Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

While these events are taking place in the busy seaport of Wreckumoft, let us return to the little boat which we left floating, a solitary speck, upon the breast of the great Pa...

Pretty Bella sat beside him, endeavouring to get up a flirtation--for Bella was an inveterate flirt. Besides being pretty, she was sprightly and full of life--a giddy gay thing,...

It is an island of the sea. Nature has been bountiful to that island, for there is redundant verdure on every side. Paradise of old may have been something like it,--could not h...

While Stephen Gaff and his son were busy preparing their residence in the South Sea island, Mrs Gaff was equally busy in preparing her residence for their reception on their ret...

Now, it chanced that, about the time of which I write, a noted bank failed, and a considerable sum of money which had been temporarily deposited in it by the committee of the Sa...

"Dear me, do you think so? Now I don't agree with you at all, brother," observed Miss Peppy. "I think that good fortune is always good fortune, and never can be bad fortune. I w...

The little fragile craft which Stephen Gaff sent adrift upon the world of waters freighted with its precious document, began its long voyage with no uncertainty as to its course...

Being anxious to send on shore the men whom he had so unexpectedly picked up at sea, the captain hailed the first inward-bound vessel he met with, and put them on board. It was...

One beautiful evening in autumn, many years ago, a sailor was observed to approach an English village which lay embosomed among trees, near the margin of a small stream whose wa...

The Sailors' Home in Wreckumoft was a neat, substantial, unpretending edifice, which had been built by a number of charitable people, in order to provide a comfortable residence...

The road to the Cove lay along the top of the cliffs, and was in many parts exceedingly picturesque; now passing, in the form of a mere bridle-path, along the verge of the preci...

Soon after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, the clerks in the bank of Wreckumoft were not a little interested by the entrance of a portly woman of comely appearanc...

When Stephen Gaff approached his own cottage, he beheld his wife belabouring the Bu'ster with both hands and tongue unmercifully. What special piece of mischief Billy had been d...

"At sea."--How differently do human beings regard that phrase! To one it arouses feelings akin to rapture; to another it is suggestive of heavings and horror. To him whose physi...

A few days after the events narrated in the last chapter, Gaff and his son arrived by stage-coach in the town of Wreckumoft, and at once started off for the village of Cove.

As the honorary agent for the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, I had been summoned by a special messenger as soon as it was known that vessels were on the rocks off the entrance t...

The room to which Haco led his daughter was a small oblong one, divided off into compartments similar to those with which we are familiar in eating-houses and restaurants of the...

"What troubles you to-day?" asked Lizzie Gordon, who was seated at the window winding up a ball of worsted, the skein of which was being held by Miss Puff, who was at that time...

The morning after the storm was bright and beautiful. The breakers, indeed, were still thundering on the shore, but otherwise the sea was calm, and the sun shone into the breakf...

Gaff was the first to shake off the lethargy that had oppressed him. Gazing round for some time, he seemed to hesitate whether he should lie down again, and looked earnestly onc...

At first, as I have said, poor Mrs Gaff was quite inconsolable at the bereavements she had sustained in the loss of her husband and son and brother. For a long time she refused...

She had sailed from the antipodes, had weathered many a gale, had crossed the great ocean in safety, had sighted the lights and the cliffs of "home," and was dashed to pieces at...

It is unnecessary, indeed impossible, to describe the feelings with which Gaff and Billy descended from Signal Cliff to the beach to meet the boat which put off from the man-of-...

The family board was spread; the family kettle--an unusually fat one-- was singing on the fire, and the family chimney was roaring like a lion by reason of the wind, which blew...

"Ride, by all means," said Gildart, "if you have a respectable horse. I love to ride, not only on the `bursting tide,' but on the back of a thoroughbred, if he's not too tough i...

An hour previously, however, a brass band was seen walking towards the same place, and, half an hour after that, a young midshipman was observed posting rapidly in the same dire...

"Captain Bingley," said Kenneth, entering my study somewhat hastily on the following morning, "I am going to carry off Gildart for the day to have a ride with me, and I looked i...

Retracing his steps hastily to the village of Cove, Stephen Gaff sought out his own humble cottage, which, during his absence on his frequent voyages, was left under the charge...

For a long time father and son stood on the elevated rock gazing in silence on the little spot of earth that was to be their home, it might be, for months, or even years.

Meanwhile the gentlemanly house-breaker, returning to Athenbury, rejoined his rude colleagues, and these three choice spirits, after partaking of some refreshment, and treating...

When Miss Peppy came down to breakfast next morning she found that she was the first of the household to make her appearance. This, however, was the natural consequence of her c...

Great changes had taken place in the Sailors' Home at Wreckumoft since Billy Gaff last saw it. A new wing had been added to it, and the original building had been altered and re...

At first there was a stifling heat in the atmosphere; then clouds began to dim the sky. Mysterious and solemn changes seemed to be taking place in nature--noiselessly for a time...

The scene is changed now to the railway station at Wreckumoft, where there is the usual amount of bustle and noise. The engines are shrieking and snorting as if nothing on earth...

Gladness is a source of life. It is probable that the joy which filled Mr Stuart's heart, in consequence of being reconciled to Kenneth, and having induced his brother-in-law to...