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       George MacDonald

      Fantasy Classics: Adela Cathcart Edition – Complete Tales in One Volume

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2017 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-7583-786-8

      Table of Contents

       ADELA CATHCART

       CHRISTMAS EVE

       CHURCH

       THE CHRISTMAS DINNER

       THE NEW DOCTOR

       THE LIGHT PRINCESS

       THE BELL

       THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY

       SONG

       THE CURATE AND HIS WIFE

       THE SHADOWS

       THE EVENING AT THE CURATE'S

       PERCY AND HIS MOTHER

       THE BROKEN SWORDS

       MY UNCLE PETER

       THE GIANT'S HEART

       A CHILD'S HOLIDAY

       INTERRUPTION

       PERCY

       THE CRUEL PAINTER

       THE CASTLE

       WHAT NEXT?

       GENERALSHIP

       AN UNFORESEEN FORESIGHT

      ADELA CATHCART

       Table of Contents

      VOLUME I.

       Table of Contents

      Me list not of the chaf ne of the stre

       Maken so long a tale as of the corn.

      CHAUCER.—Man of Lawes Tale.

      ADELA CATHCART

      To John Rutherfurd Russell M.D.

      This book is affectionately dedicated by the author.

      CHAPTER I.

       CHRISTMAS EVE.

       Table of Contents

      It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, sinking towards the night. All day long the wintry light had been diluted with fog, and now the vanguard of the darkness coming to aid the mist, the dying day was well nigh smothered between them. When I looked through the window, it was into a vague and dim solidification of space, a mysterious region in which awful things might be going on, and out of which anything might come; but out of which nothing came in the meantime, except small sparkles of snow, or rather ice, which as we swept rapidly onwards, and the darkness deepened, struck faster and faster against the weather-windows. For we, that is, myself and a fellow-passenger, of whom I knew nothing yet but the waistcoat and neckcloth, having caught a glimpse of them as he searched for an obstinate railway-ticket, were in a railway-carriage, darting along, at an all but frightful rate, northwards from London.

      Being, the sole occupants of the carriage, we had made the most of it, like Englishmen, by taking seats diagonally opposite to each other, laying our heads in the corners, and trying to go to sleep. But for me it was of no use to try any longer. Not that I had anything particular on my mind or spirits; but a man cannot always go to sleep at spare moments. If anyone can, let him consider it a great gift, and make good use of it accordingly; that is, by going to sleep on every such opportunity.

      As I, however, could not sleep, much as I should have enjoyed it, I proceeded to occupy my very spare time with building, up what I may call a conjectural mould, into which the face, dress, carriage, &c., of my companion would fit. I had already discovered that he was a clergyman; but this added to my difficulties in constructing the said mould. For, theoretically, I had a great dislike to clergymen; having, hitherto, always found that the clergy absorbed the man; and that the cloth, as they called it even themselves, would be no bad epithet for the individual, as well as the class. For all clergymen whom I had yet met, regarded mankind and their interests solely from the clerical point of view, seeming far more desirous that a man should be a good church man, as they called it, than that he should love God. Hence, there was always an indescribable and, to me, unpleasant odour of their profession about them. If they knew more concerning the life of the world than other men, why should everything they said remind one of mustiness and mildew? In a word, why were they not men at worst, when at best they ought to be more of men than other men?—And here lay the difficulty: by no effort could I get the face before me to fit into the clerical mould which I had all ready in my own mind for it. That was, at all events, the face of a man, in spite of waistcoat and depilation. I was not even surprised when, all at once, he sat upright in his seat, and asked me if I would join him in a cigar. I gladly consented. And here let me state a fact, which added then to my interest in my fellow-passenger, and will serve now to excuse the enormity of smoking in a railway carriage. We were going to the same place—we must be; and nobody would enter that carriage to-night, but the man who had to clean it. For, although we were shooting along at a terrible rate, the train would not stop to set us down, but would cast us loose

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