Books with author NULL Neil NULL Munro

The Vital SparkNeil Munro, scottish journalist, newspaper editor, author and literary critic (1863-1930)This ebook presents «The Vital Spark», from Neil Munro. A dynamic table of contents enables to jump directly to the chapter selected.Table of Contents-01- About this book-02- PARA HANDY, MASTER MARINER-03- THE PRIZE CANARY-04- THE MALINGERER-05- WEE TEENY-06- THE MATE'S WIFE-07- PARA HANDY, POACHER-08- THE SEA COOK-09- LODGERS ON A HOUSE BOAT-10- A LOST MAN-11- HURRICANE JACK-12- PARA HANDY'S APPRENTICE-13- QUEER CARGOES-14- IN SEARCH OF A WIFE-15- PARA HANDY'S PIPER-16- THE SAILORS AND THE SALE-17- A NIGHT ALARM-18- A DESPERATE CHARACTER-19- THE TAR'S WEDDING-20- A STROKE OF LUCK-21- DOUGIE'S FAMILY-22- THE BAKER'S LITTLE WIDOW-23- THREE DRY DAYS-24- THE VALENTINE THAT MISSED FIRE-25- THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF ERCHIE'S NIECE-26- PARA HANDY'S WEDDING

The New Road tells the story of Aeneas McMaster - a young man haunted by the disappearance of his Jacobite father 14 years earlier. It is also the story of the Highlands at the time when General Wade's road was carving its way between Stirling and Inverness into the traditional strongholds of the Clans. The New Road is one of The List's 100 Best Scottish Books of all Time.

THE town's bell rang through the dark of the winter morning with queer little jolts and pauses, as if Wanton Wully Oliver, the ringer, had been jovial the night before. A blithe New-Year's-time bell; a droll, daft, scatter-brained bell; it gave no horrid alarms, no solemn reminders that commonly toll from steeples and make good-fellows melancholy to think upon things undone, the brevity of days and years, the parting of good company, but a cheery ditty—"boom, boom, ding-a-dong boom, boom ding, hie, ding-dong," infecting whoever heard it with a kind of foolish gayety. The burgh town turned on its pillows, drew up its feet from the bed-bottles, last night hot, now turned to chilly stone, rubbed its eyes, and knew by that bell it was the daftest of the daft days come. It cast a merry spell on the community; it tickled them even in their cosey beds. "Wanton Wully's on the randan!" said the folk, and rose quickly, and ran to pull aside screens and blinds to look out in the dark on window-ledges cushioned deep in snow. The children hugged themselves under the blankets, and told one another in whispers it was not a porridge morning, no, nor Sunday, but a breakfast of shortbread, ham, and eggs; and behold! a beautiful, loud drum, careless as 'twere a reveille of hot, wild youths, began to beat in a distant lane. Behind the house of Dyce, the lawyer, a cock that must have been young and hearty crew like to burst; and at the stables of the post-office the man who housed his horses after bringing the morning mail through night and storm from a distant railway station sang a song:CONTENTSTHE town's bell rang through the dark of the winter morning with ...ALISON DYCE came lightly up the rest of the stair, whistling blithely, ..."I MISDOUBTED Mr. Molyneux from the very first," said Ailie, ...THE orphan child of William and Mary Dyce, dead, the pair of them, ...SHE was a lucky lassie, this of ours, to have come home to her father's ..."I HEARD all about you and Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan from pop ...IF Molyneux, the actor, was to blame for sending this child of ten on ...DANIEL DYCE had an office up the street at the windy corner facing ...THAT the child should have gone to the dame school at all was due to ...IT was a saying of Daniel Dyce's that all the world is under one's own ...BUT the Dyces never really knew how great and serious was the charge ...SHE was wayward, she was passionate, she was sometimes wild. ...ANTON WULLY only briefly rang the morning bell, and gingerly, with ...FOLLOWING on stormy weeks had come an Indian summer, when ...SUDDENLY all the town began to talk of the pride of Kate MacNeill. ..."I CANNA be bothered with that Shakespeare," Kate cried, hopelessly, ...THERE was joy a few days later in the Dyces' kitchen when Peter the ...YES, that was one bright day in the dismal season, the day she tutored ...SPRING came, and its quickening; forest and shrub and flower felt the ..."KATERIN!" she said, coming into the kitchen with a handful of paper ...TOO slow, far too slow, passed the lengthening days. Kate was bedded ...WHEN Kate that afternoon was told her hour was come, and that ...TA-RAN-TA-RA! Ta-ran-ta-ra!FOR only a day or two the world (in a fur-lined collar) dwelt among us, ...BELL liked the creature, as I say, not a little because she saw in him ...WORKING thus, furiously, at the task of love, which, in all it does for ...WHEN Miss Bell rose, as she did in a day or two, bantered into ...FOR all the regrets of increasing age there is one alleviation among many, ...IT is another mercy, too, that in our age we learn to make the best of what ..."YOU surely did not come in these daftlike garments all the way from Edinburgh?"FORTUNATELY Kate's marriage came to distract them for a while from ...IT took two maids to fill Kate's place in the Dyces' household—one for ...IT was a wet night in November. With a chuckle of horse's hoofs on shining ..."THE talk of the whole of London! The beaute

The Vital Spark is a fictional Clyde puffer (small steamboat), created by Scottish writer Neil Munro. As its captain, the redoubtable Para Handy, often says: "the smertest boat in the coastin' tred". Puffers seem to have been regarded fondly even before Munro began publishing his short stories in the Glasgow Evening News in 1905. This may not be surprising, for these small steamboats were then providing a vital supply link around the west coast and Hebrides islands of Scotland. The charming rascality of the stories went well beyond the reality of a commercial shipping business, but they brought widespread fame. They appeared in the newspaper over 20 years, were collected in book form by 1931, inspired the 1953 film The Maggie, and came out as three popular television series, dating from 1959 to 1995.