The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker, by
Marguerite Bryant

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Title: Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker

Author: Marguerite Bryant

Release Date: March 11, 2009 [eBook #28309]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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CHRISTOPHER HIBBAULT, ROADMAKER

by

MARGUERITE BRYANT

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

Copyright, 1908, by
Duffield and Company

Set up and electrotyped; published January, 1909
Reprinted March, August, October, December, 1909
May, August, October, 1910

_To V. B. and M. B.
this Book
with my love
1906-1908_

_Your paths were two when
first the tale began
And now are one, and still
with every year
Love, the Divine Roadmaker,
works His will.
And of these paths he makes
one perfect Road
Which those who follow after
shall find smooth
And with more easy steps
shall seek the Dawn._

Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker

CHAPTER I

It was a hot July day, set in a sky of unruffled blue, with sharp
shadows across road and field, and a wind that had little coolness in
it playing languidly over the downland. The long white dusty road kept
its undeviating course eastward over hill and dale, through hamlet and
town, till it was swallowed up in the mesh-work of ways round London,
sixty-three miles away according to the mile-stone by which a certain
small boy clad in workhouse garb was loitering. He had read the
inscription many times and parcelled out the sixty-three miles into
various days' journeys, but never succeeded in bringing it within
divisionable distance of the few pennies which found their way into
his pockets. His precocious