Mr. Keegan's Elopement

By Winston Churchill

"Mr. Keegan's Elopement" is a short story published by American writer and political leader Winston Churchill in June 1896 in The Century Magazine. His first published story, it was republished in book format by Churchill's publisher Macmillan in June 1903 following the success of his first three novels. It follows the titular character on his dramatic and engaging romp through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Aug 21, 2022
• ISBN: 4064066427955

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill was a British military man, statesman, and Nobel-prize winning author, and, by virtue of his service during both the First and Second World Wars, is considered to be one of the greatest wartime leaders of the twentieth century. Born to the aristocracy, Churchill pursued a career in the British Army, seeing action in British India and in the Second Boer War, and later drew upon his experiences in these historic conflicts in his work as a war correspondent and writer. After retiring from active duty, Churchill moved into politics and went on to hold a number of important positions in the British government. He rose to the role of First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War and later to the role of prime minister, a position that he held twice, from 1940-1945 and from 1951-1955. A visionary statesman, Churchill was remarkable for his ability to perceive emerging threats to international peace, and predicted the rise of Nazi Germany, the Second World War, and the Iron Curtain. In his later years Churchill returned to writing, penning the six-volume Second World War series, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and many other historical and biographical works. Winston Churchill died in 1965 and, after one of the largest state funerals to that point in time, was interred in his family’s burial plot.

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Winston Churchill

Mr. Keegan's Elopement

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4064066427955

Table of Contents

I

II

The Macmillan Little Novels

PHILOSOPHY FOUR

MAN OVERBOARD

MR. KEEGAN’S ELOPEMENT

MRS. PENDLETON’S FOUR-IN-HAND

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MR. KEEGAN’S ELOPEMENT

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I

Table of Contents

The northeast wind was very fresh that morning, and drove the seas before it briskly; but the Denver went at each of them in her bulldog fashion, and buried her white nose in them, and showered the crests of those which were specially boisterous in glistening spray over her forecastle. In the east the October sun was just beginning to peep over the sea-line, while to the northward lay the great mountain island of Madeira, already changing, by the magic touch of the light, from a phantom grey to that living green so dear to the eyes of a seaman. Soon signs of life began to appear; a village could be made out nestling in each of the valleys which furrowed the mountain-side, while yellow villas dotted its wooded slopes. In a bight at the south base, white in the morning sunlight, lay the town of Funchal, in front of which, like a huge sentinel, knee-deep, stood a towering rock crowned with a fort, reminding one of a castle on a chess-board.

Mr. Keegan, chief boatswain’s mate of the Denver, and his friend, Jimmy Legs,[1] the master-at-arms, sat on the weather side of the forecastle, under the forward eight-inch turret, with the collars of their pea-coats turned well up over their ears, taking a morning smoke. Mr. Keegan had a keen eye for the beautiful, and it was his wont on such occasions to sit in silence for as much as an hour at a time. The master-at-arms, being a ’tween-decks man, delighted in watching the seas break over the bows, although this amusement not infrequently cost him a wetting and a pipeful of tobacco.

[1] The name given to the master-at-arms aboard ship.

Mr. Keegan was a young man with reddish hair and small, expressionless blue eyes, and his Christian name was Dennis. He had a round, full face, abnormally so on one side because of the large piece of navy plug which invariably distended it. I have said that he was chief boatswain’s mate of the Denver, for the reason that he was so known at the department, and drew his pay as such. But, as a matter of fact, Mr. Keegan’s status, and the scope of his influence on board that ship, would be as hard to define as the duties of the captain set