The Weathercock: Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias

Macey's heart sank within him, as, for the first time, the real significance of that which he had done in carefully guiding the rower on to the old rotten pile came home. A cold...

Vane so frequently got into hot-water with his experiments that he more than once made vows. But his promises were as unstable as water, and he soon forgot them. He had vowed th...

Aunt Hannah had been very busy devoting herself according to her custom in watching attentively while Eliza bustled about, spreading the cloth for high tea--a favourite meal at...

Gilmore reached the Little Manor to find Aunt Hannah ready to hurry out and meet him, and he shrank from giving his tidings, fearing that it would be a terrible shock.

Just as Vane shivered at the cry, and ran to hurry on some clothes, there was the shape of the door clearly made out in lines of light, and directly after a sharp tapping.

But Vane went at once to the kitchen with the intention of making some business-like measurements of the opening about the range, and to see where a boiler could best be placed....

As Vane walked along the road the tools in his pocket rattled, and they set him thinking about Mr Deering, and how serious he had made his uncle look for a few days. Then about...

Vane made his way straight to the rectory, with a fixed intention in his mind. The idea had been growing for days: now it was quite ripe, consequent, perhaps, on the state of mi...

The squirrel and the squirrel only. There was not even a sound now. Vane could see the basket he had brought and the two pieces of the strong ash stick which he had broken over...

"Now," said Vane, after sitting, panting for a few minutes, "I came out to-day on purpose to find you, and ask you to shake hands. Glad I got here in time to help you. Shake han...

"Well, no," said the doctor emphatically, after hearing Vane's confession at breakfast next morning. "No harm was done, so I think we will make it a private affair between us, V...

That boating trip formed a topic of conversation in the study morning after morning when the rector was not present--a peculiar form of conversation when Distin was there--which...

The plan of the town of Mavis Greythorpe was very simple, being one long street with houses on either side, placed just as the builders pleased. Churchwarden Rounds' long thatch...

As quickly as if he were fielding a ball, Vane caught up the volume from where it fell, and was half-way back to his seat as the rector came in, looking very much astonished, pa...

The stay at Scarboro' was short, for a letter came from Aunt Hannah, announcing that Mr Deering was coming down, and adding rather pathetically that she wished he would not.

Wrench shouted to Chakes and ran after Joseph, and in this House-that-Jack-built fashion the news ran along the line to the doctor and rector, and right to the end, with the res...

"No, Master Vane, I'll not," cried cook, bridling up, and looking as if an insult had been offered to her stately person; "and if master and missus won't speak, it's time someon...

Churchwarden Rounds kept his word, for at the first break of day his vigorous arms sent the ting-tang ringing in a very different way to that adopted by old Chakes for the last...

"What's going on here?" said Vane to himself, as he was walking up the town, and then, the colour rose to his cheeks, and he looked sharply round to see if he was observed.

Anything less likely to form a fortnight's amusement for a lad than the iron-pipes, crooks, bends, elbows, syphons and boiler delivered by waggon from the nearest railway, it wo...

Half-stunned, confused, and wondering, Vane Lee awoke to the fact that he really was lying upon the carpet at the side of his bed, and for a few moments, he felt that he must ha...

"Pray, pray, be careful, Vane, my dear," cried Aunt Hannah, the next afternoon, when the new propeller had been carefully lifted on to the miller's cart, and the inventor rushed...

Time glided on, and it became Gilmore's turn to leave the rectory. Other pupils came to take the places of the two who had gone, but Macey said the new fellows, did not belong,...

"Yes, wrong as wrong," said Constable Bates, as he came away from the Little Manor, "and me niver to think o' they two lungeing looking young dogs. Why, of course it was they. I...

Vane felt for the moment quite startled, the place being so silent and solitary, but the idea of danger seemed to him absurd, and he stood watching the shadow till all doubt of...

"Yes: he is a nervous, finely-strung youth," replied the rector. "The result of his birth in a tropical country. It was startling, too, his being fetched down from bed to hear s...

Vane reached the rectory gate and turned in with his brains in the air, dashing here and there like a dragon-fly, skimming after the fashion of a swallow, flying steadily, bumbl...

"Hallo, boiler-burster," cried Gilmore, next time they met, while Macey ran into a corner of the study to turn his face to the wall and keep on exploding with laughter, "when ar...

"Oh, I don't want to ride hobbies, uncle," said Vane, in rather an ill-used tone. "I only like to be doing things that seem as if they would be useful."

Three salutations shouted at a lad of about sixteen, who had just shown himself at the edge of a wood on the sunny slope of the Southwolds, one glorious September morning, when...

"No, uncle," said Vane, looking up from a book he was reading. "Joseph came with a note, before breakfast, to say that the rector was going over to Lincoln to-day, and that he h...

But all the time there was a curious mental effervescence going on as the lad lay in bed, the object of every one's care; and until he could clearly understand why he was there,...

Those were sad and weary hours at the Little Manor, and when Vane's delirium was at its height and he was talking most rapidly, Doctor Lee for almost the first time in his life...

"Hadn't you better tell me now, uncle," said Vane. "I don't like to go on waiting and thinking that I have a scolding coming, and not know what it's about."

Vane meant to slip in by the back after crossing the meadows, but as a matter of course he met Bruff half-way down the garden, later than he had been there for years.

"Help, help," cried Aunt Hannah, excitedly, as the lamp broke on the floor, and there was a flash of flame as the spirit exploded, some having splashed into the fire, and for a...

Trivial as Vane's discovery may seem, it was the result of long months and study of applied science, and certain dearly bought experiences, and though Mr Deering blamed himself...