Orakel Classics
The Thirty-Nine Steps
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan, prepared as a public-domain Orakel edition with 10 chapter-aware companion links.
Chapters
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Chapter I.: The Man Who Died
Chapter I.: The Man Who Died from The Thirty-Nine Steps. I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick. I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the
Open2Chapter II.: The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels
Chapter II.: The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels from The Thirty-Nine Steps. I sat down in an armchair and felt very sick. That lasted for maybe five minutes, and was succeeded by a fit of the horrors. The poor staring white face on the floor was more than I could bear, and I managed to get a table-cloth and cover it. Then I staggered to a cupboard, found the brandy and swallowed several mouthfuls. I had seen men die violently before; indeed I had killed a few myself in the Matabele War; but
Open3Chapter III.: The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper
Chapter III.: The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper from The Thirty-Nine Steps. I had a solemn time travelling north that day. It was fine May weather, with the hawthorn flowering on every hedge, and I asked myself why, when I was still a free man, I had stayed on in London and not got the good of this heavenly country. I didn’t dare face the restaurant car, but I got a luncheon-basket at Leeds and shared it with the fat woman. Also I got the morning’s papers, with news about starters for the
Open4Chapter IV.: The Adventure of the Radical Candidate
Chapter IV.: The Adventure of the Radical Candidate from The Thirty-Nine Steps. You may picture me driving that 40 h.p. car for all she was worth over the crisp moor roads on that shining May morning; glancing back at first over my shoulder, and looking anxiously to the next turning; then driving with a vague eye, just wide enough awake to keep on the highway. For I was thinking desperately of what I had found in Scudder’s
Open5Chapter V.: The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman
Chapter V.: The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman from The Thirty-Nine Steps. Behind me was the road climbing through a long cleft in the hills, which was the upper glen of some notable river. In front was a flat space of maybe a mile, all pitted with bog-holes and rough with tussocks, and then beyond it the road fell steeply down another glen to a plain whose blue dimness melted into the distance. To left and right were round-shouldered green hills as smooth as pancakes, but to the
Open6Chapter VI.: The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist
Chapter VI.: The Adventure of the Bald Archaeologist from The Thirty-Nine Steps. I spent the night on a shelf of the hillside, in the lee of a boulder where the heather grew long and soft. It was a cold business, for I had neither coat nor waistcoat. These were in Mr Turnbull’s keeping, as was Scudder’s little book, my watch and—worst of all—my pipe and tobacco pouch. Only my money accompanied me in my belt, and about half a pound of ginger biscuits in my trousers
Open7Chapter VII.: The Dry-Fly Fisherman
Chapter VII.: The Dry-Fly Fisherman from The Thirty-Nine Steps. I sat down on a hill-top and took stock of my position. I wasn’t feeling very happy, for my natural thankfulness at my escape was clouded by my severe bodily discomfort. Those lentonite fumes had fairly poisoned me, and the baking hours on the dovecot hadn’t helped matters. I had a crushing headache, and felt as sick as a cat. Also my shoulder was in a bad way. At first I thought it was only a bruise, but it seemed
Open8Chapter VIII.: The Coming of the Black Stone
Chapter VIII.: The Coming of the Black Stone from The Thirty-Nine Steps. I came down to breakfast next morning, after eight hours of blessed dreamless sleep, to find Sir Walter decoding a telegram in the midst of muffins and marmalade. His fresh rosiness of yesterday seemed a thought
Open9Chapter IX.: The Thirty-Nine Steps
Chapter IX.: The Thirty-Nine Steps from The Thirty-Nine Steps. Sir Walter got up and left the room while we looked blankly at the table. He came back in ten minutes with a long face. “I have spoken to Alloa,” he said. “Had him out of bed—very grumpy. He went straight home after Mulross’s
Open10Chapter X.: Various Parties Converging on the Sea
Chapter X.: Various Parties Converging on the Sea from The Thirty-Nine Steps. A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from the Griffin Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock sands which seemed the size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles farther south and much nearer the shore a small destroyer was anchored. Scaife, MacGillivray’s man, who had been in the Navy, knew the boat, and told me her name and her commander’s, so I sent off a wire to Sir
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