Darrel of the Blessed Isles

Darrel of the Blessed Isles

Project Gutenberg's Darrel of the Blessed Isles, by Irving Bacheller
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Title: Darrel of the Blessed Isles
Author: Irving Bacheller
Release Date: April 21, 2004 [EBook #12102]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Al Haines

DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES
BY
IRVING BACHELLER

AUTHOR OF
EBEN HOLDEN D'RI AND I CANDLE-LIGHT, Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR I. KELLER
1903

To the Memory of my Father

PREFACE
The author has tried to give some history of that uphill road, traversing
the rough back country, through which men of power came once into
the main highways, dusty, timid, foot-sore, and curiously old-fashioned.
Now is the up grade eased by scholarships; young men labour with the
football instead of the buck-saw, and wear high collars, and travel on a
Pullman car, and dally with slang and cigarettes in the smoking-room.
Altogether it is a new Republic, and only those unborn shall know if it
be greater.
The man of learning and odd character and humble life was quite
familiar once, and not only in Hillsborough. Often he was born out of
time, loving ideals of history and too severe with realities around him.
In Darrel it is sought to portray a force held in fetters and covered with
obscurity, yet strong to make its way and widely felt. His troubles
granted, one may easily concede his character, and his troubles are,
mainly, no fanciful invention. There is good warrant for them in the
court record of a certain case, together with the inference of a great
lawyer who lived a time in its odd mystery. The author, it should be
added, has given success to a life that ended in failure. He cares not if
that success be unusual should any one be moved to think it within his
reach.
A man of rugged virtues and good fame once said: "The forces that
have made me? Well, first my mother, second my poverty, third Felix
Holt. That masterful son of George Eliot became an ideal of my youth,
and unconsciously I began to live his life."
It is well that the boy in the book was nobler than any who lived in
Treby Magna.
As to "the men of the dark," they have long afflicted a man living and
well known to the author of this tale, who now commits it to the world
hoping only that these poor children of his brain may deserve kindness
if not approval.
NEW YORK CITY, March, 1903.

CONTENTS
PRELUDE

CHAPTER I.
The Story of the Little Red Sleigh II. The Crystal City and the Traveller
III. The Clock Tinker IV. The Uphill Road V. At the Sign o' the Dial
VI. A Certain Rich Man VII. Darrel of the Blessed Isles VIII. Dust of
Diamonds in the Hour-glass IX. Drove and Drovers X. An Odd
Meeting XI. The Old Rag Doll XII. The Santa Claus of Cedar Hill XIII.
A Christmas Adventure XIV. A Day at the Linley Schoolhouse XV.
The Tinker at Linley School XVI. A Rustic Museum XVII. An Event
in the Rustic Museum XVIII. A Day of Difficulties XIX. Amusement
and Learning XX. At the Theatre of the Woods XXI. Robin's Inn XXII.
Comedies of Field and Dooryard XXIII. A New Problem XXIV.
Beginning the Book of Trouble XXV. The Spider Snares XXVI. The
Coming of the Cars XXVII. The Rare and Costly Cup XXVIII. Darrel
at Robin's Inn XXIX. Again the Uphill Road XXX. Evidence XXXI. A
Man Greater than his Trouble XXXII. The Return of Thurst Tilly
XXXIII. The White Guard XXXIV. More Evidence XXXV. At the
Sign of the Golden Spool XXXVI. The Law's Approval XXXVII. The
Return of Santa Claus

DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES
Prelude
Yonder up in the hills are men and women, white-haired, who love to
tell of that time when the woods came to the door-step and God's cattle
fed on the growing corn. Where, long ago, they sowed their youth and
strength, they see their sons reaping, but now, bent with age, they have
ceased to gather save in the far fields of memory. Every day they go
down the long, well-trodden path and come back with hearts full. They
are as children plucking the meadows of June. Sit with them awhile,
and they will gather for you the unfading flowers of joy and love--good
sir! the world is full of them. And should they mention Trove