Anthony Trollope - "John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries"

MARY E. BAMFORD - "OUT OF THE TRIANGLE"

George Bernard Shaw - "O'Flaherty V. C."

John Martin Crawford, trans. - "The Kalevala book 1"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Little Minister

J >> J.M. Barrie >> The Little Minister




"He will ask you to take time--"

"No, he will ask me to put on my wedding-dress. You must not think
anything else possible."

"So be it, then," Gavin said firmly.

"Yes, it will be better so," Babbie answered, and then, seeing him
misunderstand her meaning, exclaimed reproachfully, "I was not
thinking of myself. In the time to come, whatever be my lot, I
shall have the one consolation, that this is best for you. Think
of your mother."

"She will love you," Gavin said, "when I tell her of you."

"Yes," said Babbie, wringing her hands; "she will almost love me,
but for what? For not marrying you. That is the only reason any
one in Thrums will have for wishing me well."

"No others," Gavin answered, "will ever know why I remained
unmarried."

"Will you never marry?" Babbie asked, exultingly. "Ah!" she cried,
ashamed, "but you must."

"Never."

Well, many a man and many a woman has made that vow in similar
circumstances, and not all have kept it. But shall we who are old
smile cynically at the brief and burning passion of the young?
"The day," you say, "will come when--" Good sir, hold your peace.
Their agony was great and now is dead, and, maybe, they have
forgotten where it lies buried; but dare you answer lightly when I
ask you which of these things is saddest?

Babbie believed his "Never," and, doubtless, thought no worse of
him for it; but she saw no way of comforting him save by
disparagement of herself.

"You must think of your congregation," she said. "A minister with
a gypsy wife--"

"Would have knocked them about with a flail," Gavin interposed,
showing his teeth at the thought of the precentor, "until they did
her reverence."

She shook her head, and told him of her meeting with Micah Dow. It
silenced him; not, however, on account of its pathos, as she
thought, but because it interpreted the riddle of Rob's behavior.

"Nevertheless," he said ultimately, "my duty is not to do what is
right in my people's eyes, but what seems right in my own."

Babbie had not heard him.

"I saw a face at the window just now," she whispered, drawing
closer to him.

"There was no face there; the very thought of Rob Dow raises him
before you," Gavin answered reassuringly, though Rob was nearer at
that moment than either of them thought.

"I must go away at once," she said, still with her eyes in the
window. "No, no, you shall not come or stay with me; it is you who
are in danger."

"Do not fear for me."

"I must, if you will not. Before you came in, did I not hear you
speak of a meeting you had to attend to-night?"

"My pray--" His teeth met on the word; so abruptly did it conjure
up the forgotten prayer-meeting that before the shock could reach
his mind he stood motionless, listening for the bell. For one
instant all that had taken place since he last heard it might have
happened between two of its tinkles; Babbie passed from before him
like a figure in a panorama, and he saw, instead, a congregation
in their pews.

"What do you see?" Babbie cried in alarm, for he seemed to be
gazing at the window.

"Only you," he replied, himself again; "I am coming with you."

"You must let me go alone," she entreated; "if not for your own
safety"--but it was only him she considered--"then for the sake of
Lord Rintoul. Were you and I to be seen together now, his name and
mine might suffer."

It was an argument the minister could not answer save by putting
his hands over his face; his distress made Babbie strong; she
moved to the door, trying to smile.

"Go, Babbie!" Gavin said, controlling his voice, though it had
been a smile more pitiful than her tears. "God has you in His
keeping; it is not His will to give me this to bear for you."

They were now in the garden.

"Do not think of me as unhappy," she said; "it will be happiness
to me to try to be all you would have me be."

He ought to have corrected her. "All that God would have me be,"
is what she should have said. But he only replied, "You will be a
good woman, and none such can be altogether unhappy; God sees to
that."

He might have kissed her, and perhaps she thought so.

"I am--I am going now, dear," she said, and came back a step
because he did not answer; then she went on, and was out of his
sight at three yards' distance. Neither of them heard the
approaching dogcart.

"You see, I am bearing it quite cheerfully," she said. "I shall
have everything a woman loves; do not grieve for me so much."

Gavin dared not speak nor move. Never had he found life so hard;
but he was fighting with the ignoble in himself, and winning. She
opened the gate, and it might have been a signal to the dogcart to
stop. They both heard a dog barking, and then the voice of Lord
Rintoul:

"That is a light in the window. Jump down, McKenzie, and inquire."

Gavin took one step nearer Babbie and stopped. He did not see how
all her courage went from her, so that her knees yielded, and she
held out her arms to him, but he heard a great sob and then his
name.

"Gavin, I am afraid."

Gavin understood now, and I say he would have been no man to leave
her after that; only a moment was allowed him, and it was their
last chance on earth. He took it. His arm went round his beloved,
and he drew her away from Nanny's.

McKenzie found both house and garden empty.

"And yet," he said, "I swear some one passed the window as we
sighted it."

"Waste no more time," cried the impatient earl. "We must be very
near the hill now. You will have to lead the horse, McKenzie, in
this darkness; the dog may find the way through the broom for us."

"The dog has run on," McKenzie replied, now in an evil temper.
"Who knows, it may be with her now? So we must feel our way
cautiously; there is no call for capsizing the trap in our haste."
But there was call for haste if they were to reach the gypsy
encampment before Gavin and Babbie were made man and wife over the
tongs.

The Spittal dogcart rocked as it dragged its way through the
broom. Rob Dow followed. The ten o'clock bell began to ring.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

WHILE THE TEN O'CLOCK BELL WAS RINGING.


In the square and wynds--weavers in groups:


"No, no, Davit, Mr. Dishart hadna felt the blow the piper gave him
till he ascended the pulpit to conduct the prayer-meeting for
rain, and then he fainted awa. Tammas Whamond and Peter Tosh
carried him to the Session-house. Ay, an awful scene."

"How did the minister no come to the meeting? I wonder how you
could expect it, Snecky, and his mother taen so suddenly ill; he's
at her bedside, but the doctor has little hope."

"This is what has occurred, Tailor: Mr. Dishart never got the
length of the pulpit. He fell in a swound on the vestry floor.
What caused it? Oh, nothing but the heat. Thrums is so dry that
one spark would set it in a blaze."

"I canna get at the richts o' what keeped him frae the meeting,
Femie, but it had something to do wi' an Egyptian on the hill.
Very like he had been trying to stop the gypsy marriage there. I
gaed to the manse to speir at Jean what was wrang, but I'm
thinking I telled her mair than she could tell me."

"Man, man, Andrew, the wite o't lies wi' Peter Tosh. He thocht we
was to hae sic a terrible rain that he implored the minister no to
pray for it, and so angry was Mr. Dishart that he ordered the
whole Session out o' the kirk. I saw them in Couthie's close, and
michty dour they looked."

"Yes, as sure as death, Tammas Whamond locked the kirk-door in Mr.
Dishart's face."

"I'm a' shaking! And small wonder, Marget, when I've heard this
minute that Mr. Dishart's been struck by lichtning while looking
for Rob Dow. He's no killed, but, woe's me! they say he'll never
preach again."

"Nothing o' the kind. It was Rob that the lichtning struck dead in
the doctor's machine. The horse wasna touched; it came tearing
down the Roods wi' the corpse sitting in the machine like a living
man."

"What are you listening to, woman? Is it to a dog barking? I've
heard it this while, but it's far awa."

In the manse kitchen:

"Jean, did you not hear me ring? I want you to--Why are you
staring out at the window, Jean?"

"I--I was just hearkening to the ten o'clock bell, ma'am."

"I never saw you doing nothing before! Put the heater in the fire,
Jean. I want to iron the minister's neckcloths. The prayer-meeting
is long in coming out, is it not?"

"The--the drouth, ma'am, has been so cruel hard."

"And, to my shame, I am so comfortable that I almost forgot how
others are suffering. But my son never forgets, Jean. You are not
crying, are you?"

"No, ma'am."

"Bring the iron to the parlor, then. And if the minis--Why did you
start, Jean? I only heard a dog barking."

"I thocht, ma'am--at first I thocht it was Mr. Dishart opening the
door. Ay, it's just a dog; some gypsy dog on the hill, I'm
thinking, for sound would carry far the nicht."

"Even you, Jean, are nervous at nights, I see, if there is no man
in the house. We shall hear no more distant dogs barking, I
warrant, when the minister comes home."

"When he comes home, ma'am."

On the middle of a hill--a man and a woman:

"Courage, beloved; we are nearly there."

"But, Gavin, I cannot see the encampment."

"The night is too dark."

"But the gypsy fires?"

"They are in the Toad's-hole."

"Listen to that dog barking."

"There are several dogs at the encampment, Babbie."

"There is one behind us. See, there it is!"

"I have driven it away, dear. You are trembling."

"What we are doing frightens me, Gavin. It is at your heels
again!"

"It seems to know you."

"Oh, Gavin, it is Lord Rintoul's collie Snap. It will bite you."

"No, I have driven it back again. Probably the earl is following
us."

"Gavin, I cannot go on with this."

"Quicker, Babbie."

"Leave me, dear, and save yourself."

"Lean on me, Babbie."

"Oh, Gavin, is there no way but this?"

"No sure way."

"Even though we are married to-night--"

"We shall be maried in five minutes, and then, whatever befall, he
cannot have you."

"But after?"

"I will take you straight to the manse, to my mother."

"Were it not for that dog, I should think we were alone on the
hill."

"But we are not. See, there are the gypsy fires."

On the west side of the hill--two figures:

"Tammas, Tammas Whamond, I've lost you. Should we gang to the
manse down the fields?"

"Wheesht, Hendry!"

"What are you listening for?"

"I heard a dog barking."

"Only a gypsy dog, Tammas, barking at the coming storm."

"The gypsy dogs are all tied up, and this one's atween us and the
Toad's-hole. What was that?"

"It was nothing but the rubbing of the branches in the cemetery on
ane another. It's said, trees mak' that fearsome sound when
they're terrified."

"It was a dog barking at somebody that's stoning it. I ken that
sound, Hendry Munn."

"May I die the death, Tammas Whamond, if a great drap o' rain
didna strike me the now, and I swear it was warm. I'm for running
hame."

"I'm for seeing who drove awa that dog. Come back wi' me, Hendry."

"I winna. There's no a soul on the hill but you and me and thae
daffing and drinking gypsies. How do you no answer me, Tammas?
Hie, Tammas Whamond, whaur are you? He's gone! Ay, then I'll mak'
tracks hame."

In the broom--a dogcart:

"Do you see nothing yet, McKenzie?"

"Scarce the broom at my knees, Rintoul. There is not a light on
the hill."

"McKenzie, can that schoolmaster have deceived us?"

"It is probable."

"Urge on the horse, however. There is a road through the broom, I
know. Have we stuck again?"

"Rintoul, she is not here. I promised to help you to bring her
back to the Spittal before this escapade became known, but we have
failed to find her. If she is to be saved, it must be by herself.
I daresay she has returned already. Let me turn the horse's head.
There is a storm brewing."

"I will search this gypsy encampment first, if it is on the hill.
Hark! that was a dog's bark. Yes, it is Snap; but he would not
bark at nothing. Why do you look behind you so often, McZenzie?"

"For some time, Rintoul, it has seemed to me that we are being
followed. Listen!"

"I hear nothing. At last, McKenzie, at last, we are out of the
broom."

"And as I live, Rintoul, I see the gypsy lights!"

It might have been a lantern that was flashed across the hill.
Then all that part of the world went suddenly on fire. Everything
was horribly distinct in that white light. The firs of Caddam were
so near that it seemed to have arrested them in a silent march
upon the hill. The grass would not hide a pebble. The ground was
scored with shadows of men and things. Twice the light flickered
and recovered itself. A red serpent shot across it, and then again
black night fell.

The hill had been illumined thus for nearly half a minute. During
that time not even a dog stirred. The shadows of human beings lay
on the ground as motionless as logs. What had been revealed seemed
less a gypsy marriage than a picture. Or was it that during the
ceremony every person on the hill had been turned into stone? The
gypsy king, with his arm upraised, had not had time to let it
fall. The men and women behind him had their mouths open, as if
struck when on the point of calling out. Lord Rintoul had risen in
the dogcart and was leaning forward. One of McKenzie's feet was on
the shaft. The man crouching in the dogcart's wake had flung up
his hands to protect his face. The precentor, his neck
outstretched, had a hand on each knee. All eyes were fixed, as in
the death glare, on Gavin and Babbie, who stood before the king,
their hands clasped over the tongs. Fear was petrified on the
woman's face, determination on the man's.

They were all released by the crack of the thunder, but for
another moment none could have swaggered.

"That was Lord Rintoul in the dogcart," Babbie whispered, drawing
in her breath.

"Yes, dear," Gavin answered resolutely, "and now is the time for
me to have my first and last talk with him. Remain here, Babbie.
Do not move till I come back."

"But, Gavin, he has seen. I fear him still."

"He cannot touch you now, Babbie. You are my wife."

In the vivid light Gavin had thought the dogcart much nearer than
it was. He called Lord Rintoul's name, but got no answer. There
were shouts behind, gypsies running from the coming rain, dogs
whining, but silence in front. The minister moved on some paces.
Away to the left he heard voices--

"Who was the man, McKenzie?"

"My lord, I have lost sight of you. This is not the way to the
camp."

"Tell me, McKenzie, that you did not see what I saw."

"Rintoul, I beseech you to turn back. We are too late."

"We are not too late."

Gavin broke through the darkness between them and him, but they
were gone. He called to them, and stopped to listen to their feet.

"Is that you, Gavin?" Babbie asked just then.

For reply, the man who had crept up to her clapped his hand upon
her mouth. Only the beginning of a scream escaped from her. A
strong arm drove her quickly southward.

Gavin heard her cry, and ran back to the encampment. Babbie was
gone. None of the gypsies had seen her since the darkness cause
back. He rushed hither and thither with a torch that only showed
his distracted face to others. He flung up his arms in appeal for
another moment of light; then he heard Babbie scream again, and
this time it was from a distance. He dashed after her; he heard a
trap speeding down the green sward through the broom.

Lord Rintoul had kidnapped Babbie. Gavin had no other thought as
he ran after the dogcart from which the cry had come. The earl's
dog followed him, snapping at his heels. The rain began.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE GREAT RAIN.


Gavin passed on through Windyghoul, thinking in his frenzy that he
still heard the trap. In a rain that came down like iron rods
every other sound was beaten dead. He slipped, and before he could
regain his feet the dog bit him. To protect himself from dikes and
trees and other horrors of the darkness he held his arm before
him, but soon it was driven to his side. Wet whips cut his brow so
that he had to protect it with his hands, until it had to bear the
lash again, for they would not. Now he had forced up his knees,
and would have succumbed but for a dread of being pinned to the
earth. This fight between the man and the rain went on all night,
and long before it ended the man was past the power of thinking.

In the ringing of the ten o'clock bell Gavin had lived the seventh
part of a man's natural life. Only action was required of him.
That accomplished, his mind had begun to work again, when suddenly
the loss of Babbie stopped it, as we may put out a fire with a
great coal. The last thing he had reflected about was a dogcart in
motion, and, consequently, this idea clung to him. His church, his
mother, were lost knowledge of, but still he seemed to hear the
trap in front.

The rain increased in violence, appalling even those who heard it
from under cover. However rain may storm, though it be an army of
archers battering roofs and windows, it is only terrifying when
the noise swells every instant. In those hours of darkness it
again and again grew in force and doubled its fury, and was
louder, louder, and louder, until its next attack was to be more
than men and women could listen to. They held each other's hands
and stood waiting. Then abruptly it abated, and people could
speak. I believe a rain that became heavier every second for ten
minutes would drive many listeners mad. Gavin was in it on a night
that tried us repeatedly for quite half that time.

By and by even the vision of Babbie in the dogcart was blotted
out. If nothing had taken its place, he would not have gone on
probably; and had he turned back objectless, his strength would
have succumbed to the rain. Now he saw Babbie and Rintoul being
married by a minister who was himself, and there was a fair
company looking on, and always when he was on the point of
shouting to himself, whom he could see clearly, that this woman
was already married, the rain obscured his words and the light
went out. Presently the ceremony began again, always to stop at
the same point. He saw it in the lightning-flash that had startled
the hill. It gave him courage to fight his way onward, because he
thought he must be heard if he could draw nearer to the company.

A regiment of cavalry began to trouble him. He heard it advancing
from the Spittal, but was not dismayed, for it was, as yet, far
distant. The horsemen came thundering on, filling the whole glen
of Quharity. Now he knew that they had been sent out to ride him
down. He paused in dread, until they had swept past him. They came
back to look for him, riding more furiously than ever, and always
missed him, yet his fears of the next time were not lessened. They
were only the rain.

All through the night the dog followed him. He would forget it for
a time, and then it would be so close that he could see it dimly.
He never heard it bark, but it snapped at him, and a grin had
become the expression of its face. He stoned it, he even flung
himself at it, he addressed it in caressing tones, and always with
the result that it disappeared, to come back presently.

He found himself walking in a lake, and now even the instinct of
self-preservation must have been flickering, for he waded on,
rejoicing merely in getting rid of the dog. Something in the water
rose and struck him. Instead of stupefying him, the blow brought
him to his senses, and he struggled for his life. The ground
slipped beneath his feet many times, but at last he was out of the
water. That he was out in a flood he did not realize; yet he now
acted like one in full possession of his faculties. When his feet
sank in water, he drew back; and many times he sought shelter
behind banks and rocks, first testing their firmness with his
hands. Once a torrent of stones, earth, and heather carried him
down a hillside until he struck against a tree. He twined his arms
round it, and had just done so when it fell with him. After that,
when he touched trees growing in water, he fled from them, thus
probably saving himself from death.

What he heard now might have been the roll and crack of the
thunder. It sounded in his ear like nothing else. But it was
really something that swept down the hill in roaring spouts of
water, and it passed on both sides of him so that at one moment,
had he paused, it would have crashed into him, and at another he
was only saved by stopping. He felt that the struggle in the dark
was to go on till the crack of doom.

Then he cast himself upon the ground. It moved beneath him like
some great animal, and he rose and stole away from it. Several
times did this happen. The stones against which his feet struck
seemed to acquire life from his touch. So strong had he become, or
so weak all other things, that whatever clump he laid hands on by
which to pull himself out of the water was at once rooted up.

The daylight would not come. He longed passionately for it. He
tried to remember what it was like, and could not; he had been
blind so long. It was away in front somewhere, and he was
struggling to overtake it. He expected to see it from a dark
place, when he would rush forward to bathe his arms in it, and
then the elements that were searching the world for him would see
him and he would perish. But death did not seem too great a
penalty to pay for light.

And at last day did come back, gray and drear. He saw suddenly
once more. I think he must have been wandering the glen with his
eyes shut, as one does shut them involuntarily against the hidden
dangers of black night. How different was daylight from what he
had expected! He looked, and then shut his dazed eyes again, for
the darkness was less horrible than the day. Had he indeed seen,
or only dreamed that he saw? Once more he looked to see what the
world was like; and the sight that met his eyes was so mournful
that he who had fought through the long night now sank hopeless
and helpless among the heather. The dog was not far away, and it,
too, lost heart. Gavin held out his hand, and Snap crept timidly
toward him. He unloosened his coat, and the dog nestled against
him, cowed and shivering, hiding its head from the day, Thus they
lay, and the rain beat upon them.




CHAPTER XXXV.

THE GLEN AT BREAK OF DAY.


My first intimation that the burns were in flood came from Waster
Lunny, close on the strike of ten o'clock. This was some minutes
before they had any rain in Thrums. I was in the school-house, now
piecing together the puzzle Lord Rintoul had left with me, and
anon starting upright as McKenzie's hand seemed to tighten on my
arm. Waster Lunny had been whistling to me (with his fingers in
his mouth) for some time before I heard him and hurried out. I was
surprised and pleased, knowing no better, to be met on the
threshold by a whisk of rain.

The night was not then so dark but that when I reached the
Quharity I could see the farmer take shape on the other side of
it. He wanted me to exult with him, I thought, in the end of the
drought, and I shouted that I would fling him the stilts.

"It's yoursel' that wants them," he answered excitedly, "if you're
fleid to be left alone in the school-house the nicht. Do you hear
me, dominie? There has been frichtsome rain among the hills, and
the Bog burn is coming down like a sea. It has carried awa the
miller's brig, and the steading o' Muckle Pirley is standing three
feet in water."

"You're dreaming, man," I roared back, but beside his news he held
my doubts of no account.

"The Retery's in flood," he went on, "and running wild through
Hazel Wood; T'nowdunnie's tattie field's out o' sicht, and at the
Kirkton they're fleid they've lost twa kye."

"There has been no rain here," I stammered, incredulously.

"It's coming now." he replied. "And listen: the story's out that
the Backbone has fallen into the loch. You had better cross,
dominie, and thole out the nicht wi' us."

The Backbone was a piece of mountain-side overhanging a loch among
the hills, and legend said that it would one day fall forward and
squirt all the water into the glen. Something of the kind had
happened, but I did not believe it then; with little wit I pointed
to the shallow Quharity.

"It may come down at any minute," the farmer answered, "and syne,
mind you, you'll be five miles frae Waster Lunny, for there'll be
no crossing but by the Brig o' March. If you winna come, I maun
awa back. I mauna bide langer on the wrang side o' the Moss ditch,
though it has been as dry this month back as a tabbit's roady. But
if you--" His voice changed. "God's sake, man," he cried, "you're
ower late. Look at that! Dinna look--run, run!"

If I had not run before he bade me, I might never have run again
on earth. I had seen a great shadowy yellow river come riding down
the Quharity. I sprang from it for my life; and when next I looked
behind, it was upon a turbulent loch, the further bank lost in
darkness. I was about to shout to Waster Lunny, when a monster
rose in the torrent between me and the spot where he had stood. It
frightened me to silence until it fell, when I knew it was but a
tree that had been flung on end by the flood. For a time there was
no answer to my cries, and I thought the farmer had been swept
away. Then I heard his whistle, and back I ran recklessly through
the thickening darkness to the school-house. When I saw the tree
rise, I had been on ground hardly wet as yet with the rain; but by
the time Waster Lunny sent that reassuring whistle to me I was
ankle-deep in water, and the rain was coming down like hail. I saw
no lightning.