E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
They acclaimed her the queen.
THE GOOSE GIRL
BY
HAROLD MACGRATH
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BYANDRÉ CASTAIGNE
Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers
1909
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER I
SOME IN RAGS
An old man, clothed in picturesque patchesand tatters, paused and leaned on his stoutoak staff. He was tired. He drew off hisrusty felt hat, swept a sleeve across his forehead,and sighed. He had walked many miles that day,and even now the journey's end, near as it reallywas, seemed far away. Ah, but he would sleepsoundly that night, whether the bed were ofearth or of straw. His peasant garb rather enhancedhis fine head. His eyes were blue andclear and far-seeing, the eyes of a hunter or awoodsman, of a man who watches the shadows inthe forest at night or the dim, wavering lines onthe horizon at daytime; things near or far orroundabout. His brow was high, his nose largeand bridged; a face of more angles than contours,bristling with gray spikes, like one whohas gone unshaven several days. His hands,folded over the round, polished knuckle of hisstaff, were tanned and soiled, but they were longand slender, and the callouses were pink, a certainindication that they were fresh.
The afternoon glow of the September sunburned along the dusty white highway. Fromwhere he stood the road trailed off miles behindand wound up five hun