Download PDF The Stolen House: Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online The Stolen House: Truth is Stranger than Fiction file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with The Stolen House: Truth is Stranger than Fiction book. Happy reading The Stolen House: Truth is Stranger than Fiction Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF The Stolen House: Truth is Stranger than Fiction at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF The Stolen House: Truth is Stranger than Fiction Pocket Guide.
Milind is a no hero, he's a maverick cop whose relentless pursuit of truth has earned Every page of this novel will open door for a new suspense, get ready to.
Table of contents

I was young, remarkably athletic and self-relying, and in such affrays I carried it with a high Page 33 hand, and would elbow my way among the whites,--whom it would have been almost death for me to strike,--seize my master and drag him out, mount him on his horse, or crowd him into his buggy, with the ease with which I would handle a bag of corn. I knew that I was doing for him what he could not do for himself, and showing my superiority to others, and acquiring their respect in some degree, at the same time.

On one of these occasions my master got into a quarrel with his brother's overseer, Bryce Litton. All present sided with Litton against him, and soon there was a general row. I was sitting, at the time, out on the front steps of the tavern, and, hearing the scuffle, rushed in to look after my charge.

Stranger Than Fiction: The Nanny Killers

My master, a stout man and a terrible bruiser, could generally hold his own in an ordinary general fight, and clear a handsome space around him; but now he was cornered, and a dozen were striking at him with fists, crockery, chairs, and anything that came handy. The moment he saw me he hallooed, "That's it, Page 34 Sie! With infinite trouble, and many a bruise on my own head and shoulders, I at length got him out of the room. He was crazy with drink and rage, and struggled hard with me to get back and renew the fight.

But I managed to force him into his wagon, jump in, and drive off. By ill-luck, in the height of the scuffle, Bryce Litton got a severe fall. Whether the whisky he had drank, or a chance shove from me, was the cause, I am unable to say. He, however, attributed it to me, and treasured up his vengeance for the first favorable opportunity.

The Invisible Library Novel

The opportunity soon came. About a week afterwards I was sent by my master to a place a few miles distant, on horseback, with some letters. I took a short cut through a lane, separated by gates from the high road, and bounded by a fence on each side. This lane passed through some of the farm owned by my master's brother, and his Page 35 overseer was in the adjoining field, with three negroes, when I went by. On my return, half an hour afterwards, the overseer was sitting on the fence; but I could see nothing of the black fellows. I rode on, utterly unsuspicious of any trouble; but as I approached he jumped off the fence, and at the same moment two of the negroes sprang up from under the bushes where they had been concealed, and stood with him immediately in front of me, while the third sprang over the fence just behind me.

I was thus enclosed between what I could no longer doubt were hostile forces. The overseer seized my horse's bridle, and ordered me to alight, in the usual elegant phraseology addressed by such men to slaves. I asked what I was to alight for. I was thus left without means of escape, to sustain the attacks of four men, as well as I might. In avoiding Mr. The overseer called upon the negroes to seize me; but they, knowing something of my physical power, were rather slow to obey.

At length they did their best, and as they brought themselves within my reach, I knocked them down successively; and one of them trying to trip up my feet when he was down, I gave him a kick with my heavy shoe, which knocked out several teeth, and sent him howling away. Meanwhile Bryce Litton played away on my head with a stick, not heavy enough, indeed, to knock me down, but drawing blood freely; shouting all the while, "Won't you give up! The ponderous blow fell; I lifted my arm to ward it off; the bone cracked like a pipe-stem, and I fell headlong to the ground.

Repeated blows then rained on my back, till both shoulder-blades were broken, and the blood gushed copiously from my mouth. In vain the negroes interposed. At length, his vengeance satisfied, he desisted, telling me to learn what it was to strike a white man. Meanwhile an alarm had been raised at the house by the return of the horse without his rider, and my master started off with a small party to learn what the trouble was.

When he first saw me he was swearing with rage. Seeing how much I was injured, he became still more fearfully mad; and after having me carried home, mounted his horse and rode over to Montgomery Court House, to enter a complaint. Little good came of it. Litton swore that, when he spoke to me in the lane, I "sassed" him, jumped off my horse and made at him, and would have killed him but for the help of his negroes.

Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes

Of course no negro's testimony could be admitted against a white man, and he was acquitted. My master was obliged to pay all the costs of court; and although he had the satisfaction of calling Litton a liar and scoundrel, and giving him a tremendous bruising, still even this partial compensation was rendered less gratifying by what followed, which was a suit for damages and a heavy fine. My sufferings after this cruel treatment were intense. Besides my broken arm and the wounds on my head, I could feel and hear the pieces of my shoulder-blades grate against each other with every breath.

No physician Page 39 or surgeon was called to dress my wounds; and I never knew one to be called on Riley's estate on any occasion whatever. The robust, physical health produced by a life of out-door labor, made our wounds heal up with as little inflammation as they do in the case of cattle.


  • The Lust (La Lujuria).
  • Stranger than fiction.
  • Stranger Than Fiction by Emelle Gamble.
  • Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes!
  • Can You Hear the Echoes.

I was attended by my master's sister, Miss Patty, as we called her, the Esculapius of the plantation. She was a powerful, big-boned woman, who flinched at no responsibility, from wrenching out teeth to setting bones. I have seen her go into the house and get a rifle to shoot a furious ox that the negroes were in vain trying to butcher. She splintered my arm and bound up my back as well as she knew how.

From that day to this I have been unable to raise my hands as high as my head. It was five months before I could work at all, and the first time I tried to plough, a hard knock of the colter against a stone shattered my shoulder-blades again, and gave me even greater agony Page 40 than at first.

Illuminating York Festival: Stranger Than Fiction event at Treasurer’s House | York Press

And so I have gone through life maimed and mutilated. Practice in time enabled me to perform many of the farm labors with considerable efficiency; but the free, vigorous play of muscle and arm was gone forever. My situation as overseer I retained, together with the especial favor of my master, who was not displeased either with saving the expense of a large salary for a white superintendent, or with the superior crops I was able to raise for him. I will not deny that I used his property more freely than he would have done himself, in supplying his people with better food; but if I cheated him in this way, in small matters, it was unequivocally for his own benefit in more important ones; and I accounted, with the strictest honesty, for every dollar I received in the sale of the property entrusted to me.

Gradually the disposal of everything raised on the farm,--the wheat, oats, hay, fruit, butter, and whatever else there might be,--was confided to me, as it was quite evident that I could and did sell for Page 41 better prices than any one else he could employ; and he was quite incompetent to attend to the business himself.

For many years I was his factotum, and supplied him with all his means for all his purposes, whether they were good or bad. I had no reason to think highly of his moral character; but it was my duty to be faithful to him in the position in which he placed me; and I can boldly declare, before God and man, that I was so. I forgave him the causeless blows and injuries he had inflicted on me in childhood and youth, and was proud of the favor he now showed me, and of the character and reputation I had earned by strenuous and persevering efforts. WHEN I was about twenty-two years of age, I married a very efficient, and, for a slave, a very well-taught girl, belonging to a neighboring family, reputed to be pious and kind, whom I first met at the religious meetings which I attended.

She has borne me twelve children, eight of whom still survive and promise to be the comfort of my declining years. Things remained in this condition for a considerable period; my occupations being to superintend the farming operations, and to Page 43 sell the produce in the neighboring markets of Washington and Georgetown. Many respectable people, yet living there, may possibly have some recollection of "Siah," or "Sie," as they used to call me, as their market-man; but if they have forgotten me, I remember them with an honest satisfaction.

After passing his youth in the manner I have mentioned in a general way, and which I do not wish more particularly to describe, my master, at the age of forty-five, or up-wards, married a young woman of eighteen, who had some little property, and more thrift. Her economy was remarkable, and was certainly no addition to the comfort of the establishment. She had a younger brother, Francis, to whom Riley was appointed guardian, and who used to complain--not without reason, I am confident--of the meanness of the provision made for the household; and he would often come to me, with tears in his eyes, to tell me he could not get enough to eat.


  • California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  • Pre-Hospital Paediatric Life Support: The Practical Approach (Advanced Life Support Group)?
  • Cougars?
  • Eager to Learn (Complicity Cycle Book 1).
  • Scarlet Witch (2015-2017) #13;

I made him my friend for life, by sympathising in his emotions and satisfying his appetite, Page 44 sharing with him the food I took care to provide for my own family. He is still living, and, I understand, one of the wealthiest men in Washington city. After a time, however, continual dissipation was more than a match for domestic saving. My master fell into difficulty, and from difficulty into a lawsuit with a brother-in-law, who charged him with dishonesty in the management of property confided to him in trust.

The lawsuit was protracted enough to cause his ruin of itself. Harsh and tyrannical as my master had been, I really pitied him in his present distress. At times he was dreadfully dejected, at others crazy with drink and rage.

The Stolen House - Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Day after day would he ride over to Montgomery Court House about his business, and every day his affairs grew more desperate. He would come into my cabin to tell me how things were going, but spent the time chiefly in lamenting his misfortunes and cursing his brother-in-law. I tried to comfort him as best I could. He had confidence in my fidelity and judgment, Page 45 and partly through pride, partly through that divine spirit of love I had learned to worship in Jesus, I entered with interest into all his perplexities.

The poor, drinking, furious, moaning creature was utterly incapable of managing his affairs. Shiftlessness, licentiousness and drink had complicated them as much as actual dishonesty. One night in the month of January, long after I had fallen asleep, he came into my cabin and waked me up. I thought it strange, but for a time he said nothing and sat moodily warming himself at the fire.