Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker

Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker

Transcribers Note: Spelling and punctuation have been preserved as printed except as indicated in the text by a dashed line under the change. Hover the mouse over the word and the original text will appear. A list of these changes can be found here. Pages 134, 135, and 136 were intentionally omitted in the original text. The following words were found in variable forms in the original text and both versions have been retained: bookcase (book-case); commonsense (common-sense); downland (down-land); hairs-breadth (hairs-breadth); highroad (high-road); milestone (mile-stone); roadside (road-side); teapot (tea-pot); unbiased (unbiassed). Your paths were two when first the tale began And now are one, and still with every year Love, the Divine Roadmaker, works His will. And of these paths he makes one perfect Road Which those who follow after shall find smooth And with more easy steps shall seek the Dawn. It was a hot July day, set in a sky of unruffled blue, with sharp shadows across road and field, and a wind that had little coolness in it playing languidly over the downland. The long white dusty road kept its undeviating course eastward over hill and dale, through hamlet and town, till it was swallowed up in the mesh-work of ways round London, sixty-three miles away according to the mile-stone by which a certain small boy clad in workhouse garb was loitering. He had read the inscription many times and parcelled out the sixty-three miles into various days journeys, but never succeeded in bringing it within divisionable distance of the few pennies which found their way into his pockets. His precocious little head carried within it too bitter memories of hungry days, and too many impressions of the shifts and contrivances by which fortunes votaries bamboozle from that fickle Goddess a meagre living, to adventure on the journey unprepared. Moreover, Mr. and Mrs. Moss of the Whitmansworth Union were not unkind, and meals were regular, so he did not run away from the house that had opened its doors to him and an exhausted mother six months ago. But he still dreamt of London as the desideratum of his fondest hopes, and that, in spite of a black terror crouching there and carefully nurtured by the poor mother in the days of their wanderings. He saw it all through a haze of people and experiences, of friends and foes, and it was the Place of Liberty. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 28309
Author: Bryant, Marguerite
Release Date: Mar 11, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English