Project Gutenberg's Three More John Silence Stories, by Algernon Blackwood
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Title: Three More John Silence Stories
Author: Algernon Blackwood
Release Date: January 9, 2004 [EBook #10659]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Three More John Silence Stories
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
To M.L.W. The Original of John Silence
and
My Companion in Many Adventures
Contents
Case I: Secret Worship
Case II: The Camp of the Dog
Case III: A Victim of Higher Space
CASE I: SECRET WORSHIP
Harris, the silk merchant, was in South Germany on his way home from a
business trip when the idea came to him suddenly that he would take the
mountain railway from Strassbourg and run down to revisit his old school
after an interval of something more than thirty years. And it was to
this chance impulse of the junior partner in Harris Brothers of St.
Paul's Churchyard that John Silence owed one of the most curious cases
of his whole experience, for at that very moment he happened to be
tramping these same mountains with a holiday knapsack, and from
different points of the compass the two men were actually converging
towards the same inn.
Now, deep down in the heart that for thirty years had been concerned
chiefly with the profitable buying and selling of silk, this school had
left the imprint of its peculiar influence, and, though perhaps unknown
to Harris, had strongly coloured the whole of his subsequent existence.
It belonged to the deeply religious life of a small Protestant community
(which it is unnecessary to specify), and his father had sent him there
at the age of fifteen, partly because he would learn the German
requisite for the conduct of the silk business, and partly because the
discipline was strict, and discipline was what his soul and body needed
just then more than anything else.
The life, indeed, had proved exceedingly severe, and young Harris
benefited accordingly; for though corporal punishment was unknown, there
was a system of mental and spiritual correc
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