Publisher's Synopsis
Not that he was really old when he died, but he had lived a life that had robbed him of his youth at one end and cut off the slow decline on the other. At fifteen he began the career of trader and hunter; before twenty he had been tossed by a buffalo, and broken his leg in a fall from his horse; at twenty-five he had been twice down with the fever; at thirty he was known as Old Hume; at fifty he had gone home to die-a man worn, sun-dried, and scarred with many wounds. Home to the Old Country, the land of his parents, the land of rest and green fields that had figured in his waking dreams, and in his lonely watches beneath the African sky. His mother had talked to him of the quiet village, the ivied church, the bells, the song of the lark, and the pleasant customs of the country folk; and his father had told him of the great cities, the roar of life, and the silence of old ruins testifying to a mighty past; and the untrained, toughened Colonial boy had kept before him one goal-the hoary tower of Westminster, the green meadows, and the tuneful bells of old England.
