Excerpt from The Ancient Grudge A wide, white beach ran for a quarter of a mile from a rocky promontory to a point covered with trees. Here and there, through the fringe of pine woods, houses, white and red, thrust their gables; the windows of these caught the blaze of the afternoon sun that was now withdrawing inland. But the beach was so wide that the Shadows from the woods had not yet reached and dulled the bright crowd assembled on the sand. People had gathered from all along this part of the Massachusetts shore to see the Chester Water Carnival. Out upon the raft, fifty yards from shore, a diving-tower was built, tall and slender. The boy who was the first to climb it knelt for a. Moment when he reached the top. Then, having steadied himself, he rose and stood erect. The sun glistened kindly on his yellow hair, on his wet arms raised above his head; as he stood straight and still, he formed the last mark against sea and sky, and he had a gracefully heroic quality, which appealed to the women and girls. The other boys upon the raft looked up at him; With a spring so light that no, one quite recognized the movement with which it was made, he shot out through the air, arching with a perfect curve the space from tower to sea. Slim as a greyhound in the leap, he cut the water gently and then rose to the surface in time to hear the pattering applause. He had drawn himself up again on the sunny raft when another of the swimmers climbed the tower to dive. This was a black-haired, thick-set boy; standing on the top, he presented a sturdy but not a gracefully heroic figure. And he did not start Vibrating the sympathetic nerve in the women and girls. Suddenly he gathered himself and leaped with clumsy but impetuous power. At the height in mid-air, giving a frog-like kick, he straightened out and descended into the water with arrowy calmness. There was applause for that, too, but diving deep, he did not arise to hear it; and the clapping was of a careless kind and dwindled before his head emerged. The boy with the yellow hair took a low, shooting dive from the raft and came up close to the judge's rowboat, which was moored near by. He addressed not the judge but the girl sitting in the stern. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.