I tell lost tales of savage wars; And you have known the desert sands, The camp beneath the silver stars, The rush at dawn of Arab bands, The fruitless toil, the hopeless dream, The fainting feet, the faltering breath, While Gordon by the ancient stream Waited at ease on death. And now, aloof from camp and field, You spend your sunny autumn hours Where the green folds of Chiltern shield The nooks of Thames amid the flowers: You who have borne that name of pride, In honour clean from fear or stain, Which Talbot won by Henry ...
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I tell lost tales of savage wars; And you have known the desert sands, The camp beneath the silver stars, The rush at dawn of Arab bands, The fruitless toil, the hopeless dream, The fainting feet, the faltering breath, While Gordon by the ancient stream Waited at ease on death. And now, aloof from camp and field, You spend your sunny autumn hours Where the green folds of Chiltern shield The nooks of Thames amid the flowers: You who have borne that name of pride, In honour clean from fear or stain, Which Talbot won by Henry's side In vanquished Aquitaine. The reader is asked to believe that most of the characters in this tale and many of the incidents have good historical warrant. The figure of Muckle John Gib will be familiar to the readers of Patrick Walker. Chapter 1 The Sweet-Singers 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 should miss love and fortune in the sunlight and find them in the rain. The woman was a haggard, black-faced gipsy, and when my mother asked for more she turned on her heel and spoke gibberish; for which she was presently driven out of the place by Tarn Roberton, the baillie, and the village dogs. But the thing stuck in my memory, and together with the fact that I was a Thursday's bairn, and so, according to the old rhyme, "had far to go," convinced me long ere I had come to man's estate that wanderings and surprises would be my portion. It is in the rain that this tale begins. I was just turned of eighteen, and in the back-end of a dripping September set out from our moorland house of Auchencairn to complete my course at Edinburgh College. The year was 1685, an ill year for our countryside; for the folk were at odds with the King's Government, about religion, and the land was full of covenants and repressions. Small wonder that I was backward with my colleging, and at an age when most lads are buckled to a calling was still attending the prelections of the Edinburgh masters. My father had blown hot and cold in politics, for he was fiery and unstable by nature, and swift to judge a cause by its latest professor. He had cast out with the Hamilton gentry, and, having broken the head of a dragoon in the change-house of Lesmahagow, had his little estate mulcted in fines. All of which, together with some natural curiosity and a family love of fighting, sent him to the ill-fated field of Bothwell Brig, from which he was lucky to escape with a bullet in the shoulder. Thereupon he had been put to the horn, and was now lying hid in a den in the mosses of Douglas Water. It was a sore business for my mother, who had the task of warding off prying eyes from our ragged household and keeping the fugitive in life. She was a Tweedside woman, as strong and staunch as an oak, and with a heart in her like Robert Bruce. And she was cheerful, too, in the worst days, and would go about the place with a bright eye and an old song on her lips. But the thing was beyond a woman's bearing; so I had perforce to forsake my colleging and take a hand with our family vexations. The life made me hard and watchful, trusting no man, and brusque and stiff towards the world. And yet all the while youth was working in me like yeast, so that a spring day or a west wind would make me forget my troubles and thirst to be about a kindlier business than skulking in a moorland dwelling.
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Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $5.08, very good condition, Sold by Zardoz Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Westbury, WILTS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1963 by Pan Books.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $5.94, very good condition, Sold by Victoria Bookshop rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bere Alston, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $7.41, very good condition, Sold by The Guru Bookshop rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hereford, WALES, UNITED KINGDOM, published by Thomas Nelson.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $8.13, good condition, Sold by John C. Newland rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Cheltenham, Glos., UNITED KINGDOM, published 1943 by Thomas Nelson.
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Seller's Description:
Used-Good. VG hardback in Good dust jacket. Undated, but with owner's name dated 1943 on front free end paper. Pages clean; binding tight; gilt lettering on spine dull & worn; dust jacket worn at edges; dust jacket not price-clipped.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $9.28, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2010 by Serenity Publishers, LLC.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $9.36, poor condition, Sold by Anybook rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lincoln, UNITED KINGDOM, published by Thomas Nelson and Sons.
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Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. No dust jacket. No date of publication. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 400grams, ISBN:
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $13.59, very good condition, Sold by Alpha 2 Omega Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southampton, HANTS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1920 by Thomas Nelson and Sons.
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Very good. No Dj cover as issued. VGC. Thomas Nelson. No date given. Small format tan hardback(gilt lettering to the spine, small dents, nicks on the edges of the cover and spine, crease on the edges of the front cover) in VGC, no Dj cover as issued. Nice and clean pages with small foxing marks and light shelf wear on the outer edges, small foxing marks inside a couple of the pages, small creases on the edges of the pages. The book is in VGC with some shelf wear.380pp.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $15.03, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2015 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $16.95, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2018 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of Salute to Adventurers to cart. $16.95, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2018 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
