_Then the day comes when the book is printed and bound, and when the
critics write of it after their kind, things good and things evil. But I
that have gathered the fairy gold dare not for my life look again
within, lest it should be even as they say, and I should find but
withered leaves therein. For the sake of the vision of the breaking day
and the incommunicable hope, I shall look no more upon it. But ever with
the eternal human expectation, I rise and wait the morning and the final
opening of the "Book Sealed_."

S.R. CROCKETT.




_NOTE_.


_I am deeply in the debt of my friend, Mr. Andrew Lang, for the ballad
of 'Kenmure' which he has written to grace my bare boards and spice the
plain fare here set out in honour of the ancient Free Province_.




BOOK FIRST

ADVENTURES