The Project Gutenberg eBook, Between Whiles, by Helen Hunt Jackson

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Title: Between Whiles

Author: Helen Hunt Jackson

Release Date: January 20, 2004 [eBook #10756]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES***

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Between Whiles.

by

Helen Jackson (H. H.)

Author of "Ramona," "A Century of Dishonor," "Verses," "Sonnets and
Lyrics," "Glimpses of Three Coasts," "Bits of Travel," "Bits of Travel
at Home," "Zeph," "Mercy Philbrick's Choice," "Hetty's Strange History,"
"Bits of Talk about Home Matters," "Bits of Talk for Young Folks,"
"Nelly's Silver Mine," "Cat Stories."

1888.

Contents.

The Inn of the Golden Pear
The Mystery of Wilhelm Ruetter
Little Bel's Supplement
The Captain of the "Heather Bell"
Dandy Steve
The Prince's Little Sweetheart

Between Whiles.

The Inn of the Golden Pear.

I.

Who buys? Who buys? 'Tis like a market-fair;
The hubbub rises deafening on the air:
The children spend their honest money there;
The knaves prowl out like foxes from a lair.

Who buys? Who sells? Alas, and still alas!
The children sell their diamond stones for glass;
The knaves their worthless stones for diamonds pass.
He laughs who buys; he laughs who sells. Alas!

In the days when New England was only a group of thinly settled
wildernesses called "provinces," there was something almost like the old
feudal tenure of lands there, and a relation between the rich land-owner
and his tenants which had many features in common with those of the
relation between margraves and vassals in the days of Charlemagne.

Far up in the North, near the Canada line, there lived at that time an
eccentric old man, whose name is still to be found here and there on the
tattered parchments, written "WILLAN BLAYCKE, Gentleman."

Tradition occupies itself a good deal with Willan Blaycke, and does not
give his misdemeanors the go-by as it might have done if he had been
either a poorer or a less clever man. Why he had crossed the seas and
cast in his lot with the pious Puritans, nobody knew;