Category: Novels

Shining Ferry

"Dear Sir,--In answer to yours of the 6th inst., I beg to inform you that in consequence of an arrangement with the Swedish firms, by which barrel-staves will be trimmed and finished to three standard lengths before shipment, we are enabled to offer an additional discount of f...

Chapters

19. Chapter 19

Next morning when Hester arrived at the school she found Mr. Sam waiting for her, with Myra, Clem, and a lanky, freckled youth of about sixteen, whom he introduced as Archelaus...

10. Chapter 10

"Oh, this is Susannah's nonsense, you may be sure!" called back Myra. "I suppose she carried her tales to grandfather, and he packed you off after us, Jim Tregay? Well, you need...

8. Chapter 8

A strange impatience haunted Rosewarne on his homeward journey; an almost intolerable longing to arrive and get something over--he scarcely knew what. When at length he stood on...

24. Chapter 24

Early next morning, having bound Mr. Benny to secrecy, she told him the whole story. At first his face merely expressed horror; but by and by his forehead lost its puckers. When...

5. Chapter 5

The lands of Hall march with those of a far larger estate, to which they once belonged, and of which Hall itself had once been the chief seat. The house--a grey stone building w...

7. Chapter 7

Beside the winding Avon above Warwick bridge there stretches a flat meadow, along the brink of which on a summer evening you may often count a score of anglers seated and watchi...

27. Chapter 27

"Style," said Mr. Joshua Benny, "has been defined as a gift of saying anything, of striking any note in the scale of human feelings, without impropriety. We cannot all have dist...

26. Chapter 26

Mr. Salt must have been preaching Hester's talent at large among seamen of the port, for when she returned from her interview with Sir George Mr. Benny met her at the kitchen do...

28. Chapter 28

Spring had come. The flight and finding of Myra had long since ceased to be a nine days' wonder, and she and Clem and Tom Trevarthen--received back into favour, and in some dang...

9. Chapter 9

Two children came stealing downstairs in the early dawn, carrying their boots in their hands, whispering, lifting their faces as if listening for some sound to come from the upp...

14. Chapter 14

"I don't know, sir, that she takes what you might call a line; but there's no doubt she believes herself engaged. She talks very frankly, and is altogether a nice, pleasant-spok...

21. Chapter 21

"What's the matter with Benny?" asked Nicky Vro as he rowed Hester across that evening. They were alone in the boat. "The man seemed queer in his manner this morning, like as if...

25. Chapter 25

The post of 'Mistress' to the Widows' Houses was a somewhat singular one. The hospital itself had been founded in 1634 by an ancestor of Sir George Dinham's, and dedicated to St...

22. Chapter 22

"No; but the ground is all covered with snow, and you can't think what funny lights are dancing over it across the sky. I've been watching them for minutes and minutes."

13. Chapter 13

The driver of the spring-cart was a brown-skinned, bright-eyed, and exceedingly pretty damsel of eighteen or twenty, in a pink print frock with a large crimson rose pinned in it...

29. Chapter 29

In Cornwall, they say, the cuckoo brings a gale of wind with him; and of all gales in the year this is the one most dreaded by gardeners and cidermen, for it catches the fruit t...

16. Chapter 16

When the company had departed Hester arranged her small troop at their desks--boys and girls and 'infants'--and made them a speech. It was a very short speech, asking for their...

18. Chapter 18

"What put it into your head to make that speech?" asked Mrs. Purchase, as she and Mr. Sam wended their way back to Hall. In form the question was addressed to her nephew; in ton...

20. Chapter 20

Although Master Calvin Rosewarne, by telling tales, first set the persecution going against Nicky Vro, he did so without any special malevolence. It was an instance of Satan's f...

23. Chapter 23

Somehow, Hester--who had started by misliking the child, and only with the gravest misgivings (yielding to pressure from his father) had consented to teach him in her spare hour...

6. Chapter 6

From the railway station at Plymouth John Rosewarne walked straight to Lockyer Street, to a house with a brass plate on the door, and on the brass plate the name of a physician...

4. Chapter 4

"Dear Sir,--In answer to yours of the 6th inst., I beg to inform you that in consequence of an arrangement with the Swedish firms, by which barrel-staves will be trimmed and fin...

17. Chapter 17

Hester's cupboard contained a small case of plasters, lint, ointments, etc., for childish cuts and bruises. She despatched a couple of boys to the playground pump to fetch water...

11. Chapter 11

Hester Marvin stood on the windy platform gazing after the train. Her limbs were cramped and stiff after the long night journey; the grey morning hour discouraged her; and the l...

15. Chapter 15

It often happens, when a number of persons meet together for some purpose in itself unselfish, that there prevails in the assembly a spirit of its own, recognisably good, surpri...

12. Chapter 12

Hester's letter accepting the teachership had put Mr. Sam in something of a quandary. It came addressed, of course, to his father, and as his father's heir and executor he had o...

30. Chapter 30

Mr. Benny, arriving next morning at the ferry to cross over to his office, opened his eyes very wide indeed to see the boat waiting by the slip and his late master, Samuel Rosew...

3. Chapter 3

2. Chapter 2

1. Chapter 1

32. Chapter 32

35. Chapter 35

33. Chapter 33

34. Chapter 34

31. Chapter 31