Rogues and Vagabonds

The sky was cloudless, the sun rode high in the heavens, and the waves glistened in the clear, bright light. It was a glorious summer day—a time when life pulsed joyously, and e...

I don’t imagine that Mrs. Turvey had ever read Cowper: in fact, it is exceedingly improbable that Mrs. Turvey’s poetical readings had ever extended beyond the works of the late...

The landlord of the Blue Pigeons had one eye on the clock and the other on his customers. It wanted only five minutes to closing time, and the patrons of the Blue Pigeons requir...

Little Queer Street, Seven Dials, is not a particularly nice street to live in, but as every house in it is inhabited to the utmost extent of its inhabitable capacity, it is evi...

Mr. Duck was at breakfast one morning in his eight-roomed house at Dalston, and his revered sister, Miss Georgina, was pouring out the first cup of tea in the pot for him, and s...

At the lodge-gates of an old-fashioned country mansion, which stands in a well-wooded park shut in among the Surrey hills, a young girl was waiting one winter night. Every now a...

There is a quiet little road in St. John’s Wood which seems specially to have been designed for ladies and gentlemen of a retiring disposition, who wish for a peaceful arcadia a...

‘You’re an idiot, Jabez,’ answers Georgina. ‘She may be a lady in comparison with the _persons_ with whom _you_ are in the habit of associating—housekeepers, cooks, and such lik...

The temporary retirement from business which had been necessitated by Mr. Heckett’s injuries—how those injuries were acquired he had not yet condescended to explain to any one—h...

Grigg was tall and thin. Limpet was short and fat. Admirable lawyers and admirable men; they made admirable partners. Solicitors to dozens of wealthy families, tin boxes, letter...

Two days had elapsed since a letter was despatched to Mr. A. B., informing him that Mr. George Smith was willing to accept his proffered situation, and no reply had been received.

Gertie and Lion were in the middle of their lessons, and the parrot, as usual, was behaving in a most reprehensible manner. English history it treated with absolute contempt, ge...

There is a quiet little turning out of the Camden Road, where the whim of an architect has planted some hybrid arrangements in brick and woodwork which it would puzzle the unski...

It was Miss Duck’s birthday—which birthday let us not be ungallant enough to inquire. Georgina herself confessed to thirty-three, but Jabez had heard her confess to quite that a...

Gurth Egerton’s first feeling when saved from the wreck of the _Bon Espoir_ was one of intense thankfulness that his life had been spared. But as the fearful danger to which he...

Messrs. Grigg & Limpet Were duly informed of Mr. Gurth Egerton’s mysterious resurrection, by their faithful clerk, and sat in state all the morning, ready to receive their adven...

The gentlemen connected with it had for a long time traded on their own account, but it was only quite recently that their talents had been united for the benefit of the joint-s...

On the morning following Mr. Brooks’s interview with the senior partner at his private residence, George, on his arrival at the office, was instantly despatched on a commission...

Since the accidental meeting with Marston at the house of the dog-fancier, Heckett, Ruth Adrian had avoided the place. The sight of her old sweetheart had opened the floodgates...

At the back of the room where the animals were kept was another little room, which Heckett himself occupied. Gertie’s room was upstairs, and she never went into her grandfather’...

Mr. Gurth Egerton, immediately after he had decided to resume his earthly career and cease to be a ghost or a drowned passenger of the _Bon Espoir_, was mush exercised in his mi...

Mr. Jabez, who had come to see Mr. Egerton on behalf of the firm, and was thus apostrophized in the hall by ‘the guardian angel of the house’ (the title Mr. Duck had himself con...

Mr. Adrian was a kind-hearted old gentleman, who had made enough in trade to enable him to retire, and live modestly in a sixty pound a year house, keep two servants, and go out...

Ruth Adrian had only gathered from what Gertie had told her that Marston was in danger of being betrayed by his companions. The child had heard but a portion of the conversation...

George had got on capitally in his situation. He found the Work remarkably easy, the salary was paid regularly, and he was earning the sweet bread of independence—the first he h...

‘He is a green un,’ he said to himself; ‘grass ain’t in it with him. I wonder where old Brooks picked him up. He’s a gentleman, though—genuine goods—hall marked. Nothing o’ the...

George did not tell his young wife the nature of the trouble that had come upon him. He shrank from letting her knew the worst, that innocently even he had been mixed up with a...

Of a naturally gloomy and austere disposition, and strongly biased towards the cold and uncompromising religious views which a large section of the English people have had trans...

Night had come upon the old hall, and the fresh spring wind, trying to whistle a tune for the young leaves to dance to, was the only thing that disturbed the perfect calm which...

The determination he had made to throw himself upon his father’s generosity, to return like the prodigal and crave forgiveness, was becoming weaker and weaker as the time came f...

When he had recovered from his astonishment at the sight of his sister, Miss Jackson, and Mrs. Turvey, he endeavoured to stammer out that he’d be back in a moment, and made for...

Bess refused to believe it. She would have rushed out and gone to her husband there and then. She would have proclaimed herself his wife gladly, now trouble had come upon him, b...

The trial of George Heritage for breaking into his own father’s house and, in conjunction with some person not in custody, carrying off jewellery and other articles of value, ma...

Dr. Oliver Birnie, as the medical adviser of Mr. Gurth Egerton, called upon him now and then at his residence, and sometimes kept his brougham waiting outside while doctor and p...

Ruth had no necessity to find a home for Gertie, after all. Her mother, after having thoroughly aired her objections, and proved beyond a doubt that Gertie was endeavouring to t...

Mr. Gurth Egerton, as soon as he had recovered from the astonishment in which his strange meeting with Ralph’s little daughter had flung him, became aware of the fact that the b...

Mr. Edward Marston was taking the air at Dover. He had left town for the benefit of his health. One morning, walking upon the pier, whom should he meet but Mr. Brooks, formerly...

Mr. Gurth Egerton’s interest in Gertie Heckett was something wonderful. It took him often to the residence of the Adrians. There he was now a welcome guest, for he had soon foun...

The dark man nodded his head. Two glasses of ale on the counter were rapidly emptied, the guard went back to the station, and the gentleman strolled across the bridge.

Mr. Gurth Egerton was a pretty constant visitor at the Adrians’, and he stood high in favour with both the master and the mistress of the house. ‘A most agreeable genileman,’ sa...

Gurth Egerton was delighted at the cordial reception he had received at the hands of Mr. Adrian. He had, at any rate, in that interview ascertained that, so far as Ruth’s parent...

Ruth had told Marston of the visit, and as he glanced round the cosily furnished apartment he fancied he could see her at the head of the table, and Gurth smiling complacently t...

The news of the failure of the Great Blankshire Bank spread rapidly, and the terrible line on the contents bill of the evening papers had a dread significance for hundreds. To m...

In the back parlour of a little house at Camberwell a young woman lies, wan and white-faced, upon an antiquated and uncomfortable sofa of the lodging-house pattern. In a chair b...

Mrs. Adrian never read the newspaper herself. Her eyes ‘were not what they used to be,’ and she declined to avail herself of the artificial aid of glasses. She had tried spectac...

Edward Marston was engaged to Ruth Adrian, and was received by her parents as her accepted suitor. Mrs. Adrian, when the news of Marston’s offer was communicated to her, was fir...

Her master having once again departed on his travels, Mrs. Turvey had plenty of leisure to attend to her own business, and the most important business she had on hand was Jabez.

Marston was supremely happy when he was with Ruth, but when he was alone he was perpetually haunted by fears and misgivings. Twenty times over he would have cast his share of th...

The affairs of Mr. John Adrian having been thoroughly investigated, it was found that the tremendous call already made by the liquidators of the Great Blankshire Bank would swee...

It poured in chastened splendour through the stained-glass windows of the quiet church, and fell upon Ruth Adrian as she knelt at the altar, her head bowed, and her sweet eyes f...

Marston and Ruth were back from their honeymoon. They had enjoyed a month of almost unclouded happiness. The only trouble Ruth had was the discovery she had made that her husban...

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were the proprietors of a travelling theatrical show, and this conversation occurred late one winter afternoon, as the caravan jolted along over the rough ro...

In a little back room in a street running off the Lambeth Road, a lad of about sixteen lay on the sofa, wheeled near the window so that he might see out into the street.

Mrs. Heritage opened her letters, which were of no importance, and the master of the establishment—the squire, as he was now called in the neighbourhood—put his by the side of h...

It was late that afternoon, and the shades of evening were falling rapidly on the little street, but the happy little party seated round the hospitable board in the front parlou...

It has been freezing hard all day, but the ice on the Serpentine is not thick enough to bear the great army of skaters yet, and so there are no loiterers along the bank.

She invented a story to tell her mother and Gertie when they asked where the squire was; but she was terribly distressed by his extraordinary conduct, and his cruelty in leaving...

Dr. Oliver Birnie’s consulting-room was generally pretty full in the morning, and always with paying patients. He had long since passed the ‘super’ stage of the profession. Lest...

Gertie thought at first it must be some one in distress who had been recommended to come to them, for the young woman, though neat, didn’t look very well off, so she asked if sh...

The night was pitch dark. There was not even a star in the sky to look down upon Ruth Heritage as she crept quietly ont of her house and went swiftly down the walk towards the l...

If he could silence Egerton he might purchase a respite from Heckett even now. Heckett was evidently dying, and had no longer fear or trouble for himself. He had escaped from th...

Gurth knocked a certain number of times, and Heckett, lying tossing on the little bed in the back room, knew who was there, for he did not have his door opened at all hours to e...

When Gurth Egerton got home he found Birnie still sitting up and smoking. The doctor had gone home, after the theatre, with some friends to a supper party, and had only just ret...

The identity of Squire Heritage with Edward Marston was known to Birnie and Egerton. The latter was the first to bring the news of his death to Josh Heckett. The sudden and trag...

Mr. and Mrs. Jabez Duck, by saying very little to each other, managed to avoid those scenes of wordy warfare which are considered part and parcel of English domestic institution...

George and Bess were sitting upstairs in the little room which they occupied in Heckett’s house. Josh had fallen into a doze, and Bess, who had nursed him devotedly, had stolen...

It was a bright sunshiny day, and the light streamed in through the curtained window and fell upon the fair young face as it bent in gentle sympathy over the prostrate and suffe...

Ruth Heritage, dressed in the deepest mourning, sat in the great room of Heritage Hall, looking out upon the grounds but seeing them not. Her thoughts were far away in the past,...

There is a charming little villa some distance from Heritage Hall—a pretty place, on which many a weary wanderer, tired with life’s pilgrimage, has looked with an envious eye, a...