It was a jagged business – wild peaks of expectation followed by wilder plunges of despair. Stung by a consciousness of three successive failures – at least so he construed his departures from Drineffy, Aberalaw and the MFB – Andrew longed to vindicate himself at last. But their total capital, in...
I was in fact so early that the outrush of the audience from the first performance almost swept me off my feet. Thereafter, a cold wind blowing fog from the river made standing a chilly business. With an eye on the Central Station clock I paced up and down, warming myself, less with this activity...
Amongst other things, Joe had recently discovered oysters. They were amazing, oysters were, amazing in every way, especially amazing in the number a man could eat. Joe could manage a dozen and a half quite easily when he was in the mood, and he was usually in the mood. And, by God, they were good...
For almost a week they had been in Schwansee, rigidly conforming to the covenant of restraint which, as a condition of her coming, she had obliged him to accept. Throughout this horrid stalemate of emotion, in a frantic effort to sway her, he had made simplicity and calm the order of the day. The...
Nineteen white-enamelled bolts, round-headed and symmetrical, all neatly in a row; he had counted and recounted them as a man half crazed by lack of sleep might vainly number sheep. Sometimes, amid the creaking and sighing of the ship, he heard the clink of hammers on these bolts, and sometimes t...
She was a fresh country girl from the Valais, smelling pleasantly of the dairy and with well-formed milk-bars, who, as she went out, before closing the door always gave me a look over her shoulder not altogether bovine. But today I failed to respond, nor did the fragrant cheesy odour of the fresh...
Beginning of the End 1. Beginning of the End I Late one afternoon in September 1938 old Father Francis Chisholm limped up the steep path from the church of St Columba to his house upon the hill. He preferred this way despite his infirmities to the less arduous ascent of Mercat Wynd; and having re...