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    The Blue Curtains
    The Blue Curtains
    The Blue Curtains
    Ebook45 pages40 minutes

    The Blue Curtains

    By H. Rider Haggard

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    About this ebook

    The story begins with the receipt of a letter bringing unwelcome news to a military man stationed in South Africa. His fiancée writes and tells him that their relationship is over as she is being forced to marry another man.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGood Press
    Release dateDec 8, 2020
    ISBN4064066403928
    The Blue Curtains
    Author

    H. Rider Haggard

    H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) was an English adventure novelist. Haggard studied law, but rather than pursuing a legal career took a secretarial position in what is now South Africa. His time there provided the inspiration for some of his most popular novels, including She (1887), an early classic of the lost world fantasy genre and one of the bestselling books of all time.

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      Book preview

      The Blue Curtains - H. Rider Haggard

      H. Rider Haggard

      The Blue Curtains

      Published by Good Press, 2022

      goodpress@okpublishing.info

      EAN 4064066403928

      Table of Contents

      Chapter I

      Chapter II

      Chapter III

      Chapter IV

      Chapter V

      Chapter VI

      Chapter I

      Table of Contents

      In his regiment familiarly they called him Bottles, nobody quite knew why. It was, however, rumoured that he had been called Bottles at Harrow on account of the shape of his nose. Not that his nose was particularly like a bottle, but at the end of it was round and large and thick. In reality, however, the sobriquet was more ancient than that, for it had belonged to the hero of this story from babyhood. Now, when a man has a nickname, it generally implies two things: first, that he is good-tempered, and, secondly, that he is a good fellow. Bottles, alias John George Peritt, of a regiment it is unnecessary to name, amply justified both these definitions, for a kindlier-tempered or better fellow never breathed. But unless a thick round nose, a pair of small light-coloured eyes, set under bushy brows, and a large but not badly shaped mouth can be said to constitute beauty, he was not beautiful. On the other hand, however, he was big and well-formed, and a pleasant-mannered if a rather silent companion.

      Many years ago Bottles was in love; all the regiment knew it, he was so very palpably and completely in love. Over his bed in his tidy quarters hung the photograph of a young lady who was known to be the young lady; which, when the regiment, individually and collectively, happened to see it, left no doubt in its mind as to their comrade's taste. It was evident even from that badly-coloured photograph that Miss Madeline Spenser had the makings of a lovely figure and a pair of wonderful eyes. It was said, however, that she had not a sixpence; and as our hero had but very few, the married ladies of the battalion used frequently to speculate how Mr. Peritt would manage when it came to matrimony.

      At this date the regiment was quartered in Maritzburg, Natal, but its term of foreign service had expired, and it expected to be ordered home immediately.

      One morning Bottles had been out buck hunting with the scratch pack kept in those days by the garrison at Maritzburg. The run had been a good one, and after a seven or eight-mile gallop over the open country they had actually killed their buck—a beautiful Oribe. This was a thing that did not often happen, and Bottles returned filled with joy and pride with the buck fastened behind his saddle, for he was whip to the pack. The hounds had met at dawn, and it was nine o'clock or so, when, as he was riding hot and tired up the shadier side of broad and dusty Church Street, a gun fired at the Fort beyond Government House announced the arrival of the English mail.

      With a beaming smile—for to him the English mail meant one if not two letters from Madeline, and possibly the glad news of sailing orders—he pushed on to his quarters, tubbed and dressed, and then went down to the mess-house

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