Genre - Short Story. You are on the page - 21
er Carlisle assizes,some six weeks later. It was proved that he was the most desperaterogue in the North of England, for he had done three murders at theleast, and there were charges enough against him upon the sheet to havehanged him ten times over.Well now, I could not pass over my boyhood without telling you aboutthis, which was the most important thing that happened to me. But Iwill go off upon no more side tracks; for when I think of all that iscoming, I can see very well that I shall have
ul poisonous flowers. The adders hissed at him as he went by, and the bright parrots flew screaming from branch to branch. Huge tortoises lay asleep upon the hot mud. The trees were full of apes and peacocks.On and on he went, till he reached the outskirts of the wood, and there he saw an immense multitude of men toiling in the bed of a dried-up river. They swarmed up the crag like ants. They dug deep pits in the ground and went down into them. Some of them cleft the rocks with great axes;
alk!""Here comes John with the blacksnake!" shouted someone, and a tremor ran through Tope Sorley's shivering body. I pushed aside the butt of the ugly whip thrust eagerly into my hand. "Tope," I said, "you've worked one of my father's farms for years. Has any Buckner ever treated you any way but square?" "Nossuh," came faintly. "Then what are you afraid of? Why don't you speak up? Something's going on in the swamps. You know, and I want you to
you get off into the water."It occurred that way. The Crimson Candle A MAN lying at the point of death called his wife to his bedside and said: "I am about to leave you forever; give me, therefore, one last proof of your affection and fidelity, for, according to our holy religion, a married man seeking admittance at the gate of Heaven is required to swear that he has never defiled himself with an unworthy woman. In my desk you will find a crimson candle, which has been blessed by the
shadows. As if there might be a fog. But no fog, however, thick, could hide the apple tree that grew close against the house.But the tree was there ... shadowy, indistinct in the gray, with a few withered apples still clinging to its boughs, a few shriveled leaves reluctant to leave the parent branch. The tree was there now. But it hadn't been when he first had looked. Mr. Chambers was sure of that. * * * * * And now he saw the faint outlines of his neighbor's house ... but those outlines were
legs and a little smile, and a little voice, and littleround-about ways. As long as I can remember him he was always goinglittle errands for people, and carrying little gossip. At this presenttime when he called me "Sophonisba!" he had a little old-fashionedlodging in that new neighbourhood of mine. I had not seen him for two orthree years, but I had heard that he still went out with a littleperspective-glass and stood on door-steps in Saint James's Street, to seethe nobility go to