The Coil of Carne

If by any chance you should ever sail on a low ebb-tide along a certain western coast, you will, if you are of a receptive humour and new to the district, receive a somewhat sta...

And the cause of it all?--Madame Damaris, of Covent Garden Theatre, the most bewitching woman and the most exquisite dancer of her time. Perhaps Captain Denzil's handsome face a...

A woman trudged heavily along the firm damp sand just below the bristling tangle of high-water mark, in the direction of Carne. She wore a long cloak, and bent her head and hump...

In the great house of Carne there was a stillness in strange contrast with the roaring of the gale outside. But the stillness was big with life's vitalities--love and hate and f...

The days passed and brought no word from Sir Denzil in reply to Dr. Yool's post letter. And, having waited as long as they could, they buried Lady Susan in the little green chur...

So small a span of time has made no difference in the great house of Carne, or in its surroundings. Many times have the sand-hills sifted and shifted hither and thither. Many ti...

Mrs. Jex straightened her big white cap nervously. She had hardly got used yet to this new "passon," who was so very different from the last, and who had already in half a day a...

The struggle between the boys, which began before Mr. Eager was well out of sight, resulted in a bump on Jim's forehead similar to the one which already decorated Jack's, in a f...

Instead, he walked over to Carne, and coming first on the back door, rapped on it, and was confronted by Mrs. Lee. It seemed to him that she eyed him with something more than na...

The Rev. Charles was greatly uplifted as he tramped through the sand to keep his appointment with the boys. He had succeeded beyond his hopes, and a most congenial field of work...

She was the Joy of Charles Eager's heart and the light of his eyes. Other sisters and brothers there had been, but all were gone save this little fairy, and they two were alone...

Eager spread his nets very wide for the capture for higher things of these two callow souls cast so carelessly into his hands. Carelessly, that is, on the part of Sir Denzil. Fo...

For the polishing of gems the dust of gems is necessary. And for the training of boys other boys are essential. Eager cast about for other boys against whom his colts might wear...

Next day, when the Rev. Charles was putting all his skill into underhand twisters for the overthrow of Jack, who, to Jim's great exasperation, had got the hang of them and was d...

As time went on, however, Eager's careful oversight of the boys began to note slight points of divergence in the lines of their characteristics, which had so far run absolutely...

George Hempath and young Harben had gone off to school, but the reduced company still took its fill of the freedom of the sands. Sir George and Margaret rarely failed, and play...

Jack, when presently he had seen the little affair at Salamis to a satisfactory conclusion, missed Jim and went out in search of him. He poked about the courtyard without findin...

During that winter two events happened, much alike in their general features, apparently quite disconnected, and yet not at all improbably resulting the one from the other. Eith...

Jack, having lived through an unusually exciting time in the neighbourhood of Carthage, came back to himself in the kitchen at Carne and the first thought of Jim he had had for...

Once aboard the smack, Jim was shoved into a small black dog-hole of a cabin forward and the door slid to and bolted. And there, all alone in the dark, he presently passed a ver...

For two days Eager raked over the sand-hills, from morning till night, with all the men he could press into the service, and all the ardour he could rouse in them.

With all diffidence I mention a fact. Whether it had any bearing on a later happening I do not know. Mr. Kennet, as we know, indulged occasionally in strong waters. The result,...

Smaller matters must give way to greater. You have seen how that great problem of Carne came about, and how it perpetuated itself in the persons of Jack and Jim Carron, without...

And then they were aware suddenly of the rapid beat of horses' feet on the firm brown sand below, and turned, supposing it might be Sir George or Margaret Herapath.

"Under the circumstances I should say he did. At all events it was Sir Denzil's wish that he should go, and he could judge better then than we can now."

Jack had set his heart on Woolwich. In due course he took the entrance examinations without difficulty, and passed into the Royal Military School with flying colours. Woolwich,...

None of them ever forgot the last holiday they all spent together before the great dispersal. Some of them looked back upon it in the after-days with most poignant feelings--of...

"We two are in trouble, and you are the unconscious cause of it. We have suddenly discovered that we have all grown up, and things can never be quite the same between us all as...

"One on 'em's up in his room, but I dunnot know which," grunted old Mrs. Lee, in answer to Eager's request for the boys, either or both, and he went up at once. A tap on Jim's d...

"Things can never be the same again," was the doleful refrain of all Gracie's thoughts as she tossed and tumbled that night, very weary but far too troubled to sleep.

The accession of the young Queen cut a deep cleft between the old times and the new. But human nature at the root is very much the same in all ages, no matter what its outward a...

It was a curious room--the walls hung with heavy draperies, no sign of a window anywhere about it; and it had a feeling and atmosphere of its own, one to which fresh air and swe...

Perhaps it was that heavy supper, and its concomitants, that tended to fog Jim's recollection of something in his talk with Lord Deseret which had struck a jarring note in his b...

It is an old saying, founded on very correct observation, that long-continued calm breaks up in storm. And the same holds good of life, individual and national. Too long a calm...

"Hello, Jim boy? Why, what's up? You look---- What is it, old boy? Not money, when you sent me that gold-mine, day before yesterday. It was mighty good of you, old chap. Now--wh...

It was after ten o'clock the next night when they drove into Wyvveloe and knocked on Mrs. Jex's door. Mrs. Jex had gone to bed and so had Gracie. Eager himself answered their kn...

THE boys were back in London the following night, and Jack expressed a wish to go to Covent Garden to see Mme Beteta, whose fame as a dancer had penetrated even to his den at Ch...

It was about a fortnight after their visit to Carne, and Jim, after several hours' hard work outside, was bolting a hasty breakfast in his quarters one morning, when his orderly...

Joyce solved the lodging difficulty off-hand, and old Seth, assured of bed and board, gave himself up to the impossible task of finding a lost girl who had no desire to be found.

To all intents and purposes he found himself in a foreign country. He wandered bewilderedly here and there, thinking that where the crowds were thickest there would be most chan...

Jim reaped--and duly passed along to Jack--the benefit of Lord Deseret's long and wide experience of life under many conditions. As a young man he had served with Wellington in...

His work appealed to him, and he gave himself up heart and soul, and might have given his health as well if the authorities had not seen to it. Brains in an officer were very ac...

Jack, to his immense delight, found himself detailed for duty with a large number of his men to assist General Canrobert in the fortification of the long narrow peninsula on whi...

Cavalry transports were coming in every day now; the Varna beach looked like a country horse-fair, and to Jim was given the task of superintending the debarkation of the horses...

Jim, by force of circumstance, acquired a very wholesome reputation as the best-mounted man in the Light Brigade, as a tireless rider, and as an officer who doggedly carried out...

Colonel Carron was constantly looking the boys up, and carrying them off to the best meals they ever got in that country. His Chief, Prince Napoleon, had gone down to Therapia w...

From that time on there was no lack of work. The spirits of the me, went up fifty per cent, and the general health improved in like ratio. Hard work proved the best of tonics.

At noon next day they came to a shallow river winding between red clay banks, a somewhat undignified stream whose name they were to blazon in letters of blood on the rolls of fa...

In abandoning the coast and marching inland, the army had cut itself off from its base of supply--the fleet. It was urgently necessary that word should be sent to the admirals t...

And now force of circumstances left the cavalry stranded high and dry, with nothing to do but range the valley now and again in quest of enemies who never showed face, and growl...

The siege of Sebastopol was quite out of the ordinary run, and about as curious a business as ever was. For one usually thinks of a besieged town as surrounded by the enemy and...

The Cavalry, Light and Heavy, but more especially the Light, were, as we have seen, rankling bitterly under quite uncalled-for imputation of showy uselessness, and chafing sorel...

As soon as matters settled down, Colonel Carron rode over at once for news of his boy, He knew he must have been in that brilliant madness, about which every tongue in the camps...

In the comparative luxury of Colonel Carron's quarters, which were far beyond anything he could have got in the English camps, Jim pulled round rapidly. He was in the best of he...

"When I think of them, sir. At present I can think of nothing but this coffee. They give us ours green, you know, and nothing to roast or grind it with."

The following day saw Jim joggling down the miry way to Balaclava Harbour on a French mule-cacolet. He had said good-bye to the others in camp, and begged his father not to vent...

The ten days' voyage there and back, in Captain Jolly's bunk and cheerful company, did Jim a world of good. They lay off Scutari six days, and were back in the Cesspool, as Joll...

"I'm almost sorry I didn't join the navy," he said, as he trudged with Jim through the mud to the Picket House, to see how things had gone on in his absence. "They do keep thing...

Gracie and the Rev. Charles were sitting over their tea one afternoon in the quiet, hopeful despondency--if the expression may be permitted--which had become the natural state o...

His original captor would have taken him elsewhere, but he flatly declined to go anywhere but where Jack went. He thrust aside all interfering hands, and to all attempts at coer...

Brother John's ring had been an Open Sesame to their hearts, and they vied with one another in the repayment in kind for all that the absent one had received at Jim's hands.

"Nothing yet," said Sir Denzil to Eager, on his twentieth anxious call after further news of the boys. "I am surprised Denzil has not written. But so many things may happen out...

The great heart of the nation at home had been wrung with pity and indignation at the altogether unnecessary sufferings of the men who had gone out to fight her battles in the E...

Eager's lean and lively face became well known in the camps and trenches. He was keen to see all he could, and was everywhere welcomed with acclaim, but perhaps the greetings he...

It was the most trying time Jim had ever spent. He had had no experience whatever of sick-beds, beyond his own short spell after Balaclava, and even that was as different from t...

With the better weather things quickened somewhat--the things of Nature, to life; the things of Man, to death. Man strove with all his might to end his fellow man, and drenched...

He was in a vast room, low-roofed, with massive arches which obstructed his view and lay like weights on his brain. Small, heavy windows let in a murky light. All about him were...

It was in the first days of September, just twelve months after the Modern Armada sailed from Varna in hopes of settling matters out of hand, that the great bombardment opened;...

"Can you?" said Jim, with a look of surprise, for this too was all new since he went into captivity. "I wish you would. Just say 'Coming home--Jim,' and send it to Sir Denzil Ca...

"So you've got home, Mr. Eager----" he lifted his glass of wine to his health. Then catching sight of Jim behind--"Ah, Jim, my boy, so you've come home at last!"

"Gracie, dear!" said Jim, "will you make me the happiest man in all the world? I've hungered and thirsted for you all these months, and I believe old Jack would wish it so if he...