Beneath the Wheels, by the Author of 'Olive Varcoe'. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870. Excerpt: ... with it a fiercer and more cruel sense of wrong. It was all injustice--all; and life with some was a burden of misery, from birth even to the grave. One man lives in the ease of wealth, and his bones are full of marrow and fatness, and another eateth his bread in bitterness all the days of his life, having never known joy. Madeline did not pursue the thought further; she was close on St. Eglon's hut now, and flinging up her veil, she gazed on the empty and desolate windows with shrinking eyes. She could fix on the one from which her childish face had often looked out wistfully, longing for the cheerfulness and companions which other children had, but which never came to her. She could remember watching from the balcony her father's boat, a tiny speck on the sea, when he went away gloomily to fish alone. And dimly there came back to her memory, the relief on her mother's face when he departed; dimly too came the fierce words and quarrels on his return, and the stealthy figure of Mathew Carbis, as smiling he looked at both. Then as the faint image of the man flashed upon her mind, Madeline shuddered, and lifted her hand to her brow to drive the thought away. But it came again and again, always bringing Mathew Carbis with silent step and sinister smile, though every lineament of the face was lost to her recollection, and even the figure itself was but a shadow. Yet dim, shadowy as this stealthy image might be, it ever brought with it a suffocating sense of horror, and of hatred towards the man, and a feeling of relief to think that he was dead. "It was no murder to kill such a reptile I" she said to herself, fiercely. With this thought there grew upon her memory the beautiful face of her mother, bowed down upon her white hands, weeping grievously. An unwonte...