Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
The Dop Doctor By: Richard Dehan (1863-1932) |
---|
![]()
by RICHARD DEHAN Author of
"Between Two Thieves," "The Headquarter Recruit,"
"The Cost of Wings" Popular Edition London: William Heinemann Ltd. First printed 6s. Edition, April, 1910. New Impressions, May (three times), July, August, September, October,
November, 1910; January, July, October, 1911; New Edition, May, 1912; New
Impressions, September, October, December, 1912; February, May, 1913. Popular Edition, July, August, September, 1913; April, 1914; June, 1915;
July, September, 1916; September, 1917; February, October, 1918; January,
1920; January, 1922; July, 1924; January, 1927; February, 1930; May, 1932;
March, 1934, March 1936 Printed in Great Britain
The Windmill Press, Kingswood, Surrey
TO ONE ACROSS THE SEA
What have the long years brought me since first, with this pen for
pickaxe, I bowed my loins to quarry from the living rock of my world about
me, bread and a home where Love should smile beside the hearthplace, and
chiefly for Love's dear sake, that men should honour you who, above all on
earth, I hold most in honour a name among the writers of books that
live! What have the long years brought me! Well, not the things I hoped. Just
bread and clothing, fire, and a little roof tree; the purchased soil to
make a grave, and a space of leisure, before that grave be needed, to
write, myself, this book for me and for you. Hope has spread her
iridescent Psyche wings and left me; Ambition long ago shed hers to become
a working ant. Love never came to sit in the chair beside the ingle. An
ocean heaves between us, only for nightly dreams and waking thoughts to
span. Were those dear eyes to see me as I am to day, I wonder whether they
would know me? For I grow grey, and furrows deepen in the forehead the
dear hand will never smooth again. Remember me, then, only as I used to
be; my heart is the same always; in it the long, long years have wrought
no change. But what have the long years brought me? Experience, that savoury salt,
left where old tears have dried upon the shores of Time. Knowledge of my
fellow men and women, of all sorts and conditions, and the love of them.
Patience to bear what may yet have to be borne. Courage to encounter what
may yet have to be encountered. Fortitude to meet the end, where faith
holds up the Cross. Much have the long years brought me besides your
first smile and your last kiss. For your next, I look past Death, God
aiding me, to the Eternal Life beyond.... SOUTH WALES, April 22, 1909.
I
Upon a day near the end of August, one long, brilliant South African
winter, when the old Vierkleur waved over the Transvaal, and what is now
the Orange River Colony was the Orange Free State, with the Dutch canton
still showing on the staff head corner of its tribarred flag, two large,
heavily laden waggons rolled over the grass veld, only now thinking about
changing from yellow into green. Many years previously the wheels of the
old voortrekkers had passed that way, bringing from Cape Colony, with the
household gods, goods and chattels, language and customs of the Dutch, the
slips of the pomegranate and peach and orange trees, whose abundant
blossoming dressed the orchards of the farms tucked away here and there in
the lap of the veld, with bridal white and pink, and hung their girdling
pomegranate hedges with stars of ruby red. But days and days, and nights
and nights of billowing, spreading, lonely sky arched veld intervened
between each homestead. The flat topped bills were draped and folded in the opal haze of distance;
the sky was perfect turquoise; the rounded kopjes shone like pink topaz,
unclothed as yet with the young pale green bush. To the south there was a
veld fire leaping and dancing, with swirling columns of white smoke edged
with flame. But it was many miles away, and the north west wind blew
strongly, driving some puffs of gold cloud before it. Perhaps there would
be rain ere long. There had been rain already in the foremost waggon, not
from the clouds, but from human eyes... Continue reading book >>
|
Genres for this book |
---|
Fiction |
Literature |
War stories |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Richard Dehan |
Wikipedia – The Dop Doctor |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|