The Adventures of Billy Topsail
Norman Duncan
THE ADVENTURES OF BILLY TOPSAIL
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HIS CLOTHES WERE FROZEN STIFF, AND HE HAD TO BEAT THEMON THE ICE TO SOFTEN THEM.]
THE ADVENTURES OF BILLY TOPSAIL
by
NORMAN DUNCAN
Author of "Doctor Luke of The Labrador,""The Mother," "Dr. Grenfell's Parish"
Illustrated
New York Chicago TorontoFleming H. Revell CompanyLondon and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1906, byFleming H. Revell Company
New York: 158 Fifth AvenueChicago: 80 Wabash AvenueToronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.London: 21 Paternoster SquareEdinburgh: 100 Princes Street
_J. K._
_To the editors of the "Youth's Companion" the author's thanks are due for the permission to reprint much of the contents of this book._
_To the Boy who Reads the Book_
YOU must not be surprised because the adventures of Billy Topsail anda few of his friends fill this book. If _all_ the adventures of thesereal boys were written the record would fill many books. This is nothard to explain. The British Colony of Newfoundland lies to the northof the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to the east of the Canadian Labrador.It is so situated that the inhabitants may not escape adventures.On the map, it looks bleak and far away and inhospitable--a lonelyisland, outlying in the stormy water of the Atlantic. Indeed, it isall that. The interior is a vast wilderness--a waste place. The folkare fishermen all. They live on the coast, in little harbours, remote,widely scattered, not connected by roads; communication is only by wayof the sea. They are hospitable, fearless, tender, simple, willing fortoil; and, surely, little else can be said of a people. Long, long ago,their forbears first strayed up that forbidding shore in chase of thefish; and the succeeding generations, though such men as we are, havethere lived their lives, apart from the world's comforts and delightsas we know them. The land is barren; sustenance is from the sea, whichis moody and cold and gray: thus life in that far place has many perilsand deprivations and toilsome duties. The boys of the outports are likeEnglish-speaking boys the world over. They are merry or not, brave ornot, kind or not, as boys go; but it may be that they are somewhatmerrier and braver and kinder than boys to whom self-reliance andphysical courage are less needful. At any rate, they have adventures,every one of them; and that is not surprising--for the conditions oflife are such that every Newfoundland lad intimately knows hardship andperil at an age when the boys of the cities still grasp a hand whenthey cross the street.
N. D.
New York, _September, 1906_.
