The Trespasser | Page 2

was free from
exaggeration, it is not my province to say. I only know what I
attempted to do. The sense produced by the contact of the outer life
with a refined, and perhaps overrefined, and sensitive, not to say
meticulous, civilisation, is always more sensational than the touch of
the representative of "the thousand years" with the wide, loosely
organised free life of what is still somewhat hesitatingly called the
Colonies, though the same remark could be applied to all new lands,
such as the United States. The representative of the older life makes no
signs, or makes little collision at any rate, when he touches the new
social organisms of the outer circle. He is not emphatic; he is typical,
but not individual; he seeks seclusion in the mass. It is not so with the
more dynamic personality of the over-sea citizen. For a time at least he
remains in the old civilisation an entity, an isolated, unabsorbed fact
which has capacities for explosion. All this was in my mind when The
Trespasser was written, and its converse was 'The Pomp of the
Lavilettes', which showed the invasion 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 forth, having seen
their worldly goods bestowed by staring porters, to go on by rail.
In murky London they attracted little notice; but when their hired guide
left them at the outskirts, and they got away upon the highway towards
the Court, cottagers stood gaping. For, outside the town there was no
fog, and the fresh autumn air drew the people abroad.
"What is it makes 'em stare, Jacques?!" asked Belward, with a
humorous sidelong glance.
Jacques looked seriously at the bright pommel of his master's saddle
and the shining stirrups and spurs, dug a heel into the tender skin of his
broncho, and replied:
"Too much silver all at once."
He tossed his curling black hair, showing up the gold rings in his ears,
and flicked the red-and-gold tassels of his boots.
"You think that's it, eh?!" rejoined Belward, as he tossed a shilling to a
beggar.
"Maybe, too, your great Saracen to this tot of a broncho, and