The Fourth Generation

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Walter Besant. The Fourth Generation

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. A REMOTE ANCESTOR

CHAPTER II. WHAT HE WANTED

CHAPTER III. SOMETHING TO COME

CHAPTER IV. THE COMPLETE SUPPLY

CHAPTER V. A LEARNED PROFESSION

CHAPTER VI. THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

CHAPTER VII. THE CHILD OF SORROWS

CHAPTER VIII. IN THE LAND OF BEECHES

CHAPTER IX. MARY ANNE

CHAPTER X. A DINNER AT THE CLUB

CHAPTER XI. THE BOOK OF EXTRACTS

CHAPTER XII. ON THE SITE

CHAPTER XIII. A COMPROMISE

CHAPTER XIV. CONSULTATION

CHAPTER XV “BARLOW BROTHERS”

CHAPTER XVI. AND ANOTHER CAME

CHAPTER XVII. YET ANOTHER!

CHAPTER XVIII. THE LIGHT THAT BROKE

CHAPTER XIX. THE SIGNS OF CHANGE

CHAPTER XX. HE SPEAKS AT LAST

CHAPTER XXI. THE WILL

Отрывок из книги

IT was a morning of early March, when a northeast wind ground together the dry branches on which as yet there were no signs of coming spring; the sky was covered by a grey cloud of one even shade, with no gleams of light or streak of blue, or abatement or mitigation of the sombre hue; the hedges showed as yet no flowers, not even the celandine; the earth had as yet assumed no early vernal softening; there were no tender shoots; dolefully the birds cowered on the branches, or flew up into the ivy on the wall, where they waited for a milder time, with such patience as hunger only half appeased would allow. Those who lived upon berries and buds remembered with anxiety that they had already eaten up all the haws and stripped the currant bushes of all their buds, and must now go further afield; those who hunt the helpless chrysalis, and the slug and the worm and the creeping creatures of the field, reflected that in such weather it was impossible to turn over the hard earth in search of the former, or to expect that the latter would leave their winter quarters on such a day. At such a time, which for all created things is far worse than any terrors offered by King Frost, the human creatures who go abroad wrap themselves in their warmest, and hurry about their business in haste, to finish it and get under shelter again.

The south front of the house looked down upon a broad terrace paved with red bricks; a balustrade of brick ran along the edge of the terrace; a short but nobly designed and dignified flight of stairs led into the garden, which began with a broad lawn. The house itself, of the early eighteenth century, was stately and spacious; it consisted of two stories only; it had narrow and very high windows; above the first-floor windows ran a row of small circular louvres set in the roof, which was of a high pitch and of red tiles; the chimneys were arranged in artistic groups or stacks. The house had somewhat of a foreign appearance; it was one of considerable pretension; it was a house which wanted to be surrounded by ancient trees, by noble gardens and stately lawns, and to be always kept deep in the country, far away from town houses and streets; in the surroundings of a city, apart from gardens, lawns, park and lordly trees, it would have been out of place and incongruous. The warm red brick of which it was built had long since mellowed with age; yellow lichen clung to the walls here and there; over one wing, that of the west, ivy grew, covering the whole of that end of the house.

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“We have Scripture for it.”

These words – this conversation – came back suddenly and unexpectedly to the young man. He had never remembered them before.

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