Jacob Abbott - "History of King Charles II of England"

Booth Tarkington - "The Guest of Quesnay"

Mrs. Inchbald - "Lover's Vows"

Henry Bore - "The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens"

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: Huntingtower

J >> John Buchan >> Huntingtower




But her speed was failing. She passed out of sight on the verandah
side of the house, and the rest of the pack had gained ominously over
the easier ground of the lawn. He thought for a moment of trying to
stop them by his fire, but realized that if every shot told there
would still be enough of them left to make sure of her capture.
The only chance was at the verandah, and he went downstairs at a
pace undreamed of since the days when he had two whole legs.

McGuffog, Mannlicher in hand, was poking his neck over the wall.
The pursuit had turned the corner and were about twenty yards off;
the girl was at the foot of the ladder, breathless, drooping with fatigue.
She tried to climb, limply and feebly, and very slowly, as if she
were too giddy to see clear. Above were two cripples, and at
her back the van of the now triumphant pack.

Sir Archie, game leg or no, was on the parapet preparing to
drop down and hold off the pursuit were it only for seconds.
But at that moment he was aware that the situation had changed.

At the foot of the ladder a tall man seemed to have sprung out
of the ground. He caught the girl in his arms, climbed the ladder,
and McGuffog's great hands reached down and seized her and swung
her into safety. Up the wall, by means of cracks and tufts, was
shinning a small boy.

The stranger coolly faced the pursuers, and at the sight of him
they checked, those behind stumbling against those in front.
He was speaking to them in a foreign tongue, and to Sir Archie's
ear the words were like the crack of a lash. The hesitation was
only for a moment, for a voice among them cried out, and the whole
pack gave tongue shrilly and surged on again. But that instant
of check had given the stranger his chance. He was up the ladder,
and, gripping the parapet, found rest for his feet in a fissure.
Then he bent down, drew up the ladder, handed it to McGuffog,
and with a mighty heave pulled himself over the top.

He seemed to hope to defend the verandah, but the door at the west
end was being assailed by a contingent of the enemy, and he saw that
its thin woodwork was yielding.

"Into the House," he cried, as he picked up the ladder and tossed it
over the wall on the pack surging below. He was only just in time,
for the west door yielded. In two steps he had followed McGuffog
through the chink into the passage, and the concussion of the grand
piano pushed hard against the verandah door from within coincided
with the first battering on the said door from without.

In the garden-room the feeble lamp showed a strange grouping.
Saskia had sunk into a chair to get her breath, and seemed too
dazed to be aware of her surroundings. Dougal was manfully
striving to appear at his ease, but his lip was quivering.

"A near thing that time," he observed. "It was the blame of
that man's auld motor-bicycle."

The stranger cast sharp eyes around the place and company.

"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said. "How many are there of you?
Four men and a boy? And you have placed guards at all the entrances?"

"They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him.

"No doubt. But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns,
unless there is no other way. Their purpose is kidnapping, and
they hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace.
If they slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out
against them, and their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted.
Half their purpose is already spoiled, for it no longer secret..
..They may break us by sheer weight, and I fancy the first shooting
will be done by us. It's the windows I'm afraid of."

Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair.
She looked up wildly, saw him, and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms.
There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with
a scared child. Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some stupefaction,
thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched human creatures.

"It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom
I appointed to meet me here. Oh, I did well to trust him.
Now we need not fear anything."

As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door,
and the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled. The grand piano was
suffering internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder.

"Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry.

"Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to
have shifted to him from Dougal. "The windows are the danger.
The boy will patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and
this man," pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point.
And, for God's sake, no shooting, unless I give the word. If we take
them on at that game we haven't a chance."

He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went
to Sir Archie's side. "You and I must keep this door," she said.

Sir Archie was never very clear afterwards about the events of
the next hour. The Princess was in the maddest spirits, as if the
burden of three years had slipped from her and she was back in her
first girlhood. She sang as she carried more lumber to the pile--
perhaps the song which had once entranced Heritage, but Sir Archie
had no ear for music. She mocked at the furious blows which rained
at the other end, for the door had gone now, and in the windy gap
could be seen a blur of dark faces. Oddly enough, he found his own
spirits mounting to meet hers. It was real business at last, the
qualms of the civilian had been forgotten, and there was rising in
him that joy in a scrap which had once made him one of the most
daring airmen on the Western Front. The only thing that worried him
now was the coyness about shooting. What on earth were his rifles
and shot-guns for unless to be used? He had seen the enemy from the
verandah wall, and a more ruffianly crew he had never dreamed of.
They meant the uttermost business, and against such it was surely
the duty of good citizens to wage whole-hearted war.

The Princess was humming to herself a nursery rhyme. "THE KING
OF SPAIN'S DAUGHTER," she crooned, "CAME TO VISIT ME, AND ALL
FOR THE SAKE----Oh, that poor piano!" In her clear voice she cried
something in Russian, and the wind carried a laugh from the verandah.
At the sound of it she stopped. "I had forgotten," she said.
"Paul is there. I had forgotten." After that she was very quiet,
but she redoubled her labours at the barricade.

To the man it seemed that the pressure from without was slackening.
He called to McGuffog to ask about the garden-room window, and the
reply was reassuring. The gamekeeper was gloomily contemplating
Dougal's tubs of water and wire-netting, as he might have
contemplated a vermin trap.

Sir Archie was growing acutely anxious--the anxiety of the defender
of a straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points.
It seemed to him that strange noises were coming from the rooms
beyond the hall. Did the back door lie that way? And was not there
a smell of smoke in the air? If they tried fire in such a gale the
place would burn like matchwood.

He left his post and in the hall found Dougal.

"All quiet," the Chieftain reported. "Far ower quiet. I don't like it.
The enemy's no' puttin' out his strength yet. The Russian says a' the
west windies are terrible dangerous. Him and the chauffeur's doin'
their best, but ye can't block thae muckle glass panes."

He returned to the Princess, and found that the attack had indeed
languished on that particular barricade. The withers of the grand
piano were left unwrung, and only a faint scuffling informed him that
the verandah was not empty. "They're gathering for an attack elsewhere,"
he told himself. But what if that attack were a feint? He and McGuffog
must stick to their post, for in his belief the verandah door and
the garden-room window were the easiest places where an entry in
mass could be forced. Suddenly Dougal's whistle blew, and with
it came a most almighty crash somewhere towards the west side.
With a shout of "Hold Tight, McGuffog," Sir Archie bolted into the hall,
and, led by the sound, reached what had once been the ladies' bedroom.
A strange sight met his eyes, for the whole framework of one window seemed
to have been thrust inward, and in the gap Alexis was swinging a fender.
Three of the enemy were in the room--one senseless on the floor, one
in the grip of Sime, whose single hand was tightly clenched on his throat,
and one engaged with Dougal in a corner. The Die-Hard leader was sore
pressed, and to his help Sir Archie went. The fresh assault made the
seaman duck his head, and Dougal seized the occasion to smite him
hard with something which caused him to roll over. It was Leon's
life-preserver which he had annexed that afternoon.

Alexis at the window seemed to have for a moment daunted the attack.
"Bring that table," he cried, and the thing was jammed into the gap.
"Now you"--this to Sime--"get the man from the back door to hold this
place with his gun. There's no attack there. It's about time for
shooting now, or we'll have them in our rear. What in heaven is that?"

It was McGuffog whose great bellow resounded down the corridor.
Sir Archie turned and shuffled back, to be met by a distressing spectacle.
The lamp, burning as peacefully as it might have burned on an old lady's
tea-table, revealed the window of the garden-room driven bodily inward,
shutters and all, and now forming an inclined bridge over Dougal's
ineffectual tubs. In front of it stood McGuffog, swinging his gun by the
barrel and yelling curses, which, being mainly couched in the vernacular,
were happily meaningless to Saskia. She herself stood at the hall door,
plucking at something hidden in her breast. He saw that it was a
little ivory-handled pistol.

The enemy's feint had succeeded, for even as Sir Archie looked three
men leaped into the room. On the neck of one the butt of McGuffog's
gun crashed, but two scrambled to their feet and made for the girl.
Sir Archie met the first with his fist, a clean drive on the jaw,
followed by a damaging hook with his left that put him out of action.
The other hesitated for an instant and was lost, for McGuffog caught
him by the waist from behind and sent him through the broken frame to
join his comrades without.

"Up the stairs," Dougal was shouting, for the little room beyond the
hall was clearly impossible. "Our flank's turned. They're pourin'
through the other windy." Out of a corner of his eye Sir Archie
caught sight of Alexis, with Sime and Carfrae in support, being slowly
forced towards them along the corridor. "Upstairs," he shouted.
"Come on, McGuffog. Lead on, Princess." He dashed out the lamp,
and the place was in darkness.

With this retreat from the forward trench line ended the opening
phase of the battle. It was achieved in good order, and position
was taken up on the first floor landing, dominating the main staircase
and the passage that led to the back stairs. At their back was a short
corridor ending in a window which gave on the north side of the House
above the verandah, and from which an active man might descend to
the verandah roof. It had been carefully reconnoitred beforehand
by Dougal, and his were the dispositions.

The odd thing was that the retreating force were in good heart.
The three men from the Mains were warming to their work, and McGuffog
wore an air of genial ferocity. "Dashed fine position I call this,"
said Sir Archie. Only Alexis was silent and preoccupied. "We are still
at their mercy," he said. "Pray God your police come soon." He forbade
shooting yet awhile. "The lady is our strong card," he said.
"They won't use their guns while she is with us, but if it ever
comes to shooting they can wipe us out in a couple of minutes.
One of you watch that window, for Paul Abreskov is no fool."

Their exhilaration was short-lived. Below in the hall it was black
darkness save for a greyness at the entrance of the verandah passage;
but the defence was soon aware that the place was thick with men.
Presently there came a scuffling from Carfrae's post towards the back
stairs, and a cry as of some one choking. And at the same moment a
flare was lit below which brought the whole hall from floor to
rafters into blinding light.

It revealed a crowd of figures, some still in the hall and some
half-way up the stairs, and it revealed, too, more figures at
the end of the upper landing where Carfrae had been stationed.
The shapes were motionless like mannequins in a shop window.

"They've got us treed all right," Sir Archie groaned. "What the
devil are they waiting for?"

"They wait for their leader," said Alexis.

No one of the party will ever forget the ensuing minutes.
After the hubbub of the barricades the ominous silence was like
icy water, chilling and petrifying with an indefinable fear.
There was no sound but the wind, but presently mingled with
it came odd wild voices.

"Hear to the whaups," McGuffog whispered.

Sir Archie, who found the tension unbearable, sought relief
in contradiction. "You're an unscientific brute, McGuffog,"
he told his henchman. "It's a disgrace that a gamekeeper should
be such a rotten naturalist. What would whaups be doin' on the
shore at this time of year?"

"A' the same, I could swear it's whaups, Sir Erchibald."

Then Dougal broke in and his voice was excited. It's no' whaups.
That's our patrol signal. Man, there's hope for us yet. I believe
it's the polis.' His words were unheeded, for the figures below drew
apart and a young man came through them. His beautifully-shaped dark
head was bare, and as he moved he unbuttoned his oilskins and showed
the trim dark-blue garb of the yachtsman. He walked confidently up
the stairs, an odd elegant figure among his heavy companions.

"Good afternoon, Alexis," he said in English. " I think we may now
regard this interesting episode as closed. I take it that you surrender.
Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey. Will you tell
my men where to find your baggage?"

The reply was in Russian. Alexis' voice was as cool as the other's,
and it seemed to wake him to anger. He replied in a rapid torrent
of words, and appealed to the men below, who shouted back.
The flare was dying down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.

Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie. "Here, I think it's the polis.
They're whistlin' outbye, and I hear folk cryin' to each other--no'
the foreigners."

Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in. What she said rang
sharp with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.

Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled toward him.
The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed
to be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.

"I tell ye it's the polis," whispered Dougal. "They're nickit."

There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces. Men surged in,
whispered, and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader
stilled with a fierce gesture.

"You there," he cried, looking up, "you English. We mean you no ill,
but I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is
with her. I give you a minute by my watch to decide. If you refuse,
my men are behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished
at my leisure."

"I warn you," cried Sir Archie. "We are armed, and will shoot down
any one who dares to lay a hand on us."

"You fool," came the answer. "I can send you all to eternity before
you touch a trigger."

Leon was by his side now--Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do
something which he angrily refused. Outside there was a new clamour,
faces showing at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum
filled the hall....Dobson appeared again and this time he was a
figure of fury.

"Are ye daft, man?" he cried. "I tell ye the polis are closin' round
us, and there's no' a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats.
If ye'll no' think o' your own neck, I'm thinkin' o' mine.
The whole things a bloody misfire. Come on, lads, if ye're no
besotted on destruction.

Leon laid a hand on the leader's arm and was roughly shaken off.
Spidel fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw
the two shrug their shoulders and make for the door. The hall was
emptying fast and the watchers had gone from the back stairs.
The young man's voice rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened,
cursed; but panic was in the air and he had lost his mastery.

"Quick," croaked Dougal, "now's the time for the counter-attack."

But the figure on the stairs held them motionless. They could not
see his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with
fury and defeat. The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a
knot of fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the
uncanny light....The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in
the act of turning.

He looked back. "If I go now, I will return. The world is not wide
enough to hide you from me, Saskia."

"You will never get her," said Alexis.

A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral
savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable.
He swung round, his hand went to his pocket, something clacked,
and his arm shot out like a baseball pitcher's.

So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not
see a second figure ascending the stairs. Just as Alexis
flung himself before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young
man's outstretched arm and wrenched something from his hand.
The next second he had hurled it into a far corner where stood the
great fireplace. There was a blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar,
and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke. As it cleared they
saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the builder
of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole
had been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-
room....A figure was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises.
The last enemy had gone.

When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very
pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before.
If he was surprised at the sight, he did not show it. "Nasty little
bomb that. I remember we struck the brand first in July '18."

"Are they rounded up?" Sir Archie asked.

"They've bolted. Whether they'll get away is another matter.
I left half the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the
West Lodge avenue. The other lot went to the Garplefoot to
cut off the boats."

"Good Lord, man," Sir Archie cried, "the police have been here
for the last ten minutes."

"You're wrong. They came with me."

"Then what on earth---" began the astonished baronet. He stopped short,
for he suddenly got his answer. Into the hall limped a boy. Never was
there seen so ruinous a child. He was dripping wet, his shirt was
all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly staunched
by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in ribbons, and his
poor bare legs looked as if they had been comprehensively kicked
and scratched. Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride,
like some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his plumage but
has vanquished his adversary.

With a yell Dougal went down the stairs. The boy saluted him, and
they gravely shook hands. It was the meeting of Wellington and Blucher.

The Chieftain's voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it.
The glory was almost too great to be borne.

"I kenned it," he cried. "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards.
There stands the man that done it....Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie."



CHAPTER XV


THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION


We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit,
hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter.
His goal was Mrs. Morran's hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie's
POSTE DE COMMANDEMENT. The rain had come on again, and, though in
other weather there would have been a slow twilight, already the
shadow of night had the world in its grip. The sea even from the
high ground was invisible, and all to westward and windward was a
ragged screen of dark cloud. It was foul weather for foul deeds.
Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran's kitchen,
and with him were the pug-faced boy know as Old Bill, and the sturdy
figure of Peter Paterson. But the floor was held by the hostess.
She still wore her big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and
round her venerable head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.

"Eh, Dickson, but I'm blithe to see ye. And puir man, ye've been
sair mishandled. This is the awfu'est Sabbath day that ever you and
me pit in. I hope it'll be forgiven us....Whaur's the young leddy?"

"Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and
the men from the Mains."

"Wae's me!" Mrs. Morran keened. "And what kind o' place is yon for her?
Thae laddies tell me there's boatfu's o' scoondrels landit at
the Garplefit. They'll try the auld Tower, but they'll no' wait
there when they find it toom, and they'll be inside the Hoose in a
jiffy and awa' wi' the puir lassie. Sirs, it maunna be. Ye're lippenin'
to the polis, but in a' my days I never kenned the polis in time.
We maun be up and daein' oorsels. Oh, if I could get a haud o'
that red-heided Dougal..."

As she spoke there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an explosion.

"Keep us, what's that?" she cried.

"It's dinnymite," said Peter Paterson.

"That's the end o' the auld Tower," observed Thomas Yownie in his
quiet, even voice. "And it's likely the end o' the man Heritage."

"Lord peety us!" the old woman wailed. "And us standin' here like
stookies and no' liftin' a hand. Awa' wi ye, laddies, and dae something.
Awa' you too, Dickson, or I'll tak' the road mysel'."

"I've got orders," said the Chief of Staff, "no' to move till
the sityation's clear. Napoleon's up at the Tower and Jaikie's
in the policies. I maun wait on their reports."

For a moment Mrs. Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson,
who suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair.
"Man, ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction.
"Ye're fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast.
See, and I'll get ye a cup o' tea."

She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed
some mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to
his cheeks, and he announced that he felt better. "Ye'll fortify it
wi' a dram," she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard.
"My father aye said that guid whisky and het tea keepit the doctor's
gig oot o' the close."

The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with cold.
He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.

"The Tower has fallen. They've blown in the big door, and the feck
o' them's inside."

"And Mr. Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.

"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'. I think he's
gotten on to the roof. I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."

"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned. "We can't let Mr. Heritage
be killed that way. What strength is the enemy?"

"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the boats."

"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others
shut up in the House."

He stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from which the most
enlightened business mind showed no escape. Prudence, inventiveness,
were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.

"We must create a diversion," he said. "I'm for the Tower, and you
laddies must come with me. We'll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish
I had my wee pistol."

"If ye're gaun there, Dickson, I'm comin' wi' ye," Mrs Morran announced.

Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole situation,
and for all his anxiety he laughed. "Five laddies, a middle-aged man,
and an auld wife," he cried. "Dod, it's pretty hopeless. It's like
the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world trying to
confound the strong."

"The Bible's whiles richt," Mrs. Morran answered drily. "Come on,
for there's no time to lose."

The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie. There were
no tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.

"They're a' round the Hoose," he croaked. "I was up a tree forenent
the verandy and seen them. The lassie ran oot and cried on them
from the top o' the brae, and they a' turned and hunted her back.
Gosh, but it was a near thing. I seen the Captain sklimmin' the
wall, and a muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder.
They got inside just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole
pack is roarin' round the Hoose seekin' a road in. They'll no' be
long over the job, neither."