{"product_id":"2940012859068","title":"PRESTER JOHN","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     i.  The Man on the Kirkcaple Shore\u003cbr\u003e    ii.  Furth! Fortune!\u003cbr\u003e   iii.  Blaauwildebeestefontein\u003cbr\u003e    iv.  My Journey to the Winter-Veld\u003cbr\u003e     v.  Mr Wardlaw Has a Premonition\u003cbr\u003e    vi.  The Drums Beat at Sunset\u003cbr\u003e   vii.  Captain Arcoll Tells a Tale\u003cbr\u003e  viii.  I Fall in Again with the Reverend John Laputa\u003cbr\u003e    ix.  The Store at Umvelos'\u003cbr\u003e     x.  I Go Treasure-Hunting\u003cbr\u003e    xi.  The Cave of the Rooirand\u003cbr\u003e   xii.  Captain Arcoll Sends a Message\u003cbr\u003e  xiii.  The Drift of the Letaba\u003cbr\u003e   xiv.  I Carry the Collar of Prester John\u003cbr\u003e    xv.  Morning in the Berg\u003cbr\u003e   xvi.  Inanda's Kraal\u003cbr\u003e  xvii.  A Deal and Its Consequences\u003cbr\u003e xviii.  How a Man May Sometimes Put His Trust in a Horse\u003cbr\u003e   xix.  Arcoll's Shepherding\u003cbr\u003e    xx.  My Last Sight of the Reverend John Laputa\u003cbr\u003e   xxi.  I Climb the Crags a Second Time\u003cbr\u003e  xxii.  A Great Peril and a Great Salvation\u003cbr\u003e xxiii.  My Uncle's Gift Is Many Times Multiplied\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE MAN ON THE KIRKCAPLE SHORE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mind as if it were yesterday my first sight of the man.  Little I\u003cbr\u003eknew at the time how big the moment was with destiny, or how often that\u003cbr\u003eface seen in the fitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb my\u003cbr\u003ewaking hours.  But I mind yet the cold grue of terror I got from it, a\u003cbr\u003eterror which was surely more than the due of a few truant lads breaking\u003cbr\u003ethe Sabbath with their play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe town of Kirkcaple, of which and its adjacent parish of Portincross\u003cbr\u003emy father was the minister, lies on a hillside above the little bay of\u003cbr\u003eCaple, and looks squarely out on the North Sea.  Round the horns of\u003cbr\u003eland which enclose the bay the coast shows on either side a battlement\u003cbr\u003eof stark red cliffs through which a burn or two makes a pass to the\u003cbr\u003ewater's edge.  The bay itself is ringed with fine clean sands, where we\u003cbr\u003elads of the burgh school loved to bathe in the warm weather.  But on\u003cbr\u003elong holidays the sport was to go farther afield among the cliffs; for\u003cbr\u003ethere there were many deep caves and pools, where podleys might be\u003cbr\u003ecaught with the line, and hid treasures sought for at the expense of\u003cbr\u003ethe skin of the knees and the buttons of the trousers.  Many a long\u003cbr\u003eSaturday I have passed in a crinkle of the cliffs, having lit a fire of\u003cbr\u003edriftwood, and made believe that I was a smuggler or a Jacobite new\u003cbr\u003elanded from France.  There was a band of us in Kirkcaple, lads of my\u003cbr\u003eown age, including Archie Leslie, the son of my father's session-clerk,\u003cbr\u003eand Tam Dyke, the provost's nephew.  We were sealed to silence by the\u003cbr\u003eblood oath, and we bore each the name of some historic pirate or\u003cbr\u003esailorman.  I was Paul Jones, Tam was Captain Kidd, and Archie, need I\u003cbr\u003esay it, was Morgan himself.  Our tryst was a cave where a little water\u003cbr\u003ecalled the Dyve Burn had cut its way through the cliffs to the sea.\u003cbr\u003eThere we forgathered in the summer evenings and of a Saturday afternoon\u003cbr\u003ein winter, and told mighty tales of our prowess and flattered our silly\u003cbr\u003ehearts.  But the sober truth is that our deeds were of the humblest,\u003cbr\u003eand a dozen of fish or a handful of apples was all our booty, and our\u003cbr\u003egreatest exploit a fight with the roughs at the Dyve tan-work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father's spring Communion fell on the last Sabbath of April, and on\u003cbr\u003ethe particular Sabbath of which I speak the weather was mild and bright\u003cbr\u003efor the time of year.  I had been surfeited with the Thursday's and\u003cbr\u003eSaturday's services, and the two long diets of worship on the Sabbath\u003cbr\u003ewere hard for a lad of twelve to bear with the spring in his bones and\u003cbr\u003ethe sun slanting through the gallery window.  There still remained the\u003cbr\u003eservice on the Sabbath evening--a doleful prospect, for the Rev. Mr\u003cbr\u003eMurdoch of Kilchristie, noted for the length of his discourses, had\u003cbr\u003eexchanged pulpits with my father.  So my mind was ripe for the proposal\u003cbr\u003eof Archie Leslie, on our way home to tea, that by a little skill we\u003cbr\u003emight give the kirk the slip.  At our Communion the pews were emptied\u003cbr\u003eof their regular occupants and the congregation seated itself as it\u003cbr\u003epleased.  The manse seat was full of the Kirkcaple relations of Mr\u003cbr\u003eMurdoch, who had been invited there by my mother to hear him, and it\u003cbr\u003ewas not hard to obtain permission to sit with Archie and Tam Dyke in\u003cbr\u003ethe cock-loft in the gallery.  Word was sent to Tam, and so it happened\u003cbr\u003ethat three abandoned lads duly passed the plate and took their seats in\u003cbr\u003ethe cock-loft.  But when the bell had done jowing, and we heard by the\u003cbr\u003esounds of their feet that the elders had gone in to the kirk, we\u003cbr\u003eslipped down the stairs and out of the side door.  We were through the\u003cbr\u003echurchyard in a twinkling, and hot-foot on the road to the Dyve Burn.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079147077872,"sku":"2940012859068","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012859068_p0.jpg?v=1763573655","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012859068","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}