Salute to Adventurers

When I was a child in short-coats a spaewife came to the town-end, and for a silver groat paid by my mother she riddled my fate. It came to little, being no more than that I sho...

The storm died away in the night, and I awoke to a clear, rain-washed world and the chill of an autumn morn. I was as stiff and sore as if I had been whipped, my clothes were so...

"Never daunton youth" was, I remember, a saying of my grandmother's; but it was the most dauntoned youth in Scotland that now jogged over the moor to the Edinburgh highroad. I h...

With the escapade that landed me in the Tolbooth there came an end to the nightmare years of my first youth. A week later I got word that my father was dead of an ague in the Lo...

There are few moments in life to compare with a traveller's first sight of a new land which is destined to be for short or long his home. When, after a fair and speedy voyage, w...

I had not been a week in the place before I saw one thing very clear-- that I should never get on with Mr. Lambie. His notion of business was to walk down the street in a fine c...

I did not waste time in getting to work. I had already written to my uncle, telling him my plans, and presently I received his consent. I arranged that cargoes of such goods as...

Once at Edinburgh College I had read the Latin tale of Apuleius, and the beginning stuck in my memory: "_Thraciam ex negotio petebam_"--"I was starting off for Thrace on busines...

I awoke in broad daylight, and when my wits came back to me, I saw I was in a tent of skins, with my limbs unbound, and a pitcher of water beside me placed by some provident han...

When we sailed at daybreak next morning I had the glow of satisfaction with my own doings which is a safe precursor of misfortunes. I had settled my business with the Free Compa...

A week later I had a visit from old Mercer. He came to my house in the evening just after the closing of the store. First of all, he paid out to me the gold I had lost from my s...

The next Sunday I was fool enough to go to church, for Doctor Blair was announced to preach the sermon. Now I knew very well what treatment I should get, and that it takes a sto...

I never breathed a word about the night's doings, nor for divers reasons did Ringan; but the story got about, and the young fools were the laughing-stock of the place. But there...

That July morning in the forest gave me, if not popularity, at any rate peace. I had made good my position. Henceforth the word went out that I was to be let alone. Some of the...

He heard me with lowering brows, "Who the devil made you Governor of this dominion, sir? You have been levying troops without His Majesty's permission. Your offence is no less t...

'Twas the same high summer weather through which I had ridden a fortnight ago with a dull heart on my way to the duel. Now Grey rode by my side, and my spirits were as light as...

Next morning we passed through the foothills into an open meadow country. As I lifted up my eyes I saw for the first time the mountains near at hand. There they lay, not more th...

At earliest light, with the dew heavy on the willows and the river line a coil of mist, Shalah woke me for the road. We breakfasted off fried bacon, some of which I saved for th...

Shalah spoke to me of it before we started. He did not fear the Cherokees, who had come from the far south of the range and had never been settled in these parts. But he thought...

It took us a heavy day's work to get the stockade finished. There were only the two axes in the party, besides Shalah's tomahawk, and no one can know the labour of felling and t...

Those two days in the stockade were like a rift of sun in a stormy day, and the next morn the clouds descended. The face of nature seemed to be a mirror of our fortunes, for whe...

Our eyes were hollow with suspense, and all but Shalah had the hunted look of men caught in a trap. Not till the sun had got above the tree-tops did we venture to leave our post...

We reached the gap, and made slantwise across the farther hill. I did not dare to go clown Clearwater Glen, and, besides, I was aiming for a point farther south than the Rappaha...

As I stumbled through the moonlit forest I heard Ringan's tunes ever crooning among the trees. First it was the old mad march of "Bundle and go," which the pipers play when the...

My body was too sore to suffer me to sleep dreamlessly, but my dreams were pleasant. I thought I was in a sunny place with Elspeth, and that she had braided a coronet of wild fl...

I came out of the wood a new being. My wounded arm and my torn and inflamed limbs were forgotten. I held my head high, and walked like a free man. It was not that I had slain my...

It was late in the evening ere we reached the shelf in the high glens which was the headquarters of the Indian host. I rode on a horse, between Onotawah and Shalah, as if I were...

In that hour I had none of the exhilaration of success. So strangely are we mortals made that, though I had won safety for myself and my people, I could not get the savour of it...