More mystery tales for boys and girls

Front matter

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Copyright^ 0 L_i

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Preface

Many years ago, amid the arid wastes of a New England Sunday School library, I once chanced upon an oasis — George MacDonald’s “ Warlock o’ Glenwarlock.” In spite of its more than seven hundred pages and its difficult Scotch dialect, I returned to it again and again; but the lodestone of attraction was not, I fear, the fine and unworldly characters of the old laird and his son, or the descriptions of Old World life and scenery; still less the sermons, though these were excellent, or the good advice, which the author so liberally bestowed upon the reader. It was rather the lure of the haunted chamber, the ghostly appearances of the auld captain, commonly reputed a pirate, the slow unraveling of the mystery, and the final discovery of the treasure, the wonderful, glowing mass of jewels, so artfully hidden away. A glance through the pages of the book still brings back the breathless thrill of yore, when the opening up of the secret cavity in the wall revealed the toy horse in his prison stall. Cosmo had at last caught his “ naig he had but to

Preface

“ pu’ his tail ;

In his hin’ heel ca 5 a nail ;

Rug his lugs frae ane anither —

Stan 5 up, an 5 ca’ the king [his] brither.”

“ A good, clean story,” some one has penciled in a library copy ; but it is little known now, and most boys and girls, with scores of attractive and beautifully illustrated books from which to choose, would probably look somewhat askance at its plain cover, closely printed pages, and old-fashioned pictures. The author himself characterized “ Warlock o’ Glenwarlock ” as “ homely,” but it had the qualities which irresistibly attracted the young people of the eighties and nineties — the elements of mystery and romance, the background of the unknown, the suggestion of the supernatural — and these qualities are equally fascinating to the boys and girls of to-day. “ Please give me a good mystery tale ” is one of the most frequent requests in library children’s rooms. Literary fashions, or methods, may have changed somewhat in the intervening years ; but still

“ It is very good indeed,

When the nights are dark and cold,

Near the friendly hearth to read,

Tales of ghosts and buried gold.”

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It is to meet this need that some of the best short stories and story-poems have been brought together in this book and its companion volume, “ Mystery Tales for Boys and Girls.” As in the earlier collection, the selections are chiefly legendary in character; but they are varied in setting and incident, and cover a wide range of time from the days of the Emperor Maximus to the Great War of the twentieth century. Though the plot interest of longer narratives is wanting, herein will be found mystic talismans, spectral lights, phantom ships, warlocks and witches, ghosts and wizards, hidden treasure, and strange enchantments. The stories and poems are not limited in their interest to any particular period; they may be enjoyed throughout the year; but they are especially appropriate for use at the Hallowe’en season and will help to meet the increased demand for mystery tales at this time. Many of them, it is hoped, will suggest other reading, or lead to the original volumes from which these selections have been taken. “ Redgauntlet,” the source of “ Wandering Willie’s tale,” tells, for instance, the interesting story of a Jacobite conspiracy; Irving’s “Alhambra ” is a mine of fascinating Moorish tales; the Welsh legend of Maxen Wledig, only a part of which is included here, is from “ The Mabinogion,” translated by Lady

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Charlotte Guest. “ The Abbaye de Cerisy,” taken from “ Studies and Stories,” by Mrs. Molesworth, naturally suggests the history and fiction of the French Revolution. For more ghost stories, one should read the tale of the murdered king of Denmark, young Hamlet's father, and the story of Macbeth who met the weird sisters on the blasted heath and saw in a vision the “ blood-bolter’d Banquo.”

“ The Mystery of Old Daddy’s Window ” from “ The Young Mountaineers,” by Charles Egbert Craddock; “Howe’s Masquerade” from “Twice- Told Tales,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne; “A Greyport Legend,” by Bret Harte; “ Friar Bacon’s Brazen Head ” from “ Stories from Old English History,” by Abby Sage Richardson; “ The Mystery of Cro-a-tan from “ Colonial Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verses,” by Margaret J. Preston; and “ The Dead Ship of Harpswell,” by John Greenleaf Whittier, are used by permission of and by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers. “ The Three Low Masses ” from “ Little French Masterpieces: Alphonse Daudet,” the translation by George Burnham Ives; and “The Bowmen” from “The Bowmen, and Other Legends of the War,” by Arthur Machen, are included through the courtesy

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of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Publishers, New York and London. The inclusion of “ Cap’n Goldsack,” by William Sharp, is through the permission of Harper & Brothers and Mrs. William Sharp. “ The Highwayman,” by Alfred Noyes, is reprinted by special arrangement with the Frederick A. Stokes Company.

Thanks are also due to Dr. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton for permission to reprint “ The Phantom Light of the Baie des Chaleurs ” from “Acadian Legends and Lyrics ” ; to the Atlantic Monthly Press for the use of the poem “ Ipswich Bar,” by Esther and Brainard Bates; and to the Overland Publishing Company for permission to include “Lost in the Fog,” by Noah Brooks. “ The Roll-Call of the Reef,” from “ Wandering Heath,” by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and “ The Miracle of the White Wolf,” from “ The White Wolf, and Other Fireside Tales,” are used with the permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Most of the selections have been given without change or adaptation but in a few cases they have been slightly shortened by the omission of an occasional sentence or paragraph not necessary to the understanding of the story.

Elva S. Smith.

Pittsburgh , 1922.

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