The Great Modern English Stories: An Anthology

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Edward Joseph O'Brien
Boni and Liveright, 1919 - 366 pages
 

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Page 16 - It looked very like a night in the frosty streets. The idea of the dead woman popped into his imagination, and gave him a hearty fright; what had happened to her in the early night might very well happen to him before morning. And he so young! and with such immense possibilities of disorderly amusement before him! He felt quite pathetic over the notion of his own fate, as if it had been some one else's, and made a little imaginative vignette of the scene in the morning when they should find his body....
Page 13 - Some may prefer to dine in state" wrote Villon, "On bread and cheese on silver plate. Or — or — help me out, Guido!" Tabary giggled. "Or parsley on a golden dish," scribbled the poet. The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before it, and sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made sepulchral grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper as the night went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the gust with something between a whistle and a groan. It was...
Page 7 - All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, "I've often been told that in this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till now.
Page xiii - The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome diversion. "Walk in!" said the shepherd promptly. The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look at him. Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment...
Page xiv - I am rather thin in the vamp," he said freely, seeing that the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, " and I am not well fitted, either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit for working-days when I reach home.
Page xiv - I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, ' and I am not well fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must...
Page 8 - Staves and pitchforks - in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!' Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed to show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it would look very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred yards over such...
Page 15 - You should have come earlier," said the ecclesiastic coolly. "Young men require a lesson now and then." He shut the wicket and retired deliberately into the interior of the house. Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with his hands and feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain. "Wormy old fox !" he cried. "If I had my hand under your twist, I would send you flying headlong into the bottomless pit.
Page 13 - ... the cemetery of St. John. Yet there was a small house, backed up against the cemetery wall, which was still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that snoring district. There was not much to betray it from without; only a stream of warm vapor from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted on the roof, and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But within, behind the shuttered windows, Master Francis Villon the poet, and some of the thievish crew with whom he consorted, were keeping...
Page 23 - And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment, struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled his cup, and settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing his knees and leaning his head upon one hand and the elbow against the back of the chair. He was now replete and warm ; and he was in nowise frightened for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possible between two such different characters. The night was far spent, and in a very comfortable fashion after...

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