n of the life of the outer land
by the representative of the old civilisation.

I do not know whether I had the thought that the treatment of such
themes was interesting or not. The idea of The Trespasser was there in
my mind, and I had to use it. At the beginning of one's career, if one
were to calculate too carefully, impulse, momentum, daring, original
conception would be lost. To be too audacious, even to exaggerate, is
no crime in youth nor in the young artist. As a farmer once said to me
regarding a frisky mount, it is better to smash through the top bar than
to have spring-halt.

The Trespasser took its place, and, as I think, its natural place, in
the development of my literary life. I did not stop to think whether
it was a happy theme or not, or whether it had popular elements. These
things did not concern me. When it was written I should not have known
what was a popular theme. It was written under circumstances conducive
to its artistic welfare; if it has not as many friends as 'The Right
of Way' or 'The Seats of the Mighty' or 'The Weavers' or 'The Judgment
House', that is not the fault of the public or of the critics.

TO DOUGLAS ROBINSON, Esq.,

AND

FRANK A. HILTON, Esq.

My dear Douglas and Frank:

I feel sure that this dedication will give you as much pleasure as it
does me. It will at least be evidence that I do not forget good days
in your company here and there in the world. I take pleasure in linking
your names; for you, who have never met, meet thus in the porch of a
little house that I have built.

You, my dear Douglas, will find herein scenes, times, and things
familiar to you; and you, my dear Frank, reflections of hours when we
camped by an idle shore, or drew about the fire of winter nights, and
told tales worth more than this, for they were of the future, and it is
of the past.

Always sincerely yours,
GILBERT PARKER.

THE TRESPASSER

CHAPTER I. ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM

Why Gaston Belward left the wholesome North to journey afar, Jacques
Brillon asked often in the brawling streets of New York, and oftener in
the fog of London as they made ready to ride to Ridley Court. There was
a railway station two miles from the Court, but Belward had had enough
of railways. He had brought his own horse Saracen, and Jacques's broncho
also, at foolish expense, across the sea, and at a hotel near Euston
Station master and man mounted and set fort