Other Fiction Allen, Grant: The Thames Valley Catastrophe. V1. 3 Feb 2011

[crutledge]

Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (Grant Allen) (1848-1899), the son of an Irish Protestant minister and notable scholar, was born at Alwington, near Kingston, Ontario, Canada, on 24 February 1848. He was partly educated in America and France. In England he was at King Edward's School in Birmingham, and later at Merton College in Oxford, graduating with honors in 1871. He also studied in Europe. Two years later, in 1873, he was appointed Professor of Logic at Queens College, Spanish Town, Jamaica. He also taught philosophy, ethics, Latin, and Greek at this college for Negroes. When its principal died, Allen took over and from 1874 to 1876 was the college's principal.

Excerpt
I turned my eye up stream. For half a second I was utterly bewildered. Strange to say, I did not perceive at first the great flood of fire that was advancing towards me. I saw only the man who had shouted—a miserable, cowering, terror-stricken wretch, one of the abject creatures who used to earn a dubious livelihood in those days (when the river was a boulevard of pleasure) by towing boats up stream. But now, he was rushing wildly forward, with panic in his face; I could see he looked as if close pursued by some wild beast behind him. "A mad dog!" I said to myself at the outset; "or else a bull in the meadow!"

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