



Produced by Al Haines









[Frontispiece: W. Clark Russell]




INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORIES




EDITED BY

WILLIAM PATTEN


  A NEW COLLECTION OF
  FAMOUS EXAMPLES
  FROM THE LITERATURES
  OF ENGLAND, FRANCE
  AND AMERICA




ENGLISH




P F COLLIER & SON

NEW YORK




Copyright, 1910

BY P. F. COLLIER & SON


The use of the copyrighted stories in this collection has been
authorized in each case by their authors or by their representatives.




ENGLISH STORIES


THE TWO DROVERS ................. By Sir Walter Scott

MR. DEUCEACE...................  By W. M. Thackeray

THE BROTHERS..................  Edward Bulmer Lytton

DOCTOR MANETTE'S MANUSCRIPT ...........  By Charles Dickens

THE CALDRON OF OIL................. By Wilkie Collins

THE BURIAL OF THE TITHE ............... By Samuel Lover

THE KNIGHTSBRIDGE MYSTERY .............  By Charles Reade

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD ...........  By Rudyard Kipling

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR...........  By R. L. Stevenson

THE SECRET OF GORESTHORPE GRANGE........ By Sir A. Conan Doyle

A CHANGE OF TREATMENT ................ By W. W. Jacobs

THE STICKIT MINISTER................ By S. R. Crockett

THE LAMMAS PREACHING................ By S. R. Crockett

AN UNDERGRADUATE'S AUNT ................  By F. Anstey

THE SILHOUETTES ...............  By A. T. Quiller-Couch

MY BROTHER HENRY................... By J. M. Barrie

GILRAY'S FLOWER POT ................. By J. M. Barrie

MR. O'LEARY'S SECOND LOVE .............  By Charles Lever

THE INDIFFERENCE OF THE MILLER OF HOFBAU... By Anthony Hope Hawkins

THE STOLEN BODY ...................  By H. G. Wells

THE LAZARETTE OF THE "HUNTRESS" ......... By W. Clark Russell

THE GREAT TRIANGULAR DUEL .......  By Captain Frederick Marryat

THREE THIMBLES AND A PEA..............  By George Borrow




THE TWO DROVERS

By SIR WALTER SCOTT


CHAPTER I

It was the day after Donne Fair when my story commences.  It had been a
brisk market: several dealers had attended from the northern and
midland counties in England, and English money had flown so merrily
about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland farmers.  Many large
droves were about to set off for England, under the protection of their
owners, or of the topsmen whom they employed in the tedious, laborious,
and responsible office of driving the cattle for many hundred miles,
from the market where they had been purchased to the fields or
farm-yards where they were to be fattened for the shambles.

The Highlanders in particular are masters of this difficult trade of
driving, which seems to suit them as well as the trade of war.  It
affords exercise for all their habits of patient endurance and active
exertion.  They are required to know perfectly the drove-roads, which
lie over the wildest tracts of the country, and to avoid as much as
possible the highways, which distress the feet of the bullocks, and the
turnpikes, which annoy the spirit of the drover; whereas on the broad
green or grey track, which leads across the pathless moor, the herd not
only move at ease and without taxation, but, if they mind their
business, may pick up a mouthful of food by the way.  At night, the
drovers usually sleep along with their cattle, let the weather be what
it will; and many of these hardy men do not once rest under a roof
during a journey on foot from Lochaber to Lincolnshire