Mrs Falchion | Page 2

was illumination in the book,
to what degree I will not try to say; and the attempt to fasten the mind
of the reader upon the central figure, and to present that central figure
in many aspects, safeguarded the narrative from the charge of being a
mere novel of adventure, or, as one writer called it, "an impudent
melodrama, which has its own fascinations."
Reading Mrs. Falchion again after all these years, I seem to realise in it
an attempt to combine the objective and subjective methods of
treatment--to combine analysis of character and motive with arresting
episode. It is a difficult thing to do, as I have found. It was not done on
my part wholly by design, but rather by instinct, and I imagine that this
tendency has run through all my works. It represents the elements of
romanticism and of realism in one, and that kind of representation has
its dangers, to say nothing of its difficulties. It sometimes alienates the
reader, who by instinct and preference is a realist, and it troubles the
reader who wants to read for a story alone, who cares for what a
character does, and not for what a character is or says, except in so far

as it emphasises what it does. One has to work, however, in one's own
way, after one's own idiosyncrasies, and here is the book that represents
one of my own idiosyncrasies in its most primitive form.

CONTENTS:
BOOK I
BELOW THE SUN LINE
I. THE GATES OF THE SEA
II. "MOTLEY IS YOUR ONLY WEAR"
III. A TALE OF NO MAN'S SEA
IV. THE TRAIL OF THE ISHMAELITE
V. ACCUSING FACES
VI. MUMMERS ALL
VII. THE WHEEL COMES FULL CIRCLE
VIII. A BRIDGE OF PERIL
IX. "THE PROGRESS OF THE SUNS"
X. BETWEEN DAY AND DARK

BOOK II
THE SLOPE OF THE PACIFIC
XI. AMONG THE HILLS OF GOD
XII. THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME
XIII. THE SONG OF THE SAW
XIV. THE PATH OF THE EAGLE
XV. IN THE TROUGH OF THE WINDS
XVI. A DUEL IN ARCADY
XVII. RIDING THE REEFS
XVIII. THE STRINGS OF DESTINY
XIX. THE SENTENCE
XX. AFTER THE STORM
XXI. IN PORT

BOOK I
BELOW THE SUN LINE

CHAPTER I
THE GATES OF THE SEA
The part I played in Mrs. Falchion's career was not very noble, but I
shall set it forth plainly here, else I could not have the boldness to write
of her faults or those of others. Of my own history little need be said in
preface. Soon after graduating with honours as a physician, I was
offered a professional post in a college of medicine in Canada. It was
difficult to establish a practice in medicine without some capital, else I
had remained in London; and, being in need of instant means, I gladly
accepted the offer. But six months were to intervene before the
beginning of my duties--how to fill that time profitably was the
question. I longed to travel, having scarcely been out of England during
my life. Some one suggested the position of surgeon on one of the great
steamers running between England and Australia. The idea of a long
sea- voyage was seductive, for I had been suffering from over-study,
though the position itself was not very distinguished. But in those days
I cared more for pleasing myself than for what might become a
newly-made professor, and I was prepared to say with a renowned Irish
dean: "Dignity and I might be married, for all the relations we are."
I secured the position with humiliating ease and humiliating smallness
of pay. The steamer's name was the 'Fulvia'. It was one of the largest
belonging to the Occidental Company. It carried no emigrants and had
a passenger list of fashionable folk. On the voyage out to Australia the
weather was pleasant, save in the Bay of Biscay; there was no sickness
on board, and there were many opportunities for social gaiety, the
cultivation of pleasant acquaintances, and the encouragement of that
brisk idleness which aids to health. This was really the first holiday in
my life, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing of unusual interest
occurred on the outward voyage; for one thing, because there were no
unusual people among the passengers; for another, because the vessel
behaved admirably. The same cannot be said of the return voyage: and
with it my story really begins. Misfortune followed us out of Sydney
harbour. We broke a crank-shaft between there and Port Phillip,
Melbourne; a fire in the hold occurred at Adelaide; and at Albany we

buried a passenger who had died of consumption one day out from
King George's Sound. At Colombo, also, we had a misfortune, but it
was of a peculiar kind, and did not obtrude itself at once; it