Read "The Black Ship" by Elizabeth Rundle Charles online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THEY lived at the foot of the Pine Mountains, in the island of the / King's Garden, the mother, with her little son and daughter. The boy's / name was Hope, and the little girl's, May.
The children loved each other dearly, and were never separated. They / never had any quarrels, because Hope was the leader in all their / expeditions and plays; and May firmly believed that everything which / Hope planned and did, was better planned and better done than it would / have been by any one else in the world, by which May meant the island. / Hope, on his side, had always a tender consideration for little May in / his schemes, such as kings should have for their subjects. May would / never have dreamed of originating any scheme herself, or of questioning / any which Hope planned. If you had taken away May from Hope, you would / have taken away his kingdom, his army, his right hand; if you had / taken away Hope from May, you would have robbed her of her leader, her / king, her head, her sun. Bereaved of May, I think Hope would have been / driven from his desolate home into the wide world; bereaved of Hope, / I am sure May would never have left her home, but sat silent there / until she pined away. But together, life was one holiday to them; work / was a keener kind of play, and every day was too narrow for the happy / occupations of which each hour was brimful.