Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ LUCIUS DAVOREN LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. LUCIUS DAVOREN OR PUBLICANS AND SINNERS A Novel BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’ ETC. ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. [Illustration: Decoration] LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND CO. 4 SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET 1873 [_All rights reserved_] This Book is Inscribed TO VISCOUNT MILTON, M.P. F.R.G.S. ETC. IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE AID DERIVED FROM HIS ADMIRABLE BOOK OF TRAVELS, ‘THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE OVERLAND,’ TO WHICH THE AUTHOR IS INDEBTED FOR THE SCENERY IN THE PROLOGUE. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Prologue:—In the Far West. CHAP. PAGE I. ‘WHERE THE SUN IS SILENT’ 1 II. ‘MUSIC HATH CHARMS’ 10 III. HOW THEY LOST THE TRAIL 34 IV. ‘ALL’S CHEERLESS, DARK, AND DEADLY’ 47 V. ‘O, THAT WAY MADNESS LIES’ 57 Book the First. I. LOOKING BACKWARDS 71 II. HOMER SIVEWRIGHT 95 III. HARD HIT 132 IV. ‘O WORLD, HOW APT THE POOR ARE TO BE PROUD!’ 155 V. ‘I HAD A SON, NOW OUTLAW’D FROM MY BLOOD’ 171 VI. ‘BY HEAVEN, I LOVE THEE BETTER THAN MYSELF’ 193 VII. ‘SORROW HAS NEED OF FRIENDS’ 213 VIII. GEOFFREY INCLINES TO SUSPICION 227 IX. SOMETHING TOO MUCH FOR GRATITUDE 245 X. A DAUGHTER’S LOVE, AND A LOVER’S HOPE 259 XI. THE BIOGRAPHY OF A SCOUNDREL 270 XII. LUCIUS HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH A FAMOUS PERSONAGE 293 XIII. HE FEARS HIS FATE TOO MUCH 307 LUCIUS DAVOREN Prologue:—In the Far West. CHAPTER I. ‘WHERE THE SUN IS SILENT.’ Winter round them: not a winter in city streets, lamplit and glowing, or on a fair English countryside, dotted with cottage-roofs, humble village homes, sending up their incense of blue-gray smoke to the hearth goddess; not the winter of civilisation, with all means and appliances at hand to loosen the grip of the frost-fiend: but winter in its bleakest aspect, amid trackless forests, where the trapper walks alone; winter in a solitude so drear that the sound of a human voice seems more strange and awful than the prevailing silence; winter in a pine-forest in British North America, westward of the Rocky Mountains. It is December, the bleakest, dreariest month in the long winter; for spring is still far off.