Читать книгу The Trail of the Sword, Complete - Gilbert Parker - Страница 3

WHEREIN IS SET FORTH THE HISTORY OF JESSICA LEVERET, AS ALSO THAT OF PIERRE LE MOYNE OF IBERVILLE, GEORGE GERING, AND OTHER BOLD SPIRITS; TOGETHER WITH CERTAIN MATTERS OF WAR, AND THE DEEDS OF ONE EDWARD BUCKLAW, MUTINEER AND PIRATE DEDICATION

My Dear Father:

Once, many years ago, in a kind of despair, you were impelled to say

that I would “never be anything but a rascally lawyer.” This, it

may be, sat upon your conscience, for later you turned me gravely

towards Paley and the Thirty-nine Articles; and yet I know that in

your deepest soldier’s heart, you really pictured me, how

unavailingly, in scarlet and pipe-clay, and with sabre, like

yourself in youth and manhood. In all I disappointed you, for I

never had a brief or a parish, and it was another son of yours who

carried on your military hopes. But as some faint apology—I almost

dare hope some recompense for what must have seemed wilfulness, I

send you now this story of a British soldier and his “dear maid,”

which has for its background the old city of Quebec, whose high

ramparts you walked first sixty years ago; and for setting, the

beginning of those valiant fightings, which, as I have heard you

say, “through God’s providence and James Wolfe, gave England her

best possession.”

You will, I feel sure, quarrel with the fashion of my campaigns, and

be troubled by my anachronisms; but I beg you to remember that long

ago you gave my young mind much distress when you told that

wonderful story, how you, one man, “surrounded” a dozen enemies, and

drove them prisoners to headquarters. “Surrounded” may have been

mere lack of precision, but it serves my turn now, as you see. You

once were—and I am precise here—a gallant swordsman: there are

legends yet of your doings with a crack Dublin bully. Well, in the

last chapter of this tale you shall find a duel which will perhaps

recall those early days of this century, when your blood was hot and

your hand ready. You would be distrustful of the details of this

scene, did I not tell you that, though the voice is Jacob’s the hand

is another’s. Swordsmen are not so many now in the army or out of

it, that, among them, Mr. Walter Herrim Pollock’s name will have

escaped you: so, if you quarrel, let it be with Esau; though, having

good reason to be grateful to him, that would cause me sorrow.

My dear father, you are nearing the time-post of ninety years, with

great health and cheerfulness; it is my hope you may top the arch of

your good and honourable life with a century key-stone.

Believe me, sir,

Your affectionate son,

GILBERT PARKER.

15th September, 1894, 7 Park Place,

St. James’s S.W.