The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
History
The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
Children's literature
It was high time, however, to be making her way northwards again;
accordingly she left her pistols and cloak to be concealed by
the nurse, and again set forward on her journey. By avoiding the
highroad, resting only at the most sequestered cottages--and then
but for an hour or so--and riding all the while as hard as she
might, she reached Edinburgh in safety early next morning.
It remains only to say that the time thus won by this devoted girl
was enough to gain the end for which she strove; and Father Peters
plied the ear of King James so importunately that at length the
order was signed for Sir John Cochrane's pardon.
The state of public affairs rendered it prudent for many years that
this action of Grizel Cochrane's should be kept secret; but after
the Revolution, when men could speak more freely, her heroism was
known and applauded. She lived to marry Mr. Ker, of Morriston, in
Berwickshire, and doubtless was as good a wife as she had proved
herself a daughter.
THE SUNKEN TREASURE
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Picture to yourselves a handsome, old-fashioned room, with a large,
open cupboard at one end, in which is displayed a magnificent gold
cup, with some other splendid articles of gold and silver plate. In
another part of the room, opposite to a tall looking-glass, stands
our beloved chair, newly polished, and adorned with a gorgeous
cushion of crimson velvet, tufted with gold.
In the chair sits a man of strong and sturdy frame, whose face has
been roughened by northern tempests and blackened by the burning
sun of the West Indies. He wears an immense periwig, flowing down
over his shoulders. His coat has a wide embroidery of golden foliage;
and his waistcoat, likewise, is all flowered over and bedizened
with gold. His red, rough hands, which have done many a good day's
work with the hammer and adze, are half covered by the delicate lace
ruffles at his wrists. On a table lies his silver-hilted sword;
and in the corner of the room stands his gold-headed cane, made of
a beautifully polished West India wood Somewhat such an aspect as
this did Phips present when he sat in Grandfather's chair after
the king had appointed him Governor of Massachusetts.
But Sir William Phips had not always worn a gold-embroidered coat,
nor always sat so much at his ease as he did in Grandfather's chair.
He was a poor man's son, and was born in the province of Maine,
where in his boyhood he used to tend sheep upon the hills. Until he
had grown to be a man, he did not even know how to read and write.
Tired of tending sheep, he apprenticed himself to a ship-carpenter,
and spent about four years in hewing the crooked limbs of oak trees
into knees for vessels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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