Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and they might as well be packing their bags already. Had Harry thought that things couldn't have been worse? He was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville. "Harry!" Neville burst Out, the moment he saw the other two. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag -- " Harry shook his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the three of them. "I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves." It was the first time Hermione had ever failed to answer a teacher's question. She was staring at her slippers, as still as a statue. "I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Professor McGonagall. "It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?" Harry caught Neville's eye and tried to tell him without words that this wasn't true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville -- Harry knew what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them. "I'm disgusted," said Professor McGonagall. "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions -- yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous -- and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor." "Fifty?" Harry gasped -- they would lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match. "Fifty points each," said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose. "Professor -- please -- " "You can't -- " "Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students." A hundred and fifty points lost. That put Gryffindor in last place. In one night, they'd ruined any chance Gryffindor had had for the house cup. Harry felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. How could they ever make up for this? Harry didn't sleep all night. He could hear Neville sobbing into his pillow for what seemed like hours. Harry couldn't think of anything to say to comfort him. He knew Neville, like


dear. Ain't it beautiful?' Mr. Bolter nodded assent, and Fagin, after contemplating the grief of Charley Bates for some seconds with evident satisfaction, stepped up to that young gentleman and patted him on the shoulder. 'Never mind, Charley,' said Fagin soothingly; 'it'll come out, it'll be sure to come out. They'll all know what a clever fellow he was; he'll show it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers. Think how young he is too! What a distinction, Charley, to be lagged at his time of life!' 'Well, it is a honour that is!' said Charley, a little consoled. 'He shall have all he wants,' continued the Jew. 'He shall be kept in the Stone Jug, Charley, like a gentleman. Like a gentleman! With his beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he can't spend it.' 'No, shall he though?' cried Charley Bates. 'Ay, that he shall,' replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers--"Artful Dodger--shrieks of laughter--here the court was convulsed"--eh, Charley, eh?' 'Ha! ha! laughed Master Bates, 'what a lark that would be, wouldn't it, Fagin? I say, how the Artful would bother 'em wouldn't he?' 'Would!' cried Fagin. 'He shall--he will!' 'Ah, to be sure, so he will,' repeated Charley, rubbing his hands. 'I think I see him now,' cried the Jew, bending his eyes upon his pupil. 'So do I,' cried Charley Bates. 'Ha! ha! ha! so do I. I see it all afore me, upon my soul I do, Fagin. What a game! What a regular game! All the big-wigs trying to look solemn, and Jack Dawkins addressing of 'em as intimate and comfortable as if he was the judge's own son making a speech arter dinner--ha! ha! ha!' In fact, Mr. Fagin had so well humoured his young friend's eccentric disposition, that Master Bates, who had at first been disposed to consider the imprisoned Dodger rather in the light of a victim, now looked upon him as the chief actor in a scene of most uncommon and exquisite humour, and felt quite impatient for the arrival of the time when his old companion should have so favourable an opportunity of displaying his abilities. 'We must know how he gets on to-day, by some handy means or other,' said Fagin. 'Let me think.' 'Shall I go?' asked Charley. 'Not for the world,' replied Fagin. 'Are you mad, my dear, stark mad, that you'd walk into the very place where--No, Charley, no. One is enough to lose at a time.' 'You don't mean to go yourself, I suppose?' said Charley with a humorous leer. 'That wouldn't quite fit,' replied Fagin shaking his head. 'Then why don't you send this new cove?' asked Master Bates, laying his hand on Noah's arm. 'Nobody knows him.' 'Why, if he didn't mind--' observed Fagin. 'Mind!' interposed Charley. 'What should


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

the answer stroll up and give me presents. The next guest drove all such thoughts from my mind. Wendell swept up to the dais, short and drab and indistinct, and gave me and the king a bow. The lords and ladies who had been watching the proceedings turned back to their whispered gossip, dismissing him entirely. I saw the king frown briefly, as if some memory had been triggered. Wendell appeared perfectly at his ease, even a little bored, as he set at my feet a pair of shoes. I sucked in my breath. The shoes were of white leather and fur, with impractical heels that would add half a foot to my height, but unlike every other adornment I had been presented with, they did not sparkle with frost or ice-encrusted jewels. Somehow, he had woven the fur with the petals of cherry blossoms, as if the pale beast who had owned the pelt had rubbed its back against a tree. When I touched them, a spring breeze fluttered against my fingers, and I smelled rain and green, growing things. “If you would allow me the honour, Your Highness?” Wendell said. In one quick, graceful motion, he slid the boots from my feet and replaced them with the shoes. They fit perfectly, and oh, they were so warming. I felt astonished that I hadn’t realized how cold my feet had been before. “Thank you,” I said, trying to read the meaning of this gift on his unfamiliar face. But he gave me no assistance, only smiled, bowed again to the king, and faded back into obscurity. The king was watching me with a frown between his lovely blue eyes. “Are you all right, my darling? Your heart is thundering as if it wishes to escape from you.” I swallowed—it would be an understatement to call his knowledge of my heart rate an unpleasant surprise. “The shoes are beautiful.” “Ah,” he said, smiling. I didn’t think him an idiot, only his expectations of me were so limited that I never found him difficult to lie to. I had the sense that he viewed all mortals as akin to his pet ravens, whose lives revolve around the treats he tosses their way, which made me wonder if he’d ever had a comeuppance before, and I don’t mean by a fellow monarch. The literature is, after all, strewn with examples of arrogant faerie lords given their due by artless maidens and practical rustics. “I should have guessed,” he said. “I’ve been wrong to spoil you with jewels and servants, haven’t I? Never fear. After our wedding, I will have my shoemakers fill your rooms to bursting with boots of calfskin and rabbit fur, all covered in diamonds, flowers, and frost; you shall have a different pair for each day of your life.” I didn’t care for the way he said this, as if the life of a mortal, measured in ridiculous shoes, was so puny a thing that there was nothing at all extravagant about such a present. He turned his attention to the


way to be sure. Not for me, not for anyone. Not for a jury or a tribunal. Which would mean she got fired. In the movies gangsters throw bodies into the lake, but in real life they swell up and escape unless you get that exactly right. You need a canvas bag and weights and a depth map and buying all those things at once can be hard to explain down the line. On the other hand there’s a natural spa hotel on the far shore called the Alaric where rich lawyers take people they shouldn’t, and kids from the bridge area think they’ll have their honeymoon. It has indoor-outdoor pools in the main garden and wooden hot tubs by the cabins among the trees. Back another three hundred metres there’s a section they don’t put in the brochure where what comes up out of the rock is mostly acid. The pools there look every bit as beautiful, but you really don’t want to bathe in them. A guy named Marlowe keeps the grounds and makes sure no one goes in. Marlowe and I get along fine. I never talk to Musgrave about that night and she never brings it up. Everyone assumes we slept together. Everyone assumes it was bad sex and we didn’t want to do it any more. They mostly assume that last part was my fault. * * * — I drive us to her house. I have only ever been inside that one time. Musgrave has a little remote on the dash and the garage door opens. I drive in. Musgrave heats a tin of soup and we drink it outside on the swing set, wrapped in two separate blankets. She doesn’t want to sit inside. I think maybe she’s worried about surveillance. “So are we going to talk about it?” “Shut up.” “I don’t mind, Musgrave, I’ll sit here and drink soup. But sooner or later I figure you’re going to have to tell me, because that’s why you wanted me here.” “I burned down the lab.” “You said. I thought it was an interesting creative choice.” “Fuck you, Cal.” But she smiles, just a little. I think of Doublewide and the liver. “Any chance you saved Tebbit’s organs?” “Every chance. All the evidence is intact.” “So…what caught fire?” “The assay machine and the off-network drive. I had the results output set to local read, thank god.” “This would be the results of Roddy’s genome scan?” “It would.” “Who is he, for Christ’s sake?” “I have no idea. There’s no record of a previous scan. But what there is, is data.” “What do you mean, data?” “He was a biologist, right?” “Yeah, supposedly. I don’t know what the fuck he really was.” “Well he or someone he trusted jinked his liver DNA. He had an archival hard drive, basically, in his cells. It’s not hard to do, just no one does it because why would you? Unless you’re hiding a stash of documents you really don’t want to get caught with.” “So what does it say?”


She thrust the volume into the desk, turned the key, and burst out crying with shame and vexation. "Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a person and look at what they're looking at." "How could I know you was looking at anything?" "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Sawyer; you know you're going to tell on me, and oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! I'll be whipped, and I never was whipped in school." Then she stamped her little foot and said: " Be so mean if you want to! I know something that's going to happen. You just wait and you'll see! Hateful, hateful, hateful!" -- and she flung out of the house with a new explosion of crying. Tom stood still, rather flustered by this onslaught. Presently he said to himself: "What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school! Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl -- they're so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. Well, of course I ain't going to tell old Dobbins on this little fool, because there's --------------------------------------------------------- -198- other ways of getting even on her, that ain't so mean; but what of it? Old Dobbins will ask who it was tore his book. Nobody'll answer. Then he'll do just the way he always does -- ask first one and then t'other, and when he comes to the right girl he'll know it, without any telling. Girls' faces always tell on them. They ain't got any backbone. She'll get licked. Well, it's a kind of a tight place for Becky Thatcher, because there ain't any way out of it." Tom conned the thing a moment longer, and then added: "All right, though; she'd like to see me in just such a fix -- let her sweat it out!" Tom joined the mob of skylarking scholars outside. In a few moments the master arrived and school "took in." Tom did not feel a strong interest in his studies. Every time he stole a glance at the girls' side of the room Becky's face troubled him. Considering all things, he did not want to pity her, and yet it was all he could do to help it. He could get up no exultation that was really worthy the name. Presently the spelling-book discovery was made, and Tom's mind was entirely full of his own matters for a while after that. Becky roused up from her lethargy of distress and showed good interest in the proceedings. She did not expect that Tom could get out of his trouble by denying that he spilt the ink on the book himself; and she was right. The denial only seemed to make the thing worse for Tom. Becky supposed she would be glad of that, and she tried to believe she was glad --------------------------------------------------------- -199- of it, but she found she was not certain. When the worst came to the worst, she had an impulse to get up and tell on Alfred


I said at last, and started the engine. I held on to my anger all the way back into town. I still hadn’t had anything to eat all day, so I parked myself at the café, with its dubious Wi-Fi connection and endless coffee refills. I found myself a seat in the back, ordered a soup and sandwich, and pulled out my laptop to work on editing last weekend’s wedding. Time fell away from me, as it often did when I got into the rhythm of editing. It was hours later that I remembered to look at the clock—and to straighten my shoulders and stretch my aching back. I stuffed a twenty in the tip jar on my way out as compensation for camping out for so long and went to get a room at the Chester Motel. It didn’t have bedbugs and did have cable, which made it the Chester equivalent of the Four Seasons, at least until you got as far out as the lodge. I checked my phone when I got into the room in case I had a message from Liv or Cass, but there were just a bunch of texts from Mitch. Wondering where I was. Being pointedly not upset that I’d sneaked out before dawn. I had told him I was leaving for Chester. Just hadn’t mentioned when. Plus, we’d broken up. My whereabouts weren’t his business anymore. I deleted the texts and collapsed back on the bed. Without the work to distract me, my mind thrashed its way inevitably back to the things I least wanted to think about. What were we going to do about Persephone? It was like a bullet left in a body. The flesh had healed around it; digging it out would cause more damage than leaving it. Stahl dying had sparked new interest in our story, but that would be fleeting; the story belonged to the past. This would be different. I wished I didn’t care—that I could be like Liv and want only for Persephone to find her way home. But why should she be able to leave the woods, when I never had? * * * I woke up an hour later, jolting out of the recursive chase my mind had concocted—monsters in the forest, a trail that looped and twisted and plunged. My mouth was dry, my head fuzzy. I felt like deer jerky that had been in a hot glove box for a week, and my mouth tasted about the same. And of course I hadn’t remembered to pack a toothbrush. I combed my hair into a semblance of respectability and walked the hundred yards to the gas station shop next door to find myself a toothbrush. The inside of the Corner Store looked exactly the same as it had when we were kids, simultaneously overcrowded and understocked all at once, with bumper stickers indicating a less than progressive political stance plastered over every inch of the front counter. The string of bells over the door jingled as I entered, and Marsha Brassey, who’d gained about


it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by its passage through the church walls, Hester Prynne listened with such intenseness, and sympathized so intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its indistinguishable words. These, perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been only a grosser medium, and have clogged the spiritual sense. Now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness. A loud or low expression of anguish--the whisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, that touched a sensibility in every bosom! At times this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, and scarcely heard sighing amid a desolate silence. But even when the minister's voice grew high and commanding--when it gushed irrepressibly upward--when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid walls, and diffuse itself in the open air--still, if the auditor listened intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same cry of pain. What was it? The complaint of a human heart, sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind; beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness,--at every moment,--in each accent,--and never in Thesaurus beseeching: (adj) begging, suppliant, starting, from; (n) start, initiation, pathos: (v) emotion, inspiration, imploring, pleading, precative, commencement, origination, impression, affection; (n) poignancy, supplicatory, precatory, importunate; inauguration. pity, ruth, commiseration, grief, (n) prayer; (v) plead; (adv) desolate: (adj, v) desert, forlorn; (adj) poignance, sympathy. beseechingly. ANTONYM: (adj) bare, barren, alone, bleak, deserted, plaintiveness: (n) mournfulness. imperative. cheerless, disconsolate; (v) devastate, swayed: (adj) persuaded, susceptible, clogged: (adj) choked, jammed, destroy. ANTONYMS: (adj) cheerful, touched, convinced. ANTONYM: blocked, teeming, thick, swarming, inhabited, happy, sheltered, mobbed, (adj) doubtful. stuffed, stopped up, overfull, overcrowded, ecstatic, hopeful; (v) undertone: (n) undercurrent, murmur, overcrowded, filled to capacity. create, construct, build. tinge, nuance, whisper, suggestion, commencing: (adj) initial, incipient; (v) intenseness: (n) intension, extreme implication, connotation, overtone, commence; (adv) startingly; (prep) degree, fervency. association, hint. 236 The Scarlet Letter vain! It was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman his most appropriate power.% During all this time, Hester stood, statue-like, at the foot of the scaffold. If the minister's voice had not kept her there, there would, nevertheless, have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hour of her life of ignominy. There was a sense within her--too ill-defined to be made a thought, but weighing heavily on her mind--that her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave


should have fought harder for. Daphne shook her head. “Well, it’s too late now. We move forward,” she said. “We move forward,” I repeated, resolutely. I truly didn’t know what moving forward would look like. But right then and there I vowed that, no matter what happened with Holly Springs, whether plan A materialized or I had to face plan B, I wouldn’t waste another moment ruminating over what might have been. Lanier TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD Hard Things To: daphne@millerlaw.com; lanier@bookmasters.com Dear Songbirds: Do you remember the fight we had on the archery field when we were fourteen? (A very dangerous place to have a fight, by the way…) I don’t remember what it was about, but I do remember running to June, crying that my two best friends and I weren’t best friends anymore. She sat me down and said, “No, no, no, Mary Stuart. You, Lanier, and Daphne have an unbreakable bond. When you’re best friends, you’re a little broken after every argument. But you grow back even stronger.” She was right then; she’s right now. I just want to remind both of you how much I love you. And I’m mostly just saying this to butter you up because I need you this week. Daphne: I need to change my last name! Help! That paperwork gives me nightmares. Lanier: It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday next week. Could you put together an awesome gift basket for her? Your favorite new reads, a cookbook, candle, notebook—whatever. You know the drill. Love you both. FWAFS, Mary Stuart This morning, I had plenty of time to make a gift basket for Mary Stuart, and it wasn’t hard at all. In fact, I was very grateful because her purchases were only my fourth sale of the day, and it was already noon. I needed to send my own hard things email, but I didn’t feel like I’d made up for my bad behavior yet, so it seemed too soon to ask for anything. While slow days at the store usually made me uneasy, today I was grateful that I could slouch down in one of the comfy chairs near the front and lose myself in Anne of Green Gables. It was times like these that made me especially grateful for books. No matter what was going on in my life, I was always able to lose myself—and find myself again—in the pages of a favorite novel. When the door opened, I nearly jumped. I never wanted to seem unprofessional. Although a bookstore owner curled up reading shouldn’t be off-putting to a true reader. But the person walking through my door wasn’t a true reader. It was Bryce. They say that it’s good to switch up the exercises you do because, at some point, muscle memory takes over and your body just goes through the motions. That must be the same with relationships because when I saw Bryce, I swear, for just a minute, I almost ran into his arms. I wasn’t happy about what he had done, but you aren’t engaged


this?” He was at the top of the staircase and had no choice but to glance back at her. She was hurrying after him, an indignant blush staining her cheeks. All opportunities of recovering his bumbling letter were gone, unless he wanted to spill the news to her this instant, with the space closing between them as she climbed the stairs. With a lorry parked out front, waiting to carry them west. They might be killed on this venture. And she would never know who he was and how he felt about her. But when he opened his mouth, his courage completely crumbled, and different words emerged instead. “They might as well let both of us come,” he said, gruffly. He was trying to hide how his heart was striking against his breast. How his hands were shaking. He was terrified to go, and terrified that something would befall her if he didn’t, but he couldn’t let her know that. “Two writers, twice the articles, am I right?” She was glaring at him now. That fire in her eyes could have brought him to his knees, and he loathed the façade he was wearing. He rushed along his way to pack before he said anything else that would further demolish his chances with her. Iris was fuming as she slipped into her room. She didn’t want Roman going to the front. She wanted him here, where he would be safe. She groaned. Focus, Iris. Her leather bag was tucked away in the wardrobe, and she stepped on a stack of paper as she reached for the door handle. She paused, glancing down at the heap of typed letters. The letters she had transcribed for the soldiers. Dread pierced Iris’s chest as she knelt and gathered the papers. Had a draft pushed them back into her room? She had sent them to Carver that morning, and she wondered if the magic between them had broken at last. She opened the folded sheet that was on top of the pile, relieved to find it was a letter from him. She stood in a slant of afternoon sunshine, fingertips tracing her lips as she quickly read: Dear Iris, Your rival? Who is this bloke? If he’s competing with you, then he must be an utter fool. I have no doubt you will best him in every way. Now for a confession: I’m not in Oath. Or else I would put these letters in the post this afternoon. I’m sorry to cause you any delay and inconvenience, but I’m sending them back to you, as I feel like it’s the best option. Again, I apologize I can’t be of more assistance to you, as I fervently wish to be. As for your other inquiries, my nan is fine, albeit quite put out with me at the moment—I’ll tell you why when I finally see you. She sometimes asks if “Winnow?” Roman called to her through the door, softly knocking. “Winnow, are you ready?” She crumpled Carver’s half-read letter into her pocket. She didn’t have time to


Jesse. We were at the gym. He was supervising my dead lifts while we talked in hushed voices. “I fucked it all up.” “She’s not gone,” he said. “I’ll bring her back.” “Really? You can do that?” He smirked, pleased with himself. “She’ll do anything I say. She’s falling for me.” “I know.” My words were bitter in my mouth. “She told me.” “Don’t be jealous,” he said playfully. “I’m doing this for you.” It was true. Anything he did with Lee was in service to our plan. He was sending this woman to jail to free me from my abusive marriage. I couldn’t be jealous. So, what was this feeling twisting in my guts? I tried to keep my voice level as I asked, “Are you sleeping with her?” “Of course not,” he snapped. “Don’t be so stupid.” “Look…” I dropped the weight and stood upright. “This doesn’t feel good. Or right. Can we just go back to the original plan? Get a boat and leave the country?” A muscle clenched in Jesse’s jaw—irritation, frustration. Without a word he strode to the back of the gym and out the exit. Obediently, I trailed after him. When we were alone in the staff parking lot, he turned on me. “Don’t fuck this up, Hazel. We’ve come too far.” “I can get some money,” I told him. “Enough to start over in a new country. Where things are cheaper.” “Why would we do that when we can live here, in perfect luxury? In a fucking mansion with art and fancy cars and shit?” “I… I don’t care about any of that,” I said. “I just want us to be together.” “So do I,” he said, his voice softening. “But the original plan won’t work. I’ve looked into it, and something like eighty-five percent of drowning victims are found. Or at least parts of them are found. Benjamin won’t believe you’re dead without a body. And if he thinks you’ve run off, he’ll never stop looking for you.” In my husband’s line of work, he’d know how unlikely it was that my body would drift away, disappear. And he would hunt me down. He’d never give up. “If he suspects you betrayed him, he’ll kick your mom out of the nursing home.” That hopeless, panicky feeling was returning. Tears welled in my eyes, clogged my throat. “This is the only way, Hazel.” “But Lee…,” I croaked. “Collateral damage,” he said. “All that matters to me is you. And us.” He felt nothing for her. Less than nothing. I should have felt comforted. But I didn’t. “What time does Benjamin get home on Friday?” My stomach dropped. We were setting a date. “He golfs on Fridays. He comes home at noon to change and get his clubs.” “Friday at noon. I’ll be waiting for him.” I nodded mutely. It didn’t feel real. “And Lee will be at the beach tomorrow,” he assured me. “Be ready.” “And Hazel will be at the beach tomorrow,” he assured me. “Be ready.” He went back inside, leaving me alone


reached the door. It was not only unlocked, but contained no lock at all, and when I pushed it open, I found a sheep. It stared at me a moment, chewing at something, then sauntered off to rejoin its fellows as I politely held the door. Shadow gave a huff but was otherwise unmoved—he’s seen plenty of sheep in our rambles in the countryside around Cambridge, and looks upon them with the gentlemanly disinterest of an aging dog. Somehow the place felt even colder than the outdoors. It was as simple as I had imagined, with walls of hearteningly solid stone and the smell of something I guessed to be puffin dung, though it could also have been the sheep. A table and chairs, dusty, a little kitchen at the back with a number of pots dangling from the wall, very dusty. By the hearth with its woodstove was an ancient armchair that smelled of must. I was shivering, in spite of the uphill trunk-dragging, and I realized I had neither wood nor matches to warm that dingy place, and perhaps more alarmingly, that I might not know how to light a fire if I did—I had never done so before. Unfortunately, I happened to glance out the window at that moment and found that it had begun to snow. It was then, as I stared at the empty hearth, hungry and cold, that I began to wonder if I would die here. Lest you think me a newcomer to foreign fieldwork, let me assure you this is not the case. I spent a period of months in a part of Provence so rural that the villagers had never seen a camera, studying a river-dwelling species of Folk, les lutins des rivières. And before that there was a lengthy sojourn in the forests of the Apennines with some deer-faced fate and half a year in the Croatian wilderness as an assistant to a professor who spent his career analysing the music of mountain Folk. But in each case, I had known what I was getting into, and had a student or two to take care of logistics. And there had been no snow. Ljosland is the most isolated of the Scandinavian countries, an island situated in the wild seas off the Norwegian mainland, its northern coastline brushing the Arctic Circle. I had accounted for the awkwardness of reaching such a place—the long and uncomfortable voyage north—yet I was realizing that I had given little consideration to the difficulties I might face in leaving it if something went wrong, particularly once the sea ice closed in. A knock upon the door launched me to my feet. But the visitor was already entering without bothering about my permission, stamping his boots with the air of a man entering his own abode after a long day. “Professor Wilde,” he said, holding out a hand. It was a large hand, for he was a large man, both in height and around the shoulders and midsection. His hair was a shaggy black, his face square, with a


a dead person—” “Not dead.” It was the first time Gabe had spoken since the alley, and it startled Lore nearly as much as it did Mari. Next to him, Bastian stayed quiet, arms crossed and eyes thoughtful. They both still wore their masks, though Lore had taken hers off, and it had the disconcerting effect of making them look nearly like the same person from the corner of her eye. “A not dead person,” Mari conceded, “in our warehouse until you can figure out how to fix them.” “It won’t be long,” Lore said. Her voice had the same almost wheedling edge it’d carried when she was a child, begging for something she wanted. “In fact, I’m going to try in just a minute or two.” She felt Gabe’s gaze snap to the back of her neck, raising gooseflesh. Lore bristled. Leaving Milo in this state was bad, trying to fix him was bad—she wasn’t going to please Gabe, no matter what she did, and she wished she didn’t care. “We just needed a place to bring him,” she finished quietly. “We couldn’t leave him in the alley.” “No, I suppose you couldn’t.” Mari sighed, reaching up to tighten the knot holding her silky scarf in place over her the twisted lengths of her hair, making the sea-glass beads at the ends clink. They must’ve caught her right before she went to bed. “Fine. He can stay.” “Hopefully not for long.” Lore turned and looked at the stone man in the cart. The trash they’d piled on top of him had shifted, uncovering Milo’s terror-stricken face. Mari glanced at the cart. She arched a brow at Lore. “Give me just a second, and I’ll fix him,” Lore said. “I just needed… I just needed privacy.” Privacy, and a place she felt comfortable. Lore hadn’t realized just how tightly she’d held herself until the tension bled out, a drop at a time. Despite everything, this warehouse still felt like home, and gods she missed it. Being here filled a hollow in her chest she wasn’t aware of carving out. “You can have it.” Mari glanced toward the door. “Val should be here soon.” The hollow emptied again. Lore gnawed on her lip. “Will that be a problem?” “I don’t think so, to be honest.” Mari looked her in the eye, something softening in her face. Sadness and resignation shaped her mouth. “She was between a rock and a hard place, Lore. The Priest Exalted didn’t give her any choice. It was you, or the whole crew swung.” Behind her, Gabe stiffened. “Swung?” she repeated quietly. Val said it’d been a choice between her or the crew, but Lore thought that meant prison time, fines, maybe the Burnt Isles… “Death for us all,” Mari whispered. She chewed the corner of her lip. “He wanted you, mouse. Badly.” She thought of that first day after Horse, when Anton told her the Church had been watching since she was thirteen, since she first raised Cedric from the dead. Watching, keeping tabs, letting her live a


the luminous dial of his waterproof. Five. Five o'clock in the morning. Another year ticked by in a single hour, and dawn waiting beyond the far bank of the river. "Why do you trust me?" said Montag. A man moved in the darkness. "The look of you's enough. You haven't seen yourself in a mirror lately. Beyond that, the city has never cared so much about us to bother with an elaborate chase like this to find us. A few crackpots with verses in their heads can't touch them, and they know it and we know it; everyone knows it. So long as the vast population doesn't wander about quoting the Magna Charta and the Constitution, it's all right. The firemen were enough to check that, now and then. No, the cities don't bother us. And you look like hell." They moved along the bank of the river, going south. Montag tried to see the men's faces, the old faces he remembered from the firelight, lined and tired. He was looking for a brightness, a resolve, a triumph over tomorrow that hardly seemed to be there. Perhaps he had expected their faces to burn and glitter with the knowledge they carried, to glow as lanterns glow, with the light in them. But all the light had come from the camp fire, and these men had seemed no different from any others who had run a long race, searched a long search, seen good things destroyed, and now, very late, were gathering to wait for the end of the party and the blowing out of the lamps. They weren't at all certain that the things they carried in their heads might make every future dawn glow with a purer light, they were sure of nothing save that the books were on file behind their quiet eyes, the books were waiting, with their pages uncut, for the customers who might come by in later years, some with clean and some with dirty fingers. Montag squinted from one face to another as they walked. "Don't judge a book by its cover," someone said. And they all laughed quietly, moving downstream. There was a shriek and the jets from the city were gone overhead long before the men looked up. Montag stared back at the city, far down the river, only a faint glow now. "My wife's back there." "I'm sorry to hear that. The cities won't do well in the next few days," said Granger. "It's strange, I don't miss her, it's strange I don't feel much of anything," said Montag. "Even if she dies, I realized a moment ago, I don't think I'll feel sad. It isn't right. Something must be wrong with me." "Listen," said Granger, taking his arm, and walking with him, holding aside the bushes to let him pass. "When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he


to him in the settle, and allowed her head to find a resting-place against Clare's shoulder. "What did you want to ask me--I am sure I will answer it," she continued humbly. "Well, you love me, and have agreed to marry me, and hence there follows a thirdly, 'When shall the day be?'" "I like living like this." "But I must think of starting in business on my own hook with the new year, or a little later. And before I get involved in the multifarious details of my new position, I should like to have secured my partner." "But," she timidly answered, "to talk quite practically, wouldn't it be best not to marry till after all that?--Though I can't bear the though o' your going away and leaving me here!" "Of course you cannot--and it is not best in this case. I want you to help me in many ways in making my start. When shall it be? Why not a fortnight from now?" "No," she said, becoming grave: "I have so many things to think of first." "But----" He drew her gently nearer to him. The reality of marriage was startling when it loomed so near. Before discussion of the question had proceeded further there walked round the corner of the settle into the full firelight of the apartment Mr Dairyman Crick, Mrs Crick, and two of the milkmaids. Tess sprang like an elastic ball from his side to her feet while her face flushed and her eyes shone in the firelight. "I know how it would be if I sat so close to him!" she cried, with vexation. "I said to myself, they are sure to come and catch us! But I wasn't really sitting on his knee, though it might ha' seemed as if I was almost!" "Well--if so be you hadn't told us, I am sure we shouldn't ha' noticed that ye had been sitting anywhere at all in this light," replied the dairyman. He continued to his wife, with the stolid mien of a man who understood nothing of the emotions relating to matrimony--"Now, Christianer, that shows that folks should never fancy other folks be supposing things when they bain't. O no, I should never ha' thought a word of where she was a sitting to, if she hadn't told me-- not I." "We are going to be married soon," said Clare, with improvised phlegm. "Ah--and be ye! Well, I am truly glad to hear it, sir. I've thought you mid do such a thing for some time. She's too good for a dairymaid--I said so the very first day I zid her--and a prize for any man; and what's more, a wonderful woman for a gentleman-farmer's wife; he won't be at the mercy of his baily wi' her at his side." Somehow Tess disappeared. She had been even more struck with the look of the girls who followed Crick than abashed by Crick's blunt praise. After supper, when she reached her bedroom, they were all present. A light was burning, and each damsel was sitting


Ned said. "This tourney is an extravagance the realm cannot afford." "Speak to him as you will," Lord Renly said, "we had still best make our plans." "Another day," Ned said. Perhaps too sharply, from the looks they gave him. He would have to remember that he was no longer in Winterfell, where only the king stood higher; here, he was but first among equals. "Forgive me, my lords," he said in a softer tone. "I am tired. Let us call a halt for today and resume when we are fresher." He did not ask for their consent, but stood abruptly, nodded at them all, and made for the door. Outside, wagons and riders were still pouring through the castle gates, and the yard was a chaos of mud and horseflesh and shouting men. The king had not yet arrived, he was told. Since the ugliness on the Trident, the Starks and their household had ridden well ahead of the main column, the better to separate themselves from the Lannisters and the growing tension. Robert had hardly been seen; the talk was he was traveling in the huge wheelhouse, drunk as often as not. If so, he might be hours behind, but he would still be here too soon for Ned's liking. He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell. 174 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN He crossed the outer yard, passed under a portcullis into the inner bailey, and was walking toward what he thought was the Tower of the Hand when Littlefinger appeared in front of him. "You're going the wrong way, Stark. Come with me." Hesitantly, Ned followed. Littlefinger led him into a tower, down a stair, across a small sunken courtyard, and along a deserted corridor where empty suits of armor stood sentinel along the walls. They were relics of the Targaryens, black steel with dragon scales cresting their helms, now dusty and forgotten. "This is not the way to my chambers," Ned said. "Did I say it was? I'm leading you to the dungeons to slit your throat and seal your corpse up behind a wall," Littlefinger replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We have no time for this, Stark. Your wife awaits." "What game are you playing, Littlefinger? Catelyn is at Winterfell, hundreds of leagues from here." "Oh?" Littlefinger's grey-green eyes glittered with amusement. "Then it appears someone has managed an astonishing impersonation. For the last time, come. Or don't come, and I'll keep her for myself." He hurried down the steps. Ned followed him warily, wondering if this day would ever end. He had no taste for these intrigues, but he was beginning to realize


visit; and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance. As for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from the marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude and falsehood had before been unknown to her; and in spite of every thing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on to make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received from Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least, if not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this effect: ``MY DEAR LlZZY, I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not. Your's, &c.'' As it happened that Elizabeth had _much_ rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every intreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; her's lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her. Though Darcy could never receive _him_ at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth's sake, he assisted him farther in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to _talk_ of giving them a hint to be gone. Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but


in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was greatest of all, when I found no figure there. Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason. She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with a taunting hand. "Why don't you cry?" "Because I don't want to." "You do," said she. "You have been crying till you are half blind, and you are near crying again now." She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook's, and was immensely relieved to find him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way. Chapter 9 When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length. If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine - which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity - it is the key to


kept showing me the palms of his hands as he sat back down on the chair. ‘You see, the thing is, Dr Lynch, I no longer care if I live or die.’ I surprised myself by meaning every word I said. It would have been a sweet relief to end it all. St Agnes’s had been like entering a sort of purgatory, with no hope of redemption. All of my humanity had been stripped from me. And yet some part of me must have subconsciously kept up the search for a way out, for the words that came out of my mouth next sounded as though they had been waiting inside of me for a very long time. ‘But I think you do.’ ‘Of course I care, Opaline, now put the knife down—’ ‘Yes, of course you care, because as long as I live, you receive a handsome stipend from my brother. Isn’t that correct, Dr Lynch?’ ‘That is to pay for your care—’ I pointed the knife as sharply as I could bear it against my skin. ‘Come now, doctor, it’s just us here. We are half-starved and barely clothed, with no heat to speak of. You pocket that money for yourself, don’t you?’ ‘I resent the implic—’ ‘Oh, shut up. SHUT UP!’ I screamed at him. Standing there in a ragged, stained dress, unwashed hair sticking out from my head, dark circles around my eyes and a knife at my throat, I had never felt more clarity of mind. He was scared. I could see it. ‘If I die, you stop receiving Lyndon’s payments.’ He looked rattled and his eyes searched the room. I knew I didn’t have much time to convince him. ‘We can help each other. If you let me leave, right now, I will never tell Lyndon and you can keep getting your money. You will never hear from me again. I’ll change my name, I’ll go to Europe. I have friends there.’ I could see him thinking about it. ‘No one ever has to find out.’ He wiped his face roughly with his hand, then started biting his lip. He was looking at the framed photograph on his desk of his wife and children. He looked back at me and I lifted my chin higher, showing him that I was not bluffing. ‘If not, I will cut my own throat right now and bleed out all over this rug. Then you will have nothing.’ I had succeeded. He was willing to consider it. My freedom was tantalisingly close and I was suddenly aware that I was no longer quite so free about sticking a knife in my throat. Yet I had to keep it there. ‘Oh, what does it matter now anyway?’ he said, slowly getting up. He opened another door on the opposite side of the room. It led directly to a short passageway with an exterior door. He shouldered it open and I could see the backyard, which must have been used by the staff to come and go, as it led straight on


without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conduct approached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose. The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in their relations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash was always singing among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in the harness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates and tangle the traces. At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned up a snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of the Northwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs ploughed through by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead. All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood. There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

I’m good friends with someone involved in the DNADuo technology. He’s not thrilled about this show happening, but because of the way the deal was structured, he doesn’t get a veto on media use.” “Will that be a problem?” I ask, ignoring for the time being that I think she’s just called me a Hot DILF, or the fact that I wouldn’t have understood that phrase a few weeks ago. “No. But this show needs to be smart. It needs to be delightful. It needs to be irreverent. It needs to be sexy, and real, and relatable.” “I agree.” An edge of vulnerability appears in her next words: “The problem is, even though I’ve just interrogated you, I must admit I am a little worried about whether I’m even the right person to do this.” Oh. The power in her posture, the shine in her eyes—both of those things have dimmed without me noticing. I sort through the words in my head. “I completely understand that you’d want to do right by this technology, given your personal connection to it, and I wouldn’t expect you to do all the heavy lifting here. But even knowing you just the tiny bit that I do, I know you will absolutely delight the viewers. You have a magical quality that is rare, Fizzy. I’m sure you know that—it translates in your writing, and it translates in person, too.” “Well, thank you. But no.” She reaches up, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I used to be fun. I used to have a million ideas. I used to be spontaneous and playful and sexy and inspired. I haven’t felt any of those things in ages.” My pulse slows and then rocket-launches up my throat. “So—what are you saying?” Did I really go through all of this for her to back out now? “Joy,” she says behind her hands, and then drops them onto her lap. “What?” Fizzy takes a deep breath, and then exhales slowly. “I’ll sign the contract on your desk under one condition.” “What’s that?” “In the two months we have before this show starts filming, you and I get out of this office, away from our keyboards, and rediscover joy.” ten FIZZY So much for joy. I tug off a black-and-gray-striped sweater and hurl it with just a touch of rage onto the mountain of clothes forming on my bed. “I must be insane.” I’m headed to my first book signing in months. I’m not feeling myself, I’m worried my mojo has permanently abandoned ship, I’m going to have to face my readers and be as perky and excited about the next (still nonexistent) book as I can be, and in a moment of weakness, I invited Hot Brit DILF along on some impulsive quest to find our joy. Like we’re buddies. “God. Tell me why I told this television executive to come pick me up for my signing tonight instead of just driving myself.” In my bedroom doorway, my little sister shoves another handful of chips into her mouth


him? Mightn't one, to reach his mind, risk the stretch of an angular arm over his character? It was as if, when we were face to face in the dining room, he had literally shown me the way. The roast mutton was on the table, and I had dispensed with attendance. Miles, before he sat down, stood a moment with his hands in his pockets and looked at the joint, on which he seemed on the point of passing some humorous judgment. But what he presently produced was: "I say, my dear, is she really very awfully ill?" "Little Flora? Not so bad but that she'll presently be better. London will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take your mutton." He alertly obeyed me, carried the plate carefully to his seat, and, when he was established, went on. "Did Bly disagree with her so terribly suddenly?" "Not so suddenly as you might think. One had seen it coming on." "Then why didn't you get her off before?" "Before what?" "Before she became too ill to travel." I found myself prompt. "She's NOT too ill to travel: she only might have become so if she had stayed. This was just the moment to seize. The journey will dissipate the influence"--oh, I was grand!--"and carry it off." "I see, I see"--Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled to his repast with the charming little "table manner" that, from the day of his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition. Whatever he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding. He was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably more conscious. He was discernibly trying to take for granted more things than he found, without assistance, quite easy; and he dropped into peaceful silence while he felt his situation. Our meal was of the briefest--mine a vain pretense, and I had the things immediately removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his hands in his little pockets and his back to me--stood and looked out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us-- as silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned round only when the waiter had left us. "Well--so we're alone!" XXIII "Oh, more or less." I fancy my smile was pale. "Not absolutely. We shouldn't like that!" I went on. "No--I suppose we shouldn't. Of course we have the others." "We have the others--we have indeed the others," I concurred. "Yet even though we have them," he returned, still with his hands in his pockets and planted there in front of me, "they don't much count, do they?" I made the best of it, but I felt wan. "It depends on what you call `much'!" "Yes"--with all accommodation--"everything depends!" On this, however, he faced to the window


seeds and can make flowers grow the garden won't be dead at all--it will come alive." She did not go out again that afternoon because when Martha returned with her pen and ink and paper she was obliged to clear the table and carry the plates and dishes downstairs and when she got into the kitchen Mrs. Medlock was there and told her to do something, so Mary waited for what seemed to her a long time before she came back. Then it was a serious piece of work to write to Dickon. Mary had been taught very little because her governesses had disliked her too much to stay with her. She could not spell particularly well but she found that she could print letters when she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated to her: "My Dear Dickon: This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me at present. Miss Mary has plenty of money and will you go to Thwaite and buy her some flower seeds and a set of garden tools to make a flower-bed. Pick the prettiest ones and easy to grow because she has never done it before and lived in India which is different. Give my love to mother and every one of you. Miss Mary is going to tell me a lot more so that on my next day out you can hear about elephants and camels and gentlemen going hunting lions and tigers. "Your loving sister, Martha Phoebe Sowerby." "We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll get th' butcher boy to take it in his cart. He's a great friend o' Dickon's," said Martha. "How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?" "He'll bring 'em to you himself. He'll like to walk over this way." "Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him! I never thought I should see Dickon." "Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha suddenly, for Mary had looked so pleased. "Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him very much." Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered something. "Now to think," she broke out, "to think o' me forgettin' that there; an' I thought I was goin' to tell you first thing this mornin'. I asked mother--and she said she'd ask Mrs. Medlock her own self." "Do you mean--" Mary began. "What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be driven over to our cottage some day and have a bit o' mother's hot oat cake, an' butter, an' a glass o' milk." It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day. To think of going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was blue! To think of going into the cottage which held twelve children! "Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?" she asked, quite anxiously. "Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and how clean she keeps the cottage." "If I went I should


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

eating house; while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went any where in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his. Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he would prefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and above whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be,


she realised that Bùsọ́lá had been trying to draw a squirrel’s tail. Bùsọ́lá’s drawings were terrible. Her chickens looked like mosquitoes, her squirrels like rats. This did not stop her from sketching daily. It calmed her and kept her thoughts from things that upset her. So what if Zainab laughed whenever she caught a glimpse of this page in her jotter? Right now, if she could focus on that squirrel she saw in the morning and make strokes on paper that reminded her of its grass goatee, she would be fine. Only she could not focus. Tèmi had always been a little mean, but she had been acting as if they were not really friends for about two weeks now. Zainab had asked that best-friend question a day after the first time Bùsọ́lá led her mother around while she pretended to be blind. They had gone to Roundabout and stood close to the Union Bank there. Maybe Tèmi had seen them somehow? Maybe she had recognised Bùsọ́lá despite the makeshift head covering her mother had forced her to wear? Bùsọ́lá slammed her jotter shut and stood. Kànmí sat two rows ahead of her, and because he was so short and held books up while he read, she could see how far he had gone if she craned her neck. He was on page nine. Page nine! Bùsọ́lá sank into her seat. Since morning, just page nine. Tèmi said she’d given him the book right after morning assembly. That was before first period; now they were halfway through the fourth period, which on Mondays was a free one, and he had not gotten past page nine. She would have been on page twenty-five before the second period was over. She had long perfected the art of reading novels during lessons without getting caught. If only her parents had paid her school fees and she did not need to hide from the teachers who taught during the first two periods. Bùsọ́lá felt someone pull on her shirt. “I said, isn’t that your mother?” Zainab was pointing towards the doorway. Bùsọ́lá glanced towards the door, sure Zainab was mistaken. It was her mother, standing on the threshold, peeping into the class, still searching for Bùsọ́lá. For a wild moment, Bùsọ́lá thought her father had died. Her father often seemed slightly surprised and disappointed to have woken up. More than once, she’d wondered if he spent so much time in bed because he was hoping to sleep his way out of this world. She shut her eyes and tried to see the room her family called home as it had been that morning. Where was her father when she left for school? Had he been awake? She tried but could not see him in the room, asleep or awake. An image of her parents’ empty bed swirled round and round in her mind until she remembered that when Mojeed’s father died last year, it was his eldest sister who had suddenly appeared in the classroom to interrupt their math lesson so she could inform him and


her as she prodded his hip. “Ffeelings.” “Yes,” Dad said, finally looking up. He settled back on his heels, dirt under his fingernails as he rested his hands on his thighs. “Feelings.” “H-how?” “We watch. We learn. We process. It wasn’t always this way. But the more complex our minds became, the more choice we were given. Evolution by way of mimicry.” “I d-don’t have feelings.” “So you say.” Dad looked troubled as he shook his head. “I will ask you a question. I want you to answer it as best you can.” Hap glanced at Vic before turning to face Gio. “What.” “What is your designation?” Hap’s head jerked as if someone had swung at him. His mouth opened. No sound came out. He raised his hand in front of his face, looking at his wooden fingers. He said, “Hap. My d-designation is Hap.” “Is it?” “Yes. It was g-given to me. It’s m-mine.” “And you wouldn’t like to be called anything else.” “No.” “Why?” Dad asked. Hap’s face went slack momentarily before the skin under his eye twitched. “I d-don’t know.” “I do!” Rambo cried, arms waving. “I know why. Pick me. Pick me!” Dad chuckled ruefully. “Why, Rambo?” “Because a designation is a gift,” Rambo said. “It’s an identity. It sets us apart from others like us. It’s unique. In all of existence, there has never been someone named Rambo before me. But even if there were, I’m the best one.” “Precisely,” Dad said. “It gives you presence.” “Weight,” Hap said. “Heavy.” He pressed a hand to the side of his head. “And how does it make you feel?” Dad asked. Hap dropped his hand. “I…” His face screwed up again before relaxing. “Different.” “Good different or bad different?” “Different d-different. There is no g-good or b-bad.” “And does being called Hap make you feel different different?” “Yes.” “And you like it.” Hap said, “L-like the butterfly.” Vic didn’t know why he felt warm. It wasn’t validation. It wasn’t praise, especially since Hap looked pissed off about it, though that might have been his default expression. Vic wondered why anyone would create such a surly machine. “Hap,” he said. Hap looked at him. Vic fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “It’s a good name.” “Wh-why do you move like that?” Hap asked. “Are you malfunctioning?” “No,” Dad said before Vic could answer, and he was grateful for it. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, his throat dry. “He isn’t malfunctioning. He, like you, is different. It is part of his design.” Hap stared at Vic, his gaze boring into him. Then he started wringing his hands, hopping from one foot to the other in an odd approximation of Vic. “Stop,” Vic snapped. “Stop it.” Hap did. “Wh-why? You do it. I can do it.” “You are an asshole,” Nurse Ratched said. “I a-am an asshole.” “I like this game,” Rambo whispered. Then, louder, “Now say, ‘Rambo is my best friend.’” “N-no,” Hap said. Rambo’s arms drooped. “Aw. I thought that would work.” “I am


his room at the Htel Splendide, some of this history passed through his mind. He had arrived at Royale-les-Eaux in time for luncheon two days before. There had been no attempt to contact him and there had been no flicker of curiosity when he had signed the register 'James Bond, Port Maria, Jamaica'. M had expressed no interest in his cover. 'Once you start to make a set at Le Chiffre at the tables, you'll have had it,' he said. 'But wear a cover that will stick with the general public.' Bond knew Jamaica well, so he asked to be controlled from there and to pass as a Jamaican plantocrat whose father had made his pile in tobacco and sugar and whose son chose to play it away on the stock markets and in casinos. If inquiries were made, he would quote Charles DaSilva of Chaffery's, Kingston, as his attorney. Charles would make the story stick. Bond had spent the last two afternoons and most of the nights at the Casino, playing complicated progression systems on the even chances at roulette. He made a high banco at chemin-de-fer whenever he heard one offered. If he lost, he would suivi once and not chase it further if he lost the second time. In this way he had made some three million francs and had given his nerves and card-sense a thorough work-out. He had got the geography of the Casino clear in his mind. Above all, he had been able to observe Le Chiffre at the tables and to note ruefully that he was a faultless and lucky gambler. Bond liked to make a good breakfast. After a cold shower, he sat at the writing-table in front of the window. He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed half a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar. He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street, and watched the small waves lick the long seashore and the fishing-fleet from Dieppe string out towards the June heat-haze followed by a paper-chase of herring-gulls. He was lost in his thoughts when the telephone rang. It was the concierge announcing that a Director of Radio Stentor was waiting below with the wireless set he had ordered from Paris. 'Of course,' said Bond. 'Send him up.' This was the cover fixed by the Deuxime Bureau for their liaison man with Bond. Bond watched the door, hoping that it would be Mathis. When Mathis came in, a respectable business-man carrying a large square parcel by its leather handle, Bond smiled broadly and would have greeted him with warmth if Mathis had not frowned and held up his free hand after carefully closing the door. 'I have just arrived from Paris, monsieur, and here is the set you asked to have on approval - five valves, superhet, I think you call it in England, and you should be able to get most of the capitals of Europe from


me. “Is Doctor Wong giving you formulas to take?” I ask. “Yes.” I’m hurt straight through to my marrow. Trying to cover my feelings, I ask, “What has he prescribed?” Meiling waves a hand. “I don’t want to worry you with that.” Then, “Truly, I don’t need assistance, but I know a woman who does.” “I only treat people in my family—” “Other women need help too.” “I would have to ask Maoren’s permission to visit another elite household, but he’s in Nanjing,” I say. “The person I’m thinking of is not from an elite family.” When I shake my head, Meiling says, “Your mother-in-law won’t find out.” After a pause, she adds, “Please, Yunxian. Would you let a woman suffer just because she doesn’t live within the walls of your husband’s home?” “Bring her here the next time I visit—” “That won’t do. We need to go to her.” Before I can argue, she’s on her feet, opening cupboards and pulling out clothes. “You can’t walk the streets looking like that. You’ll need to change.” “Absolutely not!” I exclaim, but after her rejection of my help, I feel I have to do this to show I love her still. Against all the wisdom I’ve acquired in life, I find myself slipping off my gown and pulling on the indigo cotton trousers and jacket Meiling gives me. The pants are longer than those she’s wearing, so they cover my white, withered calves. Three problems remain: the carefully applied makeup that marks me as a wife from an elite family, my hair piled atop my head and decorated with jade and gold ornaments, and my feet. Meiling uses a cloth to wipe away the cream, powder, rouge, and lip paint from my face. “I don’t want to take apart your hair, because we won’t have time to put it back together before you go home,” she says, and then wraps a hand-dyed scarf over my bun and the adornments and ties the cloth at the back of my neck. We stand together to peer into a mirror. These simple changes make us look like sisters, but it also strikes me how only a layer of paint and a hairstyle can separate women by class. And our feet. “Sit down,” Meiling orders. I do as I’m told, while she rummages through more drawers and cupboards. She comes to me with clean rags and a pair of boots. She stuffs cloth into the toe of one of the boots. I slide my silk slipper inside. She prods the toe with her thumb, looks up at me, and says, “There’s still too much room.” I remove my foot, and she adds more rags. This time the boot fits. We go through the process for my other foot. I sit with my heels resting on the floor, my toes pointed toward the ceiling. My feet look disturbingly large. “Try standing,” Meiling says. “Take a few steps.” I wobble as I rise, and panic sweeps through me. “We shouldn’t do this. If someone finds out—” “No one will


was forbidden in this part of the trenches. Or else Iris might have made a comment about the frequency of his gazes. The wind began to blow. It whistled over the trenches, but a few threads of air spun downward, and Roman was thankful for the coolness. That was what he was absently thinking about—his gratitude for the wind, Iris, his future articles, Iris, how much longer until sundown, Iris— when the blasts came, rupturing the quiet, blue-skyed afternoon. The shells screeched in rapid fire, earsplitting, shaking the earth. Roman’s heart shot into his throat as Iris fell off her stool, reflexively cowering on the ground. This was it. This was his absolute worst nightmare coming to life. He lunged across the distance, covering her with his body. The mortars continued to howl and explode. One after the next after the next. The blasts seemed everlasting, and Roman clenched his eyes shut as clods of soil and splinters of wood began to rain down on him. Iris didn’t move beneath him, and he was worried that he was crushing her when she whimpered. “It’s all right,” he said, unsure if she could hear him over the din. “Stay down, breathe.” At last, there came a lull, but the air steamed and the earth seemed to weep. Roman shifted his weight, easing Iris upright. She was trembling. Her eyes were wide and wild as she stared at him. He could lose himself in those hazel eyes, in wanting to calm the fear that blazed within her. But he had never felt so terrified or powerless himself, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to get them both out safely. Soldiers began to flow around them like a current, preparing rifles and screaming orders. Yet there was such stillness between him and Iris. As if time was stopping. “Get your bag, Iris,” he said. Calmly, as if they had experienced this together before. She grabbed the strap of her leather bag. It took her a moment to slip it over her back, her hands were quivering so violently. Roman thought about her notes. All of the soldiers’ stories she had gathered over the past few days. The horror and the pride and the pain and the sacrifice and the victories. She had to carry those words back home. She had to live through this so she could type it out. So her words could be carried by train six hundred kilometers to the Inkridden Tribune in the glib city of Oath. She has to survive this, Roman thought. He didn’t want to live in a world without her and her words. He exhaled—his breath shook, like the bones in his body—and he looked up to the sky. A wall of smoke was rising, blowing on the western wind. It would soon cover them, and Roman could taste the salt and the metal and the soil in his mouth. Fire, cover, and move. “Are they coming?” Iris asked. She was answered by another heavy round of artillery. She jumped again as


with me, when there ain't anybody looking -- and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that's the way you do when you're engaged." "It's so nice. I never heard of it before." "Oh, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence -- " The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused. "Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!" The child began to cry. Tom said: "Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more." "Yes, you do, Tom -- you know you do." Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. --------------------------------------------------------- -89- Then his pride was up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping she would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began to feel badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle with him to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and entered. She was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with her face to the wall. Tom's heart smote him. He went to her and stood a moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly: "Becky, I -- I don't care for anybody but you." No reply -- but sobs. "Becky" -- pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?" More sobs. Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said: "Please, Becky, won't you take it?" She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called: "Tom! Come back, Tom!" She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions but silence and loneliness. --------------------------------------------------------- -90- So she sat down to cry again and upbraid herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to exchange sorrows with. --------------------------------------------------------- -91- Chapter VIII TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff Hill, and the


bread. It’s good. It tastes of home. Soon the seal’s in the sky, the anthem plays in my right ear. I see the boy from District 1, Rue. That’s all for tonight. Six of us left, I think. Only six. With the bread still locked in my hands, I fall asleep at once. Sometimes when things are particularly bad, my brain will give me a happy dream. A visit with my father in the woods. An hour of sunlight and cake with Prim. Tonight it sends me Rue, still decked in her flowers, perched in a high sea of trees, trying to teach me to talk to the mockingjays. I see no sign of her wounds, no blood, just a bright, laughing girl. She sings songs I’ve never heard in a clear, melodic voice. On and on. Through the night. There’s a drowsy in-between period when I can hear the last few strains of her music although she’s lost 236 in the leaves. When I fully awaken, I’m momentarily com- forted. I try to hold on to the peaceful feeling of the dream, but it quickly slips away, leaving me sadder and lonelier than ev- er. Heaviness infuses my whole body, as if there’s liquid lead in my veins. I’ve lost the will to do the simplest tasks, to do any- thing but lie here, staring unblinkingly through the canopy of leaves. For several hours, I remain motionless. As usual, it’s the thought of Prim’s anxious face as she watches me on the screens back home that breaks me from my lethargy. I give myself a series of simple commands to follow, like “Now you have to sit up, Katniss. Now you have to drink wa- ter, Katniss.” I act on the orders with slow, robotic motions. “Now you have to sort the packs, Katniss.” Rue’s pack holds my sleeping bag, her nearly empty water skin, a handful of nuts and roots, a bit of rabbit, her extra socks, and her slingshot. The boy from District 1 has several knives, two spare spearheads, a flashlight, a small leather pouch, a first-aid kit, a full bottle of water, and a pack of dried fruit. A pack of dried fruit! Out of all he might have chosen from. To me, this is a sign of extreme arrogance. Why bother to carry food when you have such a bounty back at camp? When you will kill your enemies so quickly you’ll be home be- fore you’re hungry? I can only hope the other Careers traveled so lightly when it came to food and now find themselves with nothing. Speaking of which, my own supply is running low. I finish off the loaf from District 11 and the last of the rabbit. How 237 quickly the food disappears. All I have left are Rue’s roots and nuts, the boy’s dried fruit, and one strip of beef. Now you have to hunt, Katniss, I tell myself. I obediently consolidate the supplies I want into my pack. After I climb down the tree, I conceal the boy’s knives


we can have múkẹ́ ẹlẹ́wẹ tomorrow morning. You know me, I don’t have time to spend twelve hours cooking beans, come and enjoy it now that she’s around.” * * * When Wúràọlá got home on Friday, several men were setting up canopies on the lawn while others were offloading plastic chairs and tables from the back of their rental company’s truck. The aunties watched the men, calling out intermittent instructions. They sat on plastic chairs arranged around a plastic table that was laden with several plates of meat. Each woman was nursing a soft drink except for Aunty Àbẹ̀ní, who only drank water. Wúràọlá knelt before them in greeting and rested her chin on the table while they responded to her pleasantries. Most businesses were doing well, some children still refused to hear word, would Wúràọlá talk to them? She was such a good example. One or two husbands were still useless, but all in all, glory be to God for life. She stood up and hugged each person, then took a chicken drumstick from one of the plates on their table. “Ehen, Wúrà, before you go in, what kind of beer do you people have in this house? Not the one we are using for the party tomorrow. Just what you have in the fridge.” “Aunty Mosún, should you still be drinking?” Aunty Jùmọ̀kẹ́ asked before Wúràọlá could respond. Aunty Mosún shifted in her seat. “Is that how you should talk to your elder?” “I’m just advising you.” Aunty Jùmọ̀kẹ́ slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. “Advise yourself, Jùmọ̀kẹ́. The person that is a doctor is not saying anything, it’s you that wants to be adviser general. I kúkú don’t know which university gave you a medical degree so that you can be distributing advice.” Aunty Mosún squeezed Wúràọlá’s hand. “My dear, when you get inside, ask someone to bring me a bottle of stout. Any cold one. You know what I mean? Send me a bottle that has done serious jail time in the fridge.” At least a dozen plastic chairs had been brought into the living room to supplement the furniture there, and every single one was occupied. Yèyé bustled from one end of the room to the other, directing Rachel and Mọ́tárá as they served her well-wishers. As Wúràọlá made her way towards the staircase, she recognised women from Yèyé’s market association, leaders of the diocesan Mothers’ Union and several wives of IEMPU members. She greeted everyone in her path then dashed upstairs, sure that if she loitered long enough in the living room, Yèyé would assign some urgent task to her. She was surprised to meet her friends Tifẹ́ and Grace in the family room. They had been invited to the party, but she was not expecting them to show up until the next morning. “Babes, you didn’t say you would arrive today.” Grace moved in for a hug while Tifẹ́ stayed seated, sipping a glass of wine. “I hope we are welcome,” Tifẹ́ said. “Of course, why would you


come from?"     "I am a stranger."     "What is your business here at this hour?"     "I want a night's shelter in an outhouse or anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat."     Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."     "Do let me speak to your mistresses."     "No; not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about now; it looks very ill."     "But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?"     "Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go "     "A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go further. Don't shut the door oh, don't, for God's sake!"     "I must; the rain is driving in "     "Tell the young ladies. Let me see them "     "Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't make such a noise. Move off."     "But I must die if I am turned away."     "Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any followers housebreakers or such-like anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.     This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering a throe of true despair rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned I wrung my hands I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this specter of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavored to regain.     "I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence."     These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there dumb and still.     "All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished


you? No, says you. And if tering, and one more round-shot whistled through the air. It them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what would you say but there’d was the last of the cannonade. be widders in the morning?” I lay for some time watching the bustle which succeeded Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannon- the attack. Men were demolishing something with axes on ball came tearing through the trees and pitched in the sand the beach near the stockade—the poor jolly-boat, I afterwards not a hundred yards from where we two were talking. The discovered. Away, near the mouth of the river, a great fire was next moment each of us had taken to his heels in a different glowing among the trees, and between that point and the direction. ship one of the gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I For a good hour to come frequent reports shook the is- had seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But land, and balls kept crashing through the woods. I moved there was a sound in their voices which suggested rum. from hiding-place to hiding-place, always pursued, or so it At length I thought I might return towards the stockade. seemed to me, by these terrifying missiles. But towards the I was pretty far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the end of the bombardment, though still I durst not venture in anchorage to the east, and is joined at half-water to Skeleton the direction of the stockade, where the balls fell oftenest, I Island; and now, as I rose to my feet, I saw, some distance had begun, in a manner, to pluck up my heart again, and after further down the spit and rising from among low bushes, an a long detour to the east, crept down among the shore-side isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly white in colour. It trees. occurred to me that this might be the white rock of which The sun had just set, the sea breeze was rustling and tum- Ben Gunn had spoken and that some day or other a boat bling in the woods and ruffling the grey surface of the an- might be wanted and I should know where to look for one. chorage; the tide, too, was far out, and great tracts of sand lay Then I skirted among the woods until I had regained the uncovered; the air, after the heat of the day, chilled me through rear, or shoreward side, of the stockade, and was soon warmly my jacket. welcomed by the faithful party. Contents The HISPANIOLA still lay where she had anchored; but, I had soon told my story and began to look about me. The sure enough, there was the Jolly Roger—the black flag of pi- log-house was made of unsquared trunks of pine— roof, walls, Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 154 155 and floor. The latter stood in several places as much as a foot porridge beginning to boil. Our chimney was a square hole


to see a little of it?' said the Mock Turtle. `Very much indeed,' said Alice. `Come, let's try the first figure!' said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. `We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?' `Oh, YOU sing,' said the Gryphon. `I've forgotten the words.' So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly:-- `"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail. "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance? "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance-- Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. `"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied. "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France-- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"' `Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: `and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!' `Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they--you've seen them, of course?' `Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn--' she checked herself hastily. `I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're like.' `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully. `They have their tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.' `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle: `crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they HAVE their tails in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all that,' he said to the Gryphon. `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all.' `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting.


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

a foot on the lowest step, his threadbare soutane gathered about him for the ascent with womanish care, nodding his head often and repeating: --Not a doubt of it, Mr Hackett! Very fine! Not a doubt of it! In the middle of the hall the prefect of the college sodality was speaking earnestly, in a soft querulous voice, with a boarder. As he spoke he wrinkled a little his freckled brow and bit, between his phrases, at a tiny bone pencil. --I hope the matric men will all come. The first arts' men are pretty sure. Second arts, too. We must make sure of the newcomers. Temple bent again across Cranly, as they were passing through the doorway, and said in a swift whisper: --Do you know that he is a married man? he was a married man before they converted him. He has a wife and children somewhere. By hell, I think that's the queerest notion I ever heard! Eh? His whisper trailed off into sly cackling laughter. The moment they were through the doorway Cranly seized him rudely by the neck and shook him, saying: --You flaming floundering fool! I'll take my dying bible there isn't a bigger bloody ape, do you know, than you in the whole flaming bloody world! Temple wriggled in his grip, laughing still with sly content, while Cranly repeated flatly at every rude shake: --A flaming flaring bloody idiot! They crossed the weedy garden together. The president, wrapped in a heavy loose cloak, was coming towards them along one of the walks, reading his office. At the end of the walk he halted before turning and raised his eyes. The students saluted, Temple fumbling as before at the peak of his cap. They walked forward in silence. As they neared the alley Stephen could hear the thuds of the players' hands and the wet smacks of the ball and Davin's voice crying out excitedly at each stroke. The three students halted round the box on which Davin sat to follow the game. Temple, after a few moments, sidled across to Stephen and said: --Excuse me, I wanted to ask you, do you believe that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a sincere man? Stephen laughed outright. Cranly, picking up the broken stave of a cask from the grass at his feet, turned swiftly and said sternly: --Temple, I declare to the living God if you say another word, do you know, to anybody on any subject, I'll kill you SUPER SPOTTUM. --He was like you, I fancy, said Stephen, an emotional man. --Blast him, curse him! said Cranly broadly. Don't talk to him at all. Sure, you might as well be talking, do you know, to a flaming chamber-pot as talking to Temple. Go home, Temple. For God's sake, go home. --I don't care a damn about you, Cranly, answered Temple, moving out of reach of the uplifted stave and pointing at Stephen. He's the only man I see in this institution that has an individual mind. --Institution! Individual! cried Cranly. Go home, blast you, for you're a