At Midnight and Other Stories
CONTENTS
At Midnight
A Breath Of The Sea
Two Old Fogies
"One Of These Little Ones"
A Sweet Day
The Wind Of Destiny
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first story:
AT MIDNIGHT
CHAPTER I - OUT OF THE PAST
THEY sat in their American buggy at the turn of an English road—an Australian bride and bridegroom, on their wedding tour.
It was a bit of the "old country" that had not been syndicated and modernized since the bridegroom had seen it last—when he was a young fellow at Cambridge, paying visits to the houses of his university chums because his own home was inaccessible. Tall hedges embraced the ripening wheat-fields still; brambly ditches yawned beneath them. There were dense woods hereabouts that made green tunnels of the road, and there were thickets of fern and wild vines and bushes—acres of unprofitable beauty—under the useless trees. The spot was a joy to the sentimental wayfarer, and Mrs. Wingate's gaze meant rapture not expressible in words.
"This," she sighed, "is England, Billy."
She meant that this was the England of her romantic dreams—England as described to her by exiled parents and in scores of delightful books.
"And this," said Billy, "is the place I told you of."
He pointed with his whip.
Just below and before them rose an ancient gateway, iron and stone, with much heraldic ornament. An ivy-mantled lodge with curly chimney-stacks stood immediately within; and beyond, sloping gently upward for a mile or more, a straight, grassed drive between thick woods—a beautiful green vista, three times as wide as an ordinary park avenue—was closed, on an elevated horizon, by the indistinct but imposing mass of a great grey house, one of those "stately homes of England" which are our pride and boast. It was a lovely picture, and a lovely atmosphere through which to view it—tinted with the hues of approaching sunset on a late summer day. A few head of deer were browsing quietly on the shadow-patterned sward; thrushes were calling to each other from wood to wood; partridges flying homeward to their nests in the corn, disturbed by the sound of the horses' hoofs.
"There it is," said the bridegroom, his eyes kindling, his voice full of feeling, evoked by thronging memories of the splendid days of youth. "And you should see it when the pink may is out and those woods full of rhododendron in flower! Look at that grass ride—the deer like to come out there to feed, though they hide in the fern to rest—and what a stretch for a gallop! There wasn't the shooting in my time that there is now, but many a jolly day have I had with Walter Desailly in those fields over there, walking up our birds with one old dog through the turnips and stubble. You see that water shining through the trees? There was duck there; we shot them with a rook rifle by moonlight out of a bedroom window, and scared the maids with the row we made; once we caught a forty-two pound pike on a night-line; Walter had been fishing for it all his life, and found three sets of his tackle rusted in its jaws. The old squire had it stuffed for a curiosity. I wonder if Walter has it still, and whether he ever thinks of those old days?"
The speaker sighed inaudibly. He was a fine man, in his prime, inclining to stoutness, and with a suspicion of frost upon his short brown beard. "Those old days" were nearly twenty years ago.
"You ought to call upon him," said Mrs. Wingate, "and remind him of them. I'm sure he would be delighted, if you were such friends as that. Then you could show me over. Probably he would invite us to stay with him. At any rate, he might be able to advise us about a place for ourselves."
This pair, it must be explained, were wealthy, as was the case with many Australians at that date—a period now indicated in the conversation of their countrymen is "the good times"—he a lucky Queensland pastoralist, she an heiress of the Silver Boom, both rather new to prosperity of this kind, but too naturally nice to be vulgarized by it. Neither had any of the gross ambitions common to persons in their case, but both desired keenly to enjoy their money. They had just concluded a most successful London season, without having been presented at Court or made notorious in society papers; and they were now touring the country behind their own horses, mainly for rest and independence, and to see what was to be seen, but also in search of a good house in a sporting neighbourhood, where they might make a home and entertain their friends during the shooting and hunting seasons. Mrs. Wingate's dream of luxury was to live in a medieval castle, with history around her in the atmosphere of refined, aristocratic, old-England life, as she had romantically imagined it....
1006687419
At Midnight
A Breath Of The Sea
Two Old Fogies
"One Of These Little Ones"
A Sweet Day
The Wind Of Destiny
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first story:
AT MIDNIGHT
CHAPTER I - OUT OF THE PAST
THEY sat in their American buggy at the turn of an English road—an Australian bride and bridegroom, on their wedding tour.
It was a bit of the "old country" that had not been syndicated and modernized since the bridegroom had seen it last—when he was a young fellow at Cambridge, paying visits to the houses of his university chums because his own home was inaccessible. Tall hedges embraced the ripening wheat-fields still; brambly ditches yawned beneath them. There were dense woods hereabouts that made green tunnels of the road, and there were thickets of fern and wild vines and bushes—acres of unprofitable beauty—under the useless trees. The spot was a joy to the sentimental wayfarer, and Mrs. Wingate's gaze meant rapture not expressible in words.
"This," she sighed, "is England, Billy."
She meant that this was the England of her romantic dreams—England as described to her by exiled parents and in scores of delightful books.
"And this," said Billy, "is the place I told you of."
He pointed with his whip.
Just below and before them rose an ancient gateway, iron and stone, with much heraldic ornament. An ivy-mantled lodge with curly chimney-stacks stood immediately within; and beyond, sloping gently upward for a mile or more, a straight, grassed drive between thick woods—a beautiful green vista, three times as wide as an ordinary park avenue—was closed, on an elevated horizon, by the indistinct but imposing mass of a great grey house, one of those "stately homes of England" which are our pride and boast. It was a lovely picture, and a lovely atmosphere through which to view it—tinted with the hues of approaching sunset on a late summer day. A few head of deer were browsing quietly on the shadow-patterned sward; thrushes were calling to each other from wood to wood; partridges flying homeward to their nests in the corn, disturbed by the sound of the horses' hoofs.
"There it is," said the bridegroom, his eyes kindling, his voice full of feeling, evoked by thronging memories of the splendid days of youth. "And you should see it when the pink may is out and those woods full of rhododendron in flower! Look at that grass ride—the deer like to come out there to feed, though they hide in the fern to rest—and what a stretch for a gallop! There wasn't the shooting in my time that there is now, but many a jolly day have I had with Walter Desailly in those fields over there, walking up our birds with one old dog through the turnips and stubble. You see that water shining through the trees? There was duck there; we shot them with a rook rifle by moonlight out of a bedroom window, and scared the maids with the row we made; once we caught a forty-two pound pike on a night-line; Walter had been fishing for it all his life, and found three sets of his tackle rusted in its jaws. The old squire had it stuffed for a curiosity. I wonder if Walter has it still, and whether he ever thinks of those old days?"
The speaker sighed inaudibly. He was a fine man, in his prime, inclining to stoutness, and with a suspicion of frost upon his short brown beard. "Those old days" were nearly twenty years ago.
"You ought to call upon him," said Mrs. Wingate, "and remind him of them. I'm sure he would be delighted, if you were such friends as that. Then you could show me over. Probably he would invite us to stay with him. At any rate, he might be able to advise us about a place for ourselves."
This pair, it must be explained, were wealthy, as was the case with many Australians at that date—a period now indicated in the conversation of their countrymen is "the good times"—he a lucky Queensland pastoralist, she an heiress of the Silver Boom, both rather new to prosperity of this kind, but too naturally nice to be vulgarized by it. Neither had any of the gross ambitions common to persons in their case, but both desired keenly to enjoy their money. They had just concluded a most successful London season, without having been presented at Court or made notorious in society papers; and they were now touring the country behind their own horses, mainly for rest and independence, and to see what was to be seen, but also in search of a good house in a sporting neighbourhood, where they might make a home and entertain their friends during the shooting and hunting seasons. Mrs. Wingate's dream of luxury was to live in a medieval castle, with history around her in the atmosphere of refined, aristocratic, old-England life, as she had romantically imagined it....
At Midnight and Other Stories
CONTENTS
At Midnight
A Breath Of The Sea
Two Old Fogies
"One Of These Little Ones"
A Sweet Day
The Wind Of Destiny
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first story:
AT MIDNIGHT
CHAPTER I - OUT OF THE PAST
THEY sat in their American buggy at the turn of an English road—an Australian bride and bridegroom, on their wedding tour.
It was a bit of the "old country" that had not been syndicated and modernized since the bridegroom had seen it last—when he was a young fellow at Cambridge, paying visits to the houses of his university chums because his own home was inaccessible. Tall hedges embraced the ripening wheat-fields still; brambly ditches yawned beneath them. There were dense woods hereabouts that made green tunnels of the road, and there were thickets of fern and wild vines and bushes—acres of unprofitable beauty—under the useless trees. The spot was a joy to the sentimental wayfarer, and Mrs. Wingate's gaze meant rapture not expressible in words.
"This," she sighed, "is England, Billy."
She meant that this was the England of her romantic dreams—England as described to her by exiled parents and in scores of delightful books.
"And this," said Billy, "is the place I told you of."
He pointed with his whip.
Just below and before them rose an ancient gateway, iron and stone, with much heraldic ornament. An ivy-mantled lodge with curly chimney-stacks stood immediately within; and beyond, sloping gently upward for a mile or more, a straight, grassed drive between thick woods—a beautiful green vista, three times as wide as an ordinary park avenue—was closed, on an elevated horizon, by the indistinct but imposing mass of a great grey house, one of those "stately homes of England" which are our pride and boast. It was a lovely picture, and a lovely atmosphere through which to view it—tinted with the hues of approaching sunset on a late summer day. A few head of deer were browsing quietly on the shadow-patterned sward; thrushes were calling to each other from wood to wood; partridges flying homeward to their nests in the corn, disturbed by the sound of the horses' hoofs.
"There it is," said the bridegroom, his eyes kindling, his voice full of feeling, evoked by thronging memories of the splendid days of youth. "And you should see it when the pink may is out and those woods full of rhododendron in flower! Look at that grass ride—the deer like to come out there to feed, though they hide in the fern to rest—and what a stretch for a gallop! There wasn't the shooting in my time that there is now, but many a jolly day have I had with Walter Desailly in those fields over there, walking up our birds with one old dog through the turnips and stubble. You see that water shining through the trees? There was duck there; we shot them with a rook rifle by moonlight out of a bedroom window, and scared the maids with the row we made; once we caught a forty-two pound pike on a night-line; Walter had been fishing for it all his life, and found three sets of his tackle rusted in its jaws. The old squire had it stuffed for a curiosity. I wonder if Walter has it still, and whether he ever thinks of those old days?"
The speaker sighed inaudibly. He was a fine man, in his prime, inclining to stoutness, and with a suspicion of frost upon his short brown beard. "Those old days" were nearly twenty years ago.
"You ought to call upon him," said Mrs. Wingate, "and remind him of them. I'm sure he would be delighted, if you were such friends as that. Then you could show me over. Probably he would invite us to stay with him. At any rate, he might be able to advise us about a place for ourselves."
This pair, it must be explained, were wealthy, as was the case with many Australians at that date—a period now indicated in the conversation of their countrymen is "the good times"—he a lucky Queensland pastoralist, she an heiress of the Silver Boom, both rather new to prosperity of this kind, but too naturally nice to be vulgarized by it. Neither had any of the gross ambitions common to persons in their case, but both desired keenly to enjoy their money. They had just concluded a most successful London season, without having been presented at Court or made notorious in society papers; and they were now touring the country behind their own horses, mainly for rest and independence, and to see what was to be seen, but also in search of a good house in a sporting neighbourhood, where they might make a home and entertain their friends during the shooting and hunting seasons. Mrs. Wingate's dream of luxury was to live in a medieval castle, with history around her in the atmosphere of refined, aristocratic, old-England life, as she had romantically imagined it....
At Midnight
A Breath Of The Sea
Two Old Fogies
"One Of These Little Ones"
A Sweet Day
The Wind Of Destiny
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first story:
AT MIDNIGHT
CHAPTER I - OUT OF THE PAST
THEY sat in their American buggy at the turn of an English road—an Australian bride and bridegroom, on their wedding tour.
It was a bit of the "old country" that had not been syndicated and modernized since the bridegroom had seen it last—when he was a young fellow at Cambridge, paying visits to the houses of his university chums because his own home was inaccessible. Tall hedges embraced the ripening wheat-fields still; brambly ditches yawned beneath them. There were dense woods hereabouts that made green tunnels of the road, and there were thickets of fern and wild vines and bushes—acres of unprofitable beauty—under the useless trees. The spot was a joy to the sentimental wayfarer, and Mrs. Wingate's gaze meant rapture not expressible in words.
"This," she sighed, "is England, Billy."
She meant that this was the England of her romantic dreams—England as described to her by exiled parents and in scores of delightful books.
"And this," said Billy, "is the place I told you of."
He pointed with his whip.
Just below and before them rose an ancient gateway, iron and stone, with much heraldic ornament. An ivy-mantled lodge with curly chimney-stacks stood immediately within; and beyond, sloping gently upward for a mile or more, a straight, grassed drive between thick woods—a beautiful green vista, three times as wide as an ordinary park avenue—was closed, on an elevated horizon, by the indistinct but imposing mass of a great grey house, one of those "stately homes of England" which are our pride and boast. It was a lovely picture, and a lovely atmosphere through which to view it—tinted with the hues of approaching sunset on a late summer day. A few head of deer were browsing quietly on the shadow-patterned sward; thrushes were calling to each other from wood to wood; partridges flying homeward to their nests in the corn, disturbed by the sound of the horses' hoofs.
"There it is," said the bridegroom, his eyes kindling, his voice full of feeling, evoked by thronging memories of the splendid days of youth. "And you should see it when the pink may is out and those woods full of rhododendron in flower! Look at that grass ride—the deer like to come out there to feed, though they hide in the fern to rest—and what a stretch for a gallop! There wasn't the shooting in my time that there is now, but many a jolly day have I had with Walter Desailly in those fields over there, walking up our birds with one old dog through the turnips and stubble. You see that water shining through the trees? There was duck there; we shot them with a rook rifle by moonlight out of a bedroom window, and scared the maids with the row we made; once we caught a forty-two pound pike on a night-line; Walter had been fishing for it all his life, and found three sets of his tackle rusted in its jaws. The old squire had it stuffed for a curiosity. I wonder if Walter has it still, and whether he ever thinks of those old days?"
The speaker sighed inaudibly. He was a fine man, in his prime, inclining to stoutness, and with a suspicion of frost upon his short brown beard. "Those old days" were nearly twenty years ago.
"You ought to call upon him," said Mrs. Wingate, "and remind him of them. I'm sure he would be delighted, if you were such friends as that. Then you could show me over. Probably he would invite us to stay with him. At any rate, he might be able to advise us about a place for ourselves."
This pair, it must be explained, were wealthy, as was the case with many Australians at that date—a period now indicated in the conversation of their countrymen is "the good times"—he a lucky Queensland pastoralist, she an heiress of the Silver Boom, both rather new to prosperity of this kind, but too naturally nice to be vulgarized by it. Neither had any of the gross ambitions common to persons in their case, but both desired keenly to enjoy their money. They had just concluded a most successful London season, without having been presented at Court or made notorious in society papers; and they were now touring the country behind their own horses, mainly for rest and independence, and to see what was to be seen, but also in search of a good house in a sporting neighbourhood, where they might make a home and entertain their friends during the shooting and hunting seasons. Mrs. Wingate's dream of luxury was to live in a medieval castle, with history around her in the atmosphere of refined, aristocratic, old-England life, as she had romantically imagined it....
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At Midnight and Other Stories
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940015960136 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | OGB |
| Publication date: | 01/27/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 590 KB |
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