which is so narrow as it passes the houses that I have known...

One evening in March, when the days were lengthening fast, there came a messenger from Dorchester, and brought printed notices for fixing to the shutters of the Why Not? and to...

It wanted yet half an hour of midnight when I found myself at the shaft of the marble quarry, and before I had well set foot on the steps to descend, heard Elzevir's voice chall...

He set me down in one corner, where was some loose dry silver-sand upon the floor, which others had perhaps used for a resting-place before. 'Thou must lie here for a month or t...

'Tis bitterer to me than wormwood the memory of what followed, and I shall tell the story in the fewest words I may. We were cast into prison, and lay there for months in a ston...

I have more than once brought up the name of Mr. Maskew; and as I shall have other things to tell of him later on, I may as well relate here what manner of man he was. His statu...

I made as if I would follow the others, not wishing to see what I must see if I stayed behind, and knowing that I was powerless to bend Elzevir from his purpose. But he called m...

When I came to myself I was lying, not in the outer blackness of the Mohune vault, not on a floor of sand; but in a bed of sweet clean linen, and in a little whitewashed room, t...