The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Light That Lures, by Percy Brebner

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Title: The Light That Lures

Author: Percy Brebner

Release Date: August 28, 2004 [EBook #13312]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_The_ LIGHT _that_ LURES

PERCY J.
BREBNER.

1911

_The English edition of this book was published under
the title of "A Gentleman of Virginia"_

THE LIGHT THAT LURES

PROLOGUE

ACROSS THE WATERS OF THE BAY

Seated on a green hummock, his knees drawn up, his elbows resting on his
knees and his head supported in his open hands, a boy sat very still and
preoccupied, gazing straight into the world before him, yet conscious of
little beyond the visions conjured up by his young mind. His were dim
visions begot of the strenuous times in which he lived, and which were
the staple subject of conversation of all those with whom he came in
contact, yet his shadowy dreams had something of the past in them, and
more, far more, of that future which to youth must ever be all
important. But this young dreamer was not as dreamers often are, with
muscle subservient to brain, the physical less highly developed than the
mental powers; on the contrary, he was a lad well knit together, his
limbs strong and supple, endurance and health unmistakable, a lad who
must excel in every manly exercise and game. Perhaps it was this very
superiority over his fellows which, for the time being, at any rate, had
made him a dreamer. While other boys, reproducing in their games that
which was happening about them, fought mimic battles, inflicted and
suffered mimic death, experienced terrible siege in some small copse
which to their imagination stood for a beleaguered city, or carried some
hillock by desperate and impetuous assault, this boy, their master in
running, in swimming, in wrestling, in sitting a horse as he galloped
freely, was not content with mimicry, but dreamed of real deeds in a
real future.

It was a fair scene of which this boy, for the moment, seemed to be the
centre. Before h