akorn - Mighty Old Tales Retold

Treasure Island - Chapters VIII and IX - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapters VIII and IX - R L Stevenson
WHEN I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to John Silver, at the sign of the Spy-glass, and told me I should easily find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in question.

Treasure Island - Chapter VII - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter VII - R L Stevenson
IT was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, and none of our first plans—not even Dr. Livesey’s, of keeping me beside him—could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice; the squire was hard at work at Bristol; and I lived on at the hall under the charge of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s room, I approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction; I explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures.

Treasure Island - Chapter VI - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter VI - R L Stevenson
WE rode hard all the way till we drew up before Dr. Livesey’s door. The house was all dark to the front.Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid.“Is Dr. Livesey in?” I asked.No, she said, he had come home in the afternoon but had gone up to the hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire.“So there we go, boys,” said Mr. Dance.

Treasure Island - Chapter V - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter V - R L Stevenson
MY curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed me that I was right.“Down with the door!” he cried.

Treasure Island - Chapter IV - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter IV - R L Stevenson
I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man’s money—if he had any—was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our captain’s shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man’s debts. The captain’s order to mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house;

Treasure Island - Chapter III - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter III - R L Stevenson
ABOUT noon I stopped at the captain’s door with some cooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited.“Jim,” he said, “you’re the only one here that’s worth anything, and you know I’ve been always good to you. Never a month but I’ve given you a silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I’m pretty low, and deserted by all; and Jim, you’ll bring me one noggin of rum, now, won’t you, matey?”“The doctor—” I began.But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. “Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes—what to the doctor know of lands like that?"

Treasure Island - Chapter II - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter II - R L Stevenson
T was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without paying much regard to our unpleasant guest.It was one January morning, very early—a pinching, frosty morning—the cove all grey with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual and set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I heard of him ...

Treasure Island - Chapter I - R L Stevenson

Treasure Island
Chapter I - R L Stevenson
TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER 
   If sailor tales to sailor tunes,       Storm and adventure, heat and cold,    If schooners, islands, and maroons,       And buccaneers, and buried gold,    And all the old romance, retold       Exactly in the ancient way,    Can please, as me they pleased of old,       The wiser youngsters of today: 
   —So be it, and fall on!  If not,       If studious youth no longer crave,    His ancient appetites forgot,       Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,    Or Cooper of the wood and wave:       So be it, also!  And may I    And all my pirates share the grave       Where these and their creations lie! 
 

The Four Skillful Brothers - Arabian Nights

The Four Skillful Brothers
Arabian Nights

Brother Lustig - Brothers Grimm

Brother Lustig
Brothers Grimm