The Broad Highway

"The Bull" is a plain, square, whitewashed building, with a sloping roof, and before the door an open portico, wherein are set two seats on which one may sit of a sunny afternoo...

The speaker was a very tall individual whose sharp-pointed elbow had, more than once, obtruded itself into my ribs. He was extremely thin and bony, with a long, drooping nose se...

Justly to narrate all that befell me during my flight and journey to London, would fill many pages, and therefore, as this book of mine is already of a magnitude far beyond my f...

Charmian sighed, bit the end of her pen, and sighed again. She was deep in her housekeeping accounts, adding and subtracting and, between whiles, regarding the result with a rue...

"'And to my nephew, Maurice Vibart, I bequeath the sum of twenty thousand pounds in the fervent hope that it may help him to the devil within the year, or as soon after as may b...

In due season I came into Tonbridge town, and following the High Street, presently observed a fine inn upon the right-hand side of the way, which, as I remember, is called "The...

"Sir," said my companion at last, lifting the battered hat, "I tender you my apology, and I shall be delighted to eat with you in the ditch, if you are in the same mind about it?"

The sun was pouring in at my lattice when I awoke next morning to a general soreness of body that at first puzzled me to account for. But as I lay in that delicious state betwee...

I was at sea in an open boat. Out of the pitch-black heaven there rushed a mighty wind, and the pitch-black seas above me rose high, and ever higher, flecked with hissing white;...

When a man has experienced some great and totally unexpected reverse of fortune, has been swept from one plane of existence to another, that he should fail at once to recognize...

Out beyond the smithy door a solitary star twinkles low down in the night sky, like some great jewel; but we have no time for star-gazing, Black George and I, for to-night we ar...

As I approached the smithy, late though the hour was (and George made it a rule to have the fire going by six every morning), no sound of hammer reached me, and coming into the...

I plunged the iron back into the fire, and, turning my head, espied a figure standing in the doorway; and, though the leather hat and short, round jacket had been superseded by...

A bright room, luxuriously appointed; a great wide bed with carved posts and embroidered canopy; between the curtained windows, a tall oak press with grotesque heads carved ther...

And looking into the eyes of my wife, it seemed that a veil was lifted, for a moment, there, and I read that which her lips might never tell; and there, also, were joy and shame...

Now, at my elbow, upon the table, lay the knife, a heavy, clumsy contrivance I had bought to use in my carpentry, and I now, mechanically, picked it up. As I did so the light gl...

There are times (as I suppose) when the most aesthetic of souls will forget the snow of lilies, and the down of a butterfly's wing, to revel in the grosser joys of, say, a beefs...

It was evening--that time before the moon is up and when the earth is dark, as yet, and full of shadows. Now as I went, by some chance there recurred to me the words of an old s...

I could not see him very distinctly because, though evening had scarcely fallen, the shadows, where he stood, were very dense, but he was gazing down into the Hollow in the atti...

Here, finding I was absent-mindedly stirring my tea round and round again, I gulped it down out of the way, whereupon Charmian took my cup and refilled it; having done which, sh...

Even in that drowsy, semi-conscious state, that most delightful borderland which lies midway between sleeping and waking, I knew it could not be the woodpecker who, as I judged...

A broad, white road; on either hand some half-dozen cottages with roofs of thatch or red tile, backed by trees gnarled and ancient, among which rises the red conical roof of som...

It was morning, and Charmian was singing. The pure, rich notes floated in at my open lattice, and I heard the clatter of her pail as she went to fetch water from the brook. Wher...

"A bottle o' rum!" said the man Bob, and taking it up, very abstracted of eye, he removed the cork, sniffed at it, tasted it, took a gulp, and handed it over to his companion, w...

"And I live here, in this solitude, very contentedly; so that it is only reasonable to suppose that I shall continue to live here, and make horseshoes--though, really," I broke...

The sun was high when I came to a place where the ways divided, and, while I stood hesitating which road to take, I heard the cool plash and murmur of a brook at no great distan...

Smithing is a sturdy, albeit a very black art; yet its black is a good, honest black, very easily washed off, which is more than can be said for many other trades, arts, and pro...

Some one was leaning down from a great height to call to me in the depths; and the voice was wonderfully sweet, but faint, faint, because the height was so very high, and the de...

The cottage, as I have said, was entirely hidden from the chance observer by reason of the foliage: ash, alder, and bramble flourished luxuriantly, growing very thick and high,...

The word had been uttered close behind me, and very softly, yet I started at this sudden mention of my name and stood for a moment with my hammer poised above the anvil ere I tu...

How long I slept I have no idea, but when I opened my eyes it was to find the moon shining down on me from a cloudless heaven; the wind also had died away; it seemed my early fe...

"Pray do," said I. Hereupon he set the mouthpiece to his lips, inflated the bag, stopped the vents with his fingers, and immediately the air vibrated with the bubbling scream I...

And, in a little while, I rose, and buckled on my knapsack. The shadows were creeping on apace, but the sky was wonderfully clear, while, low down upon the horizon, I saw the fu...

The world was full of sunshine, the blithe song of birds, and the sweet, pure breath of waking flowers as I rose next morning, and, coming to the stream, threw myself down besid...

Who does not recognize the solemn majesty of Night--that season of awesome stillness when tired mankind lies supine in that strange inertia so like death; when the soul, quittin...

"Peter," said George, one evening, turning to me with the troubled look I had seen so often on his face of late, "what be wrong wi' you, my chap? You be growing paler everyday....

It was with some little trepidation that I descended into the Hollow, and walked along beside the brook, for soon I should meet Charmian, and the memory of our parting, and the...

He bestrode a powerful black charger, and his armor glittered through the green. And, as he rode beneath the leafy arches of the wood, he lifted up his voice, and sang, and the...

The moon was rising as, hungry and weary, I came to that steep descent I have mentioned more than once, which leads down into the Hollow, and her pale radiance was already, upon...

I am forging a bar for my cottage door: such a bar as might give check to an army, or resist a battering-ram; a bar that shall defy all the night-prowlers that ever prowled; a s...

"Good evening, sir!" he said, in a strange, hurried sort of way, "the moon, you will perceive, is very nearly at the full to-night." And his voice, immediately, struck me as bei...

The moon was fast sinking below the treetops to our left, what time we reached a road, or rather cart-track that wound away up a hill. Faint and far a church clock slowly chimed...

The pallid moon shone down pitilessly upon the dead, white face that stared up at me through its grime and blood, with the same half-tolerant, half-amused contempt of me that it...

The chill of dawn was in the air when I awoke, and it was some few moments before, with a rush, I remembered why I was kneeling there beside Charmian's bed. Shivering, I rose an...

Night, with a rising moon, and over all things a great quietude, a deep, deep silence. Air, close and heavy, without a breath to wake the slumbering trees; an oppressive stillne...

"Peter," said the Ancient, after we had gone a little way, "Peter, I do 'opes as you aren't been an' gone an' rose my Prue's 'opes only to dash 'em down again."

Now, as I went, my mind was greatly exercised as to a feasible explanation of what I had just heard. That a man so old as the Ancient should "see things" I could readily believe...

It is a wise and (to some extent) a true saying, that hard work is an antidote to sorrow, a panacea for all trouble; but when the labor is over and done, when the tools are set...

She came in swiftly, closing the door behind her, found and lighted a candle, and, setting it upon the table between us, put back the hood of her cloak, and looked at me, while...

On I went, chin on breast, heedless of all direction--now beneath the shade of trees, now crossing grassy glades or rolling meadow, or threading my way through long alleys of ho...

I am at the forge, watching the deepening glow of the coals as I ply the bellows; and, listening to their hoarse, not unmusical drone, it seems like a familiar voice (or the voi...

As the day advanced, the sun beat down with an ever-increasing heat, and what with this and the dust I presently grew very thirsty; wherefore, as I went, I must needs conjure up...

Twigs whipped my face, thorns and brambles dragged at my clothes, hidden obstacles lay in wait for my feet, for the wood grew denser as I advanced, but I pushed on, heedless ali...

It was with a feeling of great relief that I watched the fellow out of sight; nevertheless his very presence seemed to have left a blight upon all things, for he, viewing matter...

In certain old books you shall find strange mention of witches, warlocks, succubae, spirits, daemons, and a thousand other powers of darkness, whose pronounced vocation was the...

"Peter," said he, "I be tur'ble cold sometimes. It comes a-creepin' on me all at once, even if I be sittin' before a roarin' fire or a-baskin' in this good, warm sun--a cold as...

Following the high road, I came, in a little, to where the ways divided, the one leading straight before me, the other turning sharp to the left, where (as I remember) is a very...

Evening had fallen, and I walked along in no very happy frame of mind, the more so, as the rising wind and flying wrack of clouds above (through which a watery moon had peeped a...

It was yet early, and there was, besides, much work waiting to be done, but I felt unwontedly tired and out of sorts, wherefore, with my bars and brackets beneath my arm, I set...

As I walked through the fresh, green world there ensued within me the following dispute, as it were, between myself and two voices; and the first voice I will call Pro, and the...

"I suppose you are better as a blacksmith than a carpenter, aren't you, Peter?" And, seeing I could find no answer worthy of retort, she laughed, and, sitting down, watched me w...

Halcyon days! my masters, happy, care-free, halcyon days! To waken to the glory of a summer's morning, and shaking off dull sleep, like a mantle, to stride out into a world all...

I was yet standing there, half stunned by my loss and the suddenness of it all, when a tilbury came slowly round a bend in the road, the driver of which nodded lazily in his sea...

Is there anywhere in the world so damnable a place of torment as a bed? To lie awake through the slow, dragging hours, surrounded by a sombre quietude from whose stifling blackn...

But, as I went, I heard one hailing me, and glancing round, saw that in the hedge was a wicket-gate, and over this gate a man was leaning. A little, thin man with the face of an...

Over the uplands, to my left, the moon was peeping at me, very broad and yellow, as yet, casting long shadows athwart my way. The air was heavy with the perfume of honeysuckle a...

The clock of the square-towered Norman church, a mile away, was striking the hour of four as I let myself out into the morning. It was dark as yet, and chilly, but in the east w...

It is not my intention to chronicle all those minor happenings that befell me, now or afterward, lest this history prove wearisome to the reader (on the which head I begin to en...

Considering all that had befallen during the last half-hour or so, it was not very surprising, I think, that I should have forgotten the very existence of this woman Charmian, e...

I sat up, sleepily, and rubbed my eyes. The sun was gone, and the blue sky had changed to a deep purple, set here and there with a quivering star. Yet the light was still strong...

A cheery place, at all times, is the kitchen of an English inn, a comfortable place to eat in, to talk in, or to doze in; a place with which your parlors and withdrawing-rooms,...

"Sure as death, Peter. I've heerd un a-shriekin' and a-groanin' to 'isself, same as Gaffer 'as, and lots of others. Why, Lord bless 'ee! theer be scarce a man in these parts but...

To find a man in Cambourne Woods, even so big a man as Black George, would seem as hard a matter as to find the needle in the proverbial "bottle of hay;" the sun crept westward,...

The sun was already westering when I came to a pump beside the way; and seizing the handle I worked it vigorously, then, placing my hollowed hands beneath the gushing spout, dra...

That day I passed through several villages, stopping only to eat and drink; thus evening was falling as, having left fair Sevenoaks behind, I came to the brow of a certain hill,...

I hurried on, looking neither to right nor left, seeing only the face of Charmian, now fearful and appealing, now blazing with scorn. And coming to the brook, I sat down, and th...

"I never see such a thing as this 'ere," said he, alternately glancing from me down to the outstretched figure at my feet, "if it's bewitchments, or only enchantments, I don't l...

It was toward evening of the next day that the door of my prison was opened, and two men entered. The first was a tall, cadaverous-looking individual of a melancholy cast of fea...

Some half-mile along the road, upon the left hand, was a stile, and beyond the stile, a path--a path that led away over field, and meadow, and winding stream, to the blue verge...

Now as I went, pondering on true happiness, and the nature of it, I beheld a man ploughing in a field hard by, and, as he ploughed, he whistled lustily. And drawing near to the...

As this life is a Broad Highway along which we must all of us pass whether we will or no; as it is a thoroughfare sometimes very hard and cruel in the going, and beset by many h...