FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79  
80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   >>   >|  
turning her head. "I can't come till the 5.40," she said. "But, my dear Barbara----" "I--_can't_, father." ("Bullies the life out of every one, I've always heard," Eric repeated to himself, as Lord Crawleigh subsided into inarticulate blustering. "Except the girl. And she bullies him.") "I did wonderful staff-work with Waterloo this morning," Barbara confided. "The 5.40 stops at Winchester _and_ Crawleigh." "I could have told you that," said Eric. "So could Bradshaw, deceased." "But fancy looking at Bradshaw, when you can persuade some one to look at it for you! . . . And you can't get _any_where in Bradshaw without going through the Severn Tunnel and waiting two hours at Bletchley. Besides, Waterloo rather loved me. Just my voice, you know. . . . We'll go down together. You can wire to your people." "I told them I'd come by the 5.40." "But how lucky!" "How--understanding," he amended. * * * * * "_If you can be sure of your opponent, you may win by throwing down your weapon. It is the victory of the weak over the strong, the 'tyranny of tears.' Or perhaps it is the victory of the weak over the weaker. But you must be sure of your opponent._"--From the Diary of Eric Lane. CHAPTER THREE LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE "I've come back . . . and I was the King of Kafiristan . . . and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!" RUDYARD KIPLING: "THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING." 1 As the crow flies, Lashmar Mill-House is but five miles from Winchester. By road, however, there are six miles of tolerable grey flint and rusty gravel on the Winchester and Melton turnpike, followed by three Irish miles of unaided forest track. Half of it lies under water for six months of the year; but in the summer a rutted ride projects from stony sand-pockets framed in velvet moss, with tidal-waves of bracken surging up from the dells at the road-side and low branches meeting to net the sun-shine. At the end of the three miles Swanley Forest seems to have paused for breath. There is a natural clearing a mile long and three quarters of a mile broad--cherished common-land, where the Lashmar villagers walk many assertive miles of a Sunday to preserve their rights of way; where, too, tethered goats and errant geese make good their eleventh-century claim to free pasturage. At one end of the down-soft clearing, a Methodist chapel, two shops and f
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79  
80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Bradshaw
 

Winchester

 

clearing

 
Lashmar
 

victory

 

Waterloo

 

opponent

 

Barbara

 

Crawleigh

 

months


pasturage

 
turnpike
 

Melton

 
century
 
eleventh
 

unaided

 

forest

 

tolerable

 

summer

 

chapel


Methodist

 

gravel

 

breath

 

paused

 

natural

 
rights
 

Forest

 

tethered

 

Swanley

 

preserve


Sunday

 

quarters

 
cherished
 

common

 

assertive

 

villagers

 

framed

 

pockets

 

velvet

 

errant


rutted
 
projects
 

bracken

 

branches

 

meeting

 
surging
 

weaker

 
deceased
 
persuade
 

morning