Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. "And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is through the trees And the waves are like ghostly galleons, tossed upon angry seas, And the road is a ribbon of misty light, over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding, Riding, riding, A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door." ALFRED NOYES. "An' our skins went creepy-creep, But we simply had to peep, In that shadowed bastian—Hey, 'twas witches' noon! Was he really darkly bad? Or some sun-browned fisher lad? Out standing in the shimmer of the moon. Ah, that naked, boyish swimmer, Flashing fairly in the shimmer, Of a pathway to our tropic moon.— 'Hush! Tis the Pirate's son!' we said: 'Quick, Service boys, race back to bed!' " From "the Saga Of An Unsung Service." THE HIGHWAYMAN Billy waited, nervous, but resolute, for something to happen, and of course nothing did happen—it never does if you sit and wait for it —then, as it was half-past six, he rememberedthat his cousin, Frank Hollis, had expressed a wish for chicken pie, and that he had carefully boiled the chickens in preparation for it, the earlier part of that afternoon: "Aw, Pshaw!" he grunted as he rose to his feet, "I'm getting mighty scary in my old age! If that highwayman should come here, he couldn't do much to a fourteen year old kid, and, anyway, that pie wont wait any longer. Those fellows will want their 'chow' at eight, sharp. I've got the store-room key in my pocket, so that's just about all I can do, anyway." Taking his rifle into the kitchen with him, he laid it on the rough pine table, and then went in quest of flour, cold water, salt, lard and so forth for his pie. He was awfully proud of his pies, was Master Billy! Getting down a big, earthenware bowl, he sifted a quart ...