Return I Dare Not Page 27
“But aren’t you …”
“No, I’m taking the Down train. Good-bye …”
He shut the door with a slam which was echoed from Gibbie’s compartment at the other end of the train. For a moment, in the silence before they moved again, the voice of the chicken-field triumphed.
“Chuck–chuck–chuck–chuck–chuck–chuck–chuck–chuck …”
Hugo turned to listen with a grin of pleasure, as if an old friend had called to him. He did not see the departing train, or the startled face which Adrian thrust out of the window. He saw only those uncharted regions of his Other Life, lying all round him, open to the adventures of thought and sense. And to his ears the diminishing thunder of the wheels came faintly like the beat of muffled drums, a last reverberation from the land of his captivity.
THE HISTORY OF VINTAGE
The famous American publisher Alfred A. Knopf (1892–1984) founded Vintage Books in the United States in 1954 as a paperback home for the authors published by his company. Vintage was launched in the United Kingdom in 1990 and works independently from the American imprint although both are part of the international publishing group, Random House.
Vintage in the United Kingdom was initially created to publish paperback editions of books bought by the prestigious literary hardback imprints in the Random House Group such as Jonathan Cape, Chatto & Windus, Hutchinson and later William Heinemann, Secker & Warburg and The Harvill Press. There are many Booker and Nobel Prize-winning authors on the Vintage list and the imprint publishes a huge variety of fiction and non-fiction. Over the years Vintage has expanded and the list now includes great authors of the past – who are published under the Vintage Classics imprint – as well as many of the most influential authors of the present. In 2012 Vintage Children’s Classics was launched to include the much-loved authors of our youth.
For a full list of the books Vintage publishes, please visit our website www.vintage-books.co.uk
For book details and other information about the classic authors we publish, please visit the Vintage Classics website www.vintage-classics.info
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781473513082
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Vintage 2014
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Margaret Kennedy 1931
Margaret Kennedy has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann in 1931
Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.vintage-classics.info
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099595472
www.vintage-classics.info
Visit www.worldofstories.co.uk for all your favourite children’s classics