Lastly, my friend, if you would know anything of the writer who has so often addressed you under an initial, you may find as much of him here as in any of his books. Here is interred part, at any rate, of the soul of the Bachelor Q, in a book which, though it tell of adventures, I would ask you not to disdain, though you be a boy no longer. An acquaintance of mine near the Land's End had a remarkably fine tree of apples--to be precise, of Cox's Orange Pippins--and one night was robbed of the whole of them. But what, think you, had the thief left behind him, at the foot of the tree? Why, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH. THE HAVEN, FOWEY, October 1st, 1906. CONTENTS Chapter. I. OF THE LINEAGE AND CONDITION OF SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE. II. I RIDE ON A PILGRIMAGE. III. I ACQUIRE A KINGDOM. IV. LONG VACATION. V. THE SILENT MEN. VI. HOW MY FATHER OUT OF NOTHING BUILT AN ARMY, AND IN FIVE MINUTES PLANNED AN INVASION. VII. THE COMPANY OF THE ROSE. VIII. TRIBULATIONS OF A MAYOR. IX. I ENLIST AN ARMY. X. OF THE DISCOURSE HELD ON BOARD THE "GAUNTLET". XI. WE FALL IN WITH A SALLEE ROVER. XII. HOW WE LANDED ON THE ISLAND. XIII. HOW, WITHOUT FIGHTING, OUR ARMY WASTED BY ENCHANTMENT. XIV. HOW BY MEANS OF HER WINE I CAME TO CIRCE. XV. I BECOME HOSTAGE TO PRINCESS CAMILLA. XVI. THE FOREST HUT. XVII. THE FIRST CHALLENGE. XVIII. THE TENDER MERCIES OF PRINCE CAMILLO. XIX. HOW MARC'ANTONIO NURESD ME AND GAVE ME COUNSEL. XX. I LEARN OF LIBERTY, AND AM RESTORED TO IT. XXI. OF MY FATHER'S ANABASIS; AND THE DIFFERENT TEMPERS OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN AND A WILD SHEEP OF CORSICA. XXII. THE GREAT ADVENTURE. XXIII. ORDEAL AND CHOOSING. XXIV. THE WOOING OF PRINCESS CAMILLA. XXV. MY WEDDING DAY. XXVI. THE FLAME AND THE ALTAR. XXVII. MY MISTRESS RE-ENLISTS ME. XXVIII. GENOA. XXIX. VENDETTA. XXX. THE SUMMIT AND THE STARS. POSTSCRIPT. SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE. CHAPTER I. OF THE LINEAGE AND CONDITION OF SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE. "I have laboured to make a covenant with myself, that affection may not press upon judgment: for I suppose there is no man, that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness, but his affection stands to a continuance of a noble name and house, and would take hold of a twig or twine-thread to uphold it: and yet time hath his revolution, there must be a period and an end of all temporal things, _finis rerum_, an end of names and dignities and whatsoever is terrene. . . . For where is Bohun? Where is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are intombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality."--_Lord Chief Justice Crewe_.