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Arthur Quiller-Couch was one of the 20th century's most famous literary critics, but he also wrote many popular works of his own, including this horror tale.
Arthur Quiller-Couch was one of the 20th century's most famous literary critics, but he also wrote many popular works of his own, including this horror tale.
Until his ninth year the boy about whom this story is written lived in a house which looked upon the square of a county town. The house had once formed part of a large religious building, and the boy's bedroom had a high groined roof, and on the capstone an angel carved, with outspread wings. Every night the boy wound up his prayers with this verse which his grandmother had taught him:
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch, one to pray,
Two to bear my soul away."
Then he would look up to the angel and say: "Only Luke is with me." His head was full of queer texts and beliefs. He supposed the three other angels to be always waiting in the next room, ready to bear away the soul of his grandmother (who was bed-ridden), and that he had Luke for an angel because he was called Theophilus, after the friend for whom St. Luke had written his Gospel and the Acts of the Holy Apostles. His name in full was Theophilus John Raymond, but people called him Taffy.
Of his parents' circumstances he knew very little, except that they were poor, and that his father was a clergyman attached to the parish church. As a matter of fact, the Reverend Samuel Raymond was senior curate there, with a stipend of ninety-five pounds a year. Born at Tewkesbury, the son of a miller, he had won his way to a servitorship at Christ Church, Oxford; and somehow, in the course of one Long Vacation, had found money for travelling expenses to join a reading party under the Junior Censor. The party spent six summer weeks at a farmhouse near Honiton, in Devon. The farm belonged to an invalid widow named Venning, who let it be managed by her daughter Humility and two paid labourers, while she herself sat by the window in her kitchen parlour, busied incessantly with lace-work of that beautiful kind for which Honiton is famous. He was an unassuming youth; and although in those days servitors were no longer called upon to black the boots of richer undergraduates, the widow and her daughter soon divined that he was lowlier than the others, and his position an awkward one, and were kind to him in small ways, and grew to like him. Next year, at their invitation, he travelled down to Honiton alone, with a box of books; and, at twenty-two, having taken his degree, he paid them a third visit, and asked Humility to be his wife. At twenty-four, soon after his admission to deacon's orders, they were married. The widow sold the small farm, with its stock, and followed to live with them in the friary gate-house; this having been part of Humility's bargain with her lover, if the word can be used of a pact between two hearts so fond.
About ten years had gone since these things happened, and their child
Taffy was now past his eighth birthday.
It seemed to him that, so far back as he could remember, his mother and grandmother had been making lace continually. At night, when his mother took the candle away with her and left him alone in the dark, he was not afraid; for, by closing his eyes, he could always see the two women quite plainly; and always he saw them at work, each with a pillow on her lap, and the lace upon it growing, growing, until the pins and bobbins wove a pattern that was a dream, and he slept. He could not tell what became of all the lace, though he had a collar of it which he wore to church on Sundays, and his mother had once shown him a parcel of it, wrapped in tissue-paper, and told him it was his christening robe.
His father was always reading, except on Sundays, when he preached sermons. In his thoughts nine times out of ten Taffy associated his father with a great pile of books; but the tenth time with something totally different. One summer-it was in his sixth year-they had all gone on a holiday to Tewkesbury, his father's old home; and he recalled quite clearly the close of a warm afternoon which he and his mother had spent there in a green meadow beyond the abbey church. She had brought out a basket and cushion, and sat sewing, while Taffy played about and watched the haymakers at their work. Behind them, within the great church, the organ was sounding; but by-and-by it stopped, and a door opened in the abbey wall, and his father came across the meadow toward them with his surplice on his arm. And then Humility unpacked the basket and produced a kettle, a spirit-lamp, and a host of things good to eat. The boy thought the whole adventure splendid. When tea was done, he sprang up with one of those absurd notions which come into children's heads:
"Now let's feed the poultry," he cried, and flung his last scrap of bun three feet in air toward the gilt weather-cock on the abbey tower. While they laughed, "Father, how tall is the tower?" he demanded.
"A hundred and thirty-two feet, my boy, from ground to battlements."
"What are battlements?"
He was told.
"But people don't fight here," he objected.
Then his father told of a battle fought in the very meadow in which they were sitting; of soldiers at bay with their backs to the abbey wall; of crowds that ran screaming into the church; of others chased down Mill Street and drowned; of others killed by the Town Cross; and how-people said in the upper room of a house still standing in the High Street-a boy prince had been stabbed.
Humility laid a hand on his arm.
"He'll be dreaming of all this. Tell him it was a long time ago, and that these things don't happen now."
But her husband was looking up at the tower.
"See it now with the light upon it!" he went on. "And it has seen it all. Eight hundred years of heaven's storms and man's madness, and still foursquare and as beautiful now as when the old masons took down their scaffolding. When I was a boy-"
He broke off suddenly. "Lord, make men as towers," he added quietly after a while, and nobody spoke for many minutes.
To Taffy this had seemed a very queer saying; about as queer as that other one about "men as trees walking." Somehow-he could not say why-he had never asked any questions about it. But many times he had perched himself on a flat tombstone under the church tower at home, and tilted his head back and stared up at the courses and pinnacles, wondering what his father could have meant, and how a man could possibly be like a tower. It ended in this-that whenever he dreamed about his father, these two towers, or a tower which was more or less a combination of both, would get mixed up with the dream as well.
The gate-house contained a sitting-room and three bedrooms (one hardly bigger than a box-cupboard); but a building adjoined it which had been the old Franciscans' refectory, though now it was divided by common planking into two floors, the lower serving for a feoffee office, while the upper was supposed to be a muniment-room, in charge of the feoffees' clerk. The clerk used it for drying his garden-seeds and onions, and spread his hoarding apples to ripen on the floor. So when Taffy grew to need a room of his own, and his father's books to cumber the very stairs of the gate-house, the money which Humility and her mother made by their lace-work, and which arrived always by post, came very handy for the rent which the clerk asked for his upper chamber.
Carpenters appeared and partitioned it off into two rooms, communicating with the gate-house by a narrow doorway pierced in the wall. All this, whilst it was doing, interested Taffy mightily; and he announced his intention of being a carpenter one of these days.
"I hope," said Humility, "you will look higher, and be a preacher of
God's Word, like your father."
His father frowned at this and said: "Jesus Christ was both."
Taffy compromised: "Perhaps I'll make pulpits."
This was how he came to have a bedroom with a vaulted roof and a window that reached down below the floor.
Arthur Quiller-Couch was one of the 20th century's most famous literary critics, but he also wrote many popular works of his own, including this horror tale.
Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arthur Quiller-Couch 'Shining Ferry.'Shining Ferry was first published in 1905.Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name of Q. He published his Dead Man's Rock (a romance in the vein of Stevenson's Treasure Island) in 1887, and he followed this up with Troy Town (1888) and The Splendid Spur (1889). After some journalistic experience in London, mainly as a contributor to the Speaker, in 1891 he settled at Fowey in Cornwall. He published in 1896 a series of critical articles, Adventures in Criticism, and in 1898 he completed Robert Louis Stevenson's unfinished novel, St Ives. With the exception of the parodies entitled Green Bays: Verses and Parodies (1893), his poetical work is contained in Poems and Ballads (1896). In 1895 he published an anthology from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century English lyrists, The Golden Pomp, followed in 1900 by an equally successful Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 (1900). He was made a Bard of Gorseth Kernow in 1928, taking the Bardic name Marghak Cough ('Red Knight').Quiller-Couch was a noted literary critic, publishing editions of some of Shakespeare's plays (in the New Shakespeare, published by Cambridge University Press, with Dover Wilson) and several critical works, including Studies in Literature (1918) and On the Art of Reading (1920). He edited a successor to his verse anthology: Oxford Book of English Prose, which was published in 1923. He left his autobiography, Memories and Opinions, unfinished; it was nevertheless published in 1945.
Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arthur Quiller-Couch 'Fort Amity.Fort Amity was published in 1904.Quiller-Couch was a noted literary critic, publishing editions of some of Shakespeare's plays (in the New Shakespeare, published by Cambridge University Press, with Dover Wilson) and several critical works, including Studies in Literature (1918) and On the Art of Reading (1920). He edited a successor to his verse anthology: Oxford Book of English Prose, which was published in 1923. He left his autobiography, Memories and Opinions, unfinished; it was nevertheless published in 1945.
Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arthur Quiller-Couch, 'Brother Copas.'To those who are acquainted with the literary standing of "Q" the lightness and slightness of his novels always come as a surprise. They have, however, a distinctive touch of learning here and there and a fair and elegant style. The setting in the present case is easily identified as the Hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, although Sir Quiller-Couch confusingly calls his town Merchester suggesting Melchester, the name given by Mr. Hardy to the cathedral town of Salisbury. The dissensions and difficulties in this community of noble poverty, the great unsettled question of high church or low church, and the final solution by means of that charity which covers a multitude of sins is the theme of rother Copas. There is a delightful Swinburnian translation of a late Latin poem-the sort of thing that Sir Quiller-Couch does con amore. There is a town pageant which brings peace after dissension and there is a perfectly unreal and perfectly impossible but equally charming American child. But, on the whole, there is enough background and enough setting, enough learning, and enough ease of writing to make the whole book very readable and pleasant for an idle half-hour. If this is the only way in which Sir Quiller-Couch can earn the liberty to do his literary studies we pardon his novels.Quiller-Couch was a noted literary critic, publishing editions of some of Shakespeare's plays (in the New Shakespeare, published by Cambridge University Press, with Dover Wilson) and several critical works, including Studies in Literature (1918) and On the Art of Reading (1920). He edited a successor to his verse anthology: Oxford Book of English Prose, which was published in 1923. He left his autobiography, Memories and Opinions, unfinished; it was nevertheless published in 1945.
Arthur Quiller-Couch was one of the 20th century's most famous literary critics, but he also wrote many popular works of his own, including these paranormal tales.
Belinda thought after divorce, they would part ways for good - he could live his life on his own terms, while she could indulge in the rest of hers. However, fate had other plans in store. "My darling, I was wrong. Would you please come back to me?" The man, whom she once loved deeply, lowered his once proud head humbly. "I beg you to return to me." Belinda coldly pushed away the bouquet of flowers he had offered her and coolly replied, "It's too late. The bridge has been burned, and the ashes have long since scattered to the wind!"
Dante slowed his pace, withdrawing until only the tip was still inside her before thrusting his hips once,eliciting a sharp gasp from her lips. He brought his mouth down to hover over hers. "Can you feel me,my love?"He rasped. Renee angled her head,nipping at his lips."Yes,I feel you." ------------ To save her family from a loanshark,Renee Gallo agrees to be married to Dante Moretti, a man who has been called many names. He has been labeled as a devil,as a hideous-looking demon,the notorious son of Gustavo Moretti. But it turns out that this man who is cruel to the world loves and pampers her more than she had ever imagined.
Elliana, the unfavored "ugly duckling" of her family, was humiliated by her stepsister, Paige, who everyone admired. Paige, engaged to the CEO Cole, was the perfect woman-until Cole married Elliana on the day of the wedding. Shocked, everyone wondered why he chose the "ugly" woman. As they waited for her to be cast aside, Elliana stunned everyone by revealing her true identity: a miracle healer, financial mogul, appraisal prodigy, and AI genius. When her mistreatment became known, Cole revealed Elliana's stunning, makeup-free photo, sending shockwaves through the media. "My wife doesn't need anyone's approval."
On the day of their wedding anniversary, Joshua's mistress drugged Alicia, and she ended up in a stranger's bed. In one night, Alicia lost her innocence, while Joshua's mistress carried his child in her womb. Heartbroken and humiliated, Alicia demanded a divorce, but Joshua saw it as yet another tantrum. When they finally parted ways, she went on to become a renowned artist, sought out and admired by everyone. Consumed by regret, Joshua darkened her doorstep in hopes of reconciliation, only to find her in the arms of a powerful tycoon. "Say hello to your sister-in-law."
Looking at the divorce papers my lips curled up into a mocking smile. 'How big fool I am? How can I think that he will give a chance to this marriage? How can I forget that I was nothing more a tool in his eyes to vent his anger until his beloved Tara is back. Since, she was back, how can he let me stay there?' "After you will sign these papers, you will receive 100 million dollars as alimony." the lawyer added. Because of his words, I came back to my senses took the pen from him, and signed the name. I have also gotten exhausted from this marriage both physically and mentally. Even though I had wanted my child to be born into a complete family, I didn't want my child to have a stepmother and live miserably like me for the rest of his life. After taking the papers from my hand, the lawyer gave me the bank card, turned around, and was about to leave when he paused at the door. He then turned around and added, "Mr. Carter said that he hoped that you won't pester him, or you have to bear the consequences." The lawyer's words were like a knife stabbing in my heart, but I still nodded. Anyway, I also don't plan to have anything to do with him anymore. I just want to live a good life with my children. After the lawyer left, the ward fell into silence. I placed my hand on my belly and said to my children, "Baby, I am sorry, Mommy can't give you a complete family! But I promise you, I will do my best to give the love of both mother and father." 'As for giving one of my child, I will never do that. They are my babies and my alone. I and I will give birth to all of them and raise them no matter what.' Four Years Later... Anya came back to the country with her three kids, to inherit the company left by his grandfather...
Drugged and deceived, she bore a child amidst tragedy-her son, falsely declared dead at birth. Fueled by the agony, she disappeared, only to return years later with both her daughter and an adopted son, driven by an unyielding desire for revenge against those who had wronged her and her late mother. The plot takes an unexpected twist when the haunting truth surfaces: her son is alive, and his father is a powerful CEO.
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