Young Musgrave

It would be difficult to say how Penninghame Castle had got that imposing name. It was an old house standing almost on the roadside, at least at the termination of a rough count...

It was not one of Mary Musgrave’s fancies to furnish her hall like a drawing-room. She had collected round her a few things for use, but she was not rich enough to make her favo...

The cab was loaded with two boxes on the roof, foreign trunks, of a different shape from those used at home; and a woman’s face, in a fantastic foreign head-dress, peered throug...

“Come in,” said the Squire. He was sitting among his books, working with such a genuine sense of importance as was strange to see. Mary did not know that she thought anything in...

Miss Musgrave went back to her visitors with a heightened colour and assured step. Her alarm had departed along with her wistful and hopeful ignorance as to what her father migh...

The vicarage was stilled in the quiet of the evening, the children in bed, the house at rest. It was not the beautiful and dignified old house which in England is the ideal dwel...

The arrival of the children was an era at Penninghame from which afterwards everything dated; but the immediate result was a very curious and not very comfortable one. As they h...

Lady Stanton drove home from that visit with her heart and her eyes full. She was not intellectual, nor even clever, but a soft creature, made up of feelings easily touched, not...

Nevertheless this meeting could not be got out of Lady Stanton’s mind. She thought of it constantly; and in the stillness of her own room, when nobody but the little girls were...

While Lady Stanton spread the news of the arrival of the Musgrave children among the upper classes, this information was given to the lower, an equally or perhaps even more impo...

“You must not cry, Nello; for one thing you are too big to cry; or if you are not too big you are too old. You are eight--past! and then the old gentleman downstairs is such a f...

“My Lord Stanton, ma’am,” said Eastwood, with a certain expansion in the throat and fulness of voice, like that swell and gurgle which accompanies in a bird the fullest tide of...

Lilias did not say much about the adventure in the wood, nothing at all indeed to Mary or any one in authority; nor did it dwell in her mind as a thing of much importance. The k...

Mr. Pennithorne went home thoughtful, and Miss Musgrave remained behind, if not exactly turned in a new direction, yet confused and excited in her mental being by the introducti...

Randolph Musgrave was a squire-parson, a class which possesses the features of two species without fully embodying either--which may be finer than either, the two halves of the...

The Squire made use of that discretion which is the better part of valour. When Randolph for the second time insisted upon coming to an understanding on family affairs, which me...

The same day on which these incidents occurred the Stanton family were in full conclave at Elfdale. It was the birthday of Laura, and there were various merrymakings on hand, an...

The result of this interview was that Geoff, as was natural, threw himself body and soul into the cause of Wild Bampfylde. When he had once made up his mind to this, a certain c...

When young Lord Stanton left his own house with Wild Bampfylde there was a tingle of excitement in the young man’s veins. Very few youths of his age are to be found so entirely...

There was a sound of movement within the house, but no light visible as they stood at the door. Then a window was cautiously opened, and a voice called out into the darkness, “I...

Geoff left the cottage when the sun had just risen. He was half-giddy, half-stunned by the strange new light, unexpected up to the last moment, which had been thrown upon the wh...

It was still early, and Stanton, so easy-going and leisurely a house, was not yet astir when Geoff got home. Hours of sunshine and morning light are over even in August before s...

Geoff spent the remainder of this day at home, looking once more over the file of old newspapers in which the Musgrave case was printed at such length, the _Times_ and the local...

The Squire went home after his game of ducks and drakes in the most curious, bewildered state of mind. The shock of all these recent events had affected him much more than any o...

Notwithstanding her dislike to have it supposed that Mr. Pen was her spiritual adviser, Mary did make a hurried visit to the Vicarage to ask his advice. Not that she had much co...

Randolph Musgrave was extremely annoyed at the turn things had taken. On the day of his father’s seizure indeed a kind of serene solemnity came over him. He would not have been...

Thus Randolph overcame Nello’s opposition to school, to his own extreme surprise. Though he had a child of his own, and all the experiences of a middle-aged clergyman, he had ne...

While these events were going on at the Castle, Lord Stanton, for his part, had come to a standstill in the matter which he had been drawn into so inadvertently, and which had b...

Randolph Musgrave drove from the door of his father’s house with a sigh of relief, yet of anxiety. He had not done what he meant to do, and affairs were more critical than when...

Nello sobbed himself to sleep that night, scarcely conscious of the hubbub that was going on around him. He had watched with a pang unspeakable the escape of his bird, then had...

All this time the old Squire lay in the same stupor of death in life. He did not rally. Sometimes there was a look in his eyes--a quiver as of meaning, between the half-closed l...

The house was very still in the afternoon languor--all its life suspended. Between the sick-room, in which all the interest of the family existence was absorbed, and the servant...

“How could I, when I have been in the railway all the night? Do you think you can get over the ditch? Jump! I jumped, and you always could jump better than I.”

Nobody in the sick-room said a word of the great consternation and wonder and fear that sprang to life in them at the appearance of the stranger. How could they, though their he...

On that same morning when so many things occurred, young Lord Stanton was seated in the library at Stanton, with a great deal of business to do. He had letters to write, he had...

Geoff took the children home without let or hindrance. There was no inn near where they could pass the night; and as he had no legitimate right to their custody, and was totally...

Mr. Pennithorne was at the Castle almost all the day during which so many things occurred. While the children wandered in the wood and young Lord Stanton went in search of them,...

The afternoon of the day on which poor Bampfylde died was bright and fine, one of those beautiful October days which are more lovely in their wistful brightness, more touching,...

She had recovered herself after the anguish of that discovery. Before the sympathisers round her had ceased to sob, ’Lizabeth had raised herself up in the midst of them like an...

John Musgrave settled down without any commotion into his natural place in his father’s house. The old Squire himself mended from the day when Nello, very timid, but yet brave t...