The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Span o' Life, by
William McLennan and Jean Newton McIlwraith

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Title: The Span o' Life
A Tale of Louisbourg & Quebec

Author: William McLennan
Jean Newton McIlwraith

Illustrator: F. de Myrbac

Release Date: September 15, 2010 [EBook #33731]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPAN O' LIFE ***

Produced by Gardner Buchanan

THE SPAN O' LIFE

THE SPAN O' LIFE
A Tale of Louisbourg & Quebec

By WILLIAM McLENNAN
and J. N. McILWRAITH
Illustrations by F. de Myrbach

_The span o' Life's nae lang eneugh,
Nor deep eneugh the sea,
Nor braid eneugh this weary warld
To part my Love frae me_

NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

TORONTO:
THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
1899, by Harper & Brothers, at the Department of Agriculture.

Copyright, 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._

PREFACE

The reader familiar with the amusing memoirs of the Chevalier
Johnstone will recognise in how far Maxwell was suggested thereby;
if he be equally familiar with the detail of Canadian history of
the period he will have little difficulty in discovering the
originals of Sarennes and some of the secondary characters, and,
in the Epilogue, the legend of the death of the celebrated missionary,
le R. P. Jean Baptiste de la Brosse. But while the experience of
some actual man or woman has suggested a type to be portrayed, it
is only as a type, and with no intention of representing the
individual in the character of the story. Nor is the attempt to
set forth the respective attitude of the Canadian and the old-country
Frenchman to be read as a personal expression of the authors', but
as their conception of an unfortunate condition between colonist
and official that obtained as fully in Canada as it did between
the same classes in the English colonies.

Long habit has made the English names of many places and positions
so familiar to many in Canada that to adhere to the French form in
all instances would be as unnatu