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قراءة كتاب Jimbo: A Fantasy
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JIMBO
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
OF CANADA, LIMITED
TORONTO
JIMBO
A FANTASY
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1930
COPYRIGHT
First Published 1909
The Caravan Library 1930
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER | PAGE | |
---|---|---|
I. | "Rabbits" | 7 |
II. | Miss Lake comes—and goes | 24 |
III. | The Shock | 40 |
IV. | On the Edge of Unconsciousness | 49 |
V. | Into the Empty House | 54 |
VI. | His Companion in Prison | 69 |
VII. | The Spell of the Empty House | 87 |
VIII. | The Gallery of Ancient Memories | 102 |
IX. | The Means of Escape | 111 |
X. | The Plunge | 131 |
XI. | The First Flight | 142 |
XII. | The Four Winds | 153 |
XIII. | Pleasures of Flight | 165 |
XIV. | An Adventure | 177 |
XV. | The Call of the Body | 193 |
XVI. | Preparation | 204 |
XVII. | Off! | 219 |
XVIII. | Home | 232 |
JIMBO
CHAPTER I
"RABBITS"
Jimbo's governess ought to have known better—but she didn't. If she had, Jimbo would never have met with the adventures that subsequently came to him. Thus, in a roundabout sort of way, the child ought to have been thankful to the governess; and perhaps, in a roundabout sort of way, he was. But that comes at the far end of the story, and is doubtful at best; and in the meanwhile the child had gone through his suffering, and the governess had in some measure expiated her fault; so that at this stage it is only necessary to note that the whole business began because the Empty House happened to be really an Empty House—not the one Jimbo's family lived in, but another of which more will be known in due course.
Jimbo's father was a retired Colonel, who had married late in life, and now lived all the year round in the country; and Jimbo was the youngest child but one. The Colonel, lean in body as he was sincere in mind, an excellent soldier but a poor diplomatist, loved dogs, horses, guns and riding-whips. He also really understood them. His neighbours, had they been asked, would have called him hard-headed, and so far as a soft-hearted man may deserve the title, he probably was. He rode two horses a day to hounds with the best of them, and the stiffer the country the better he liked it. Besides his guns, dogs and horses, he was also very fond of his children. It was his hobby that he understood them far better than his wife did, or than any one else did, for that matter. The proper evolution of their differing temperaments had no difficulties for him. The delicate problems of child-nature, which defy solution by nine parents out of ten, ceased to exist the moment he spread out his muscular hand in a favourite omnipotent gesture and uttered some extraordinarily foolish generality in that thunderous, good-natured voice of his. The difficulty for himself vanished when he ended up with the words, "Leave that to me, my dear; believe me, I know best!" But for all else concerned, and especially for the child under discussion, this was when the difficulty really began.
Since, however, the Colonel, after this