Books with title Voices in the Park

Voices in the Night by Flora Annie Steel, author of: On the Face of the Waters, The Potter’s Thumb, From the Five Rivers, In the Permanent Way.CONTENTS PrologueChapter 1. The TotalisatorChapter 2. The Kite-FlyersChapter 3. CobwebsChapter 4. An Unforgotten PastChapter 5. Shark LaneChapter 6. The Money of FoolsChapter 7. Crackers and SquibsChapter 8. The Temple of ViseshwarChapter 9. UncertaintiesChapter 10. The Sinews of WarChapter 11. The Spirit of Kings and SlavesChapter 12. A Mother’s DirgeChapter 13. A Valse à Deux TempsChapter 14. In the ToilsChapter 15. The Râm RuckiChapter 16. The Prison of LifeChapter 17. The Pen and the SwordChapter 18. The Freedom of DeathChapter 19. On the Bed RockChapter 20. The Old WineChapter 21. Red PaintChapter 22. The Better PartChapter 23. A Memorable OccasionChapter 24. The Sovereignty of AirChapter 25. Secret DespatchesChapter 26. Fair OddsPrologueThe new year was already some hours old, but the world to which it had come was still dark. Dark with a curious obscurity, that was absolutely opaque yet faintly luminous, because of the white fog which lay on all things and hid them from the stars; for the sky above was clear, cold, almost frosty.That was why the fog, born, not of cool vapour seeking for cloud life among the winds of heaven, but of hot smoke loving the warmth of dust and ashes, clung so closely to the earth; to its birthplace.It was an acrid, bitter smoke, not even due to the dead hearthfires of a dead day, since they--like all else pertaining to the domestic life of India--give small outward sign of existence, but to the smouldering piles of litter and refuse which are lit every evening upon the outskirts of human habitation. Dull heaps with a minimum of fire, a maximum of smoke, where the humanity which has produced the litter, the refuse, gathers for gossip or for warmth.Even in the fields beyond the multitude of men, where some long-limbed peasant, watching his hope of harvest, dozes by a solitary fire, this same smoke rises in a solid column, until--beaten down by the colder moister air above--it drifts sideways to spread like a vast cobweb over the dew-set carpet of green corn.So it was small wonder if here, at Nushapore, with its fifty thousand and odd dwellers in cantonments, its two hundred and odd thousand dwellers in the town, the smoke fog hid earth from heaven; hid even the steady coming of day.For it was close on dawn. The most silent, most restful hour of an Indian night, yet one still holding that vague sense of life and movement inseparable from an environment in which there is no set time for sleeping or waking; in which folk gossip all night, and sleep all day, should the humour so take them.It had so seized on some one, apparently, this New Year’s night, for two voices rose, not in whispers, but monotone, from one of the verandahs in Government House--rose insistently, until, from within the closed doors, came a sharp though drowsy order for silence--‘Chupra’o!’The voices ceased; such orders, even when drowsy, must be obeyed, since they come from the master: at any rate, till he sleeps again.So the minutes slipped by. Upon the round rim of the level wheatfields beyond the smoke, the violet sky above the cobwebs faded to grey at the sun’s approach. The fog round Nushapore grew whiter, more luminous.Then the voices began again; monotonous, insistent. Were they, in old-world fashion, beguiling the reality of darkness with legends of some heroic age of light? Were they, more modernly, making that reality darker by taking thought for the morrow, and discussing, say, the depreciation of the rupee? Or were they dreamers still, (Continued...)

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Excerpt from The VoicesThanks to you. Dear father, who since my mother died when I was a year old, have been father and mother to me - suffered privations one and many, and a tenderness crept into her voice and tears came to her eyes.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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