Black Bartlemy's Treasure Author:Jeffrey Farnol General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1920 Original Publisher: Little, Brown Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can s... more »elect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III Tells How I Stole My Breakfast The mist lay very thick all $ibout me but, when I had climbed to higher ground, it thinned away somewhat, so that as the pallid light grew I began to see something of the havoc wrought by the storm; here and there lay trees uprooted, while everywhere was a tangle of broken boughs and trailing branches, insomuch that I found my going no small labour. But presently, as I forced a way through these leafy tangles, the birds, awaking, began to fill the dim world with blithe chirpings that grew and grew to a sweet clamour, ever swelling until the dark woods thrilled with gladsome music; and I, beholding the first beam of sun, felt heartened thereby 'spite my lack of sleep and the gnawing of hunger's sharp fangs and hasted with blither steps. Thus in a while I brake forth of the desolate trees and caine out upon a fair, rolling meadow with blooming hedgerows before me and, beyond, the high road. And now, as I stayed to get my bearings, up rose the sun in majesty, all glorious in purple and pink and gold, whose level beams turned the world around me into a fair garden all sweet and fresh and green while, in the scowling woods behind, the sullen mists crept furtive away till they were vanished quite and those leafy solitudes became a very glory. But my hunger was very sore, a need I purposed to satisfy soon and at all hazards, therefore, having marked my" direction, I went at speed and, crossing the meadow, came into the highway and struck south. On my going through the woods I had chosen me a cudgel in place of the one lost, shorti...« less