A Modern Antus Author:Laurence Housman General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1901 Original Publisher: J. Murray Subjects: English fiction Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Fiction / Short Stories Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. ... more » When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III SHOWS THAT OUT OF A MARE'S NEST MAY SPRING NIGHTMARE THE barton at the rear formed a boundary for poultry, which lay in the care of Mrs Tracy, the tenant of the adjoining cottage. She and her daughter Sally would often take Tristram with them when they went the rounds on a search after eggs ; and before long the child became familiar with the queer habits of broody hens, and found zest in tracking these cenotaphs of maternity to their shadowy nesting-places. Every day gave chance of discovering lyings-in illicitly conducted; and to pry out some nest richly lined with accumulated deposit was a delight to the boy's marauding instinct. To the methodical egg-collector, on the other hand, these brood-cravings were a worry and a waste of profit, eggs of doubtful date and condition having to be tabled off from the results on which payment was earned. It was natural, therefore, that unauthorised sittings should be sternly suppressed. Tristram saw one day with squirmy horror an obstinate brooder ducked almost to death ; pleaded for its life, and watched it slowly revive from the heap of rubbish where the callous-hearted Sally had flung it to drain. It was as broody as ever the next day, and for its persistence went up in the urchin's estimation, while its foiled persecutor went down, Though at times he played with the children from the neighbouring cottages, his games with them gave the least effective employment to his intellect. He preferred loneliness...« less