Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt:... other, something he did not know. But after his conversation with his grandmother, this vague terror suddenly took shape and form. His mother, his real mother, who had a right to him, might claim him, might seize upon him and carry him away. The idea filled him for the moment with mortal terror. He lost the security of childhood, and for the time felt himself involved in that insecurity, that panic, which is more terrible to a child than it ever can be in more mature life. A spasm came into his throat--a pang of shame and outraged feelingwhich added to the terror, and made it very hard to bear. His eyes grew wet with a hot-springing moisture, salt and bitter, which seemed to scorch his eyelids. Lady Eskside, partially discovering the agitation in the boy’s mind, pressed him closer to her in sympathy and tenderness; but he set his elbows square, and repulsed the fond consoling movement. He was angry with her and with all the world, because he himself was thus separated from all the world, though he was no more than a child. “I am going out,” he said, abruptly, with a slight struggle to be free, “to say good-bye to Hunter and the rest. I promised to say good-bye to them. Let me go, grandma; I shall not be long away.” “Come back before dinner, dear. You are to have your dinner with us to-night,” said the old lady, kiSS=. ing his hot forehead as she let him go. He ranfrom h'er,‘and out into the woods, and never drew breath till he reached Hunter the gamekeeper’s cottage, which was two miles off. The hot tears dried in the boy’s eyes as he ran, swift as an arrow from the bow. It was a half-savage way of relieving the pain in him; yet it did relieve it, probably because of the...