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Salute to Adventurers
When I was a child in short-coats a spaewife came to the town-end, and for a silver groat paid by my mother she riddled my fate. It came to little, being no more than that I should miss love and fortune in the sunlight and find them in the rain. The woman was a haggard, black-faced gypsy, and when my mother asked for more she turned on her heel and spoke gibberish; for which she was presently driven out of the place by Tarn Roberton, the baillie, and the village dogs. But the thing stuck in my memory, and together with the fact that I was a Thursday's bairn, and so, according to the old rhyme, "had far to go," convinced me long ere I had come to man's estate that wanderings and surprises would be my portion.
It is in the rain that this tale begins. I was just turned of eighteen, and in the back-end of a dripping September set out from our moorland house of Auchencairn to complete my course at Edinburgh College. The year was 1685, an ill year for our countryside; for the folk were at odds with the King's Government, about religion, and the land was full of covenants and repressions. Small wonder that I was backward with my colleging. . . .
It is in the rain that this tale begins. I was just turned of eighteen, and in the back-end of a dripping September set out from our moorland house of Auchencairn to complete my course at Edinburgh College. The year was 1685, an ill year for our countryside; for the folk were at odds with the King's Government, about religion, and the land was full of covenants and repressions. Small wonder that I was backward with my colleging. . . .
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First published January 1, 1915
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About the author
John Buchan
1,703 books466 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
John Buchan was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
As a youth, Buchan began writing poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, publishing his first novel in 1895 and ultimately writing over a hundred books of which the best known is The Thirty-Nine Steps. After attending Glasgow and Oxford universities, he practised as a barrister. In 1901, he served as a private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa towards the end of the Boer War. He returned to England in 1903, continued as a barrister and journalist. He left the Bar when he joined Thomas Nelson and Sons publishers in 1907. During the First World War, he was, among other activities, Director of Information in 1917 and later Head of Intelligence at the newly-formed Ministry of Information. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities in 1927.
In 1935, King George V, on the advice of Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, appointed Buchan to succeed the Earl of Bessborough as Governor General of Canada and two months later raised him to the peerage as 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan promoted Canadian unity and helped strengthen the sovereignty of Canada constitutionally and culturally. He received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.
John Buchan was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
As a youth, Buchan began writing poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, publishing his first novel in 1895 and ultimately writing over a hundred books of which the best known is The Thirty-Nine Steps. After attending Glasgow and Oxford universities, he practised as a barrister. In 1901, he served as a private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa towards the end of the Boer War. He returned to England in 1903, continued as a barrister and journalist. He left the Bar when he joined Thomas Nelson and Sons publishers in 1907. During the First World War, he was, among other activities, Director of Information in 1917 and later Head of Intelligence at the newly-formed Ministry of Information. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities in 1927.
In 1935, King George V, on the advice of Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, appointed Buchan to succeed the Earl of Bessborough as Governor General of Canada and two months later raised him to the peerage as 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan promoted Canadian unity and helped strengthen the sovereignty of Canada constitutionally and culturally. He received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 28, 2019
It was chance that made me select Salute to Adventurers as my Buchan of the Month book to follow Prester John, which I read and reviewed last month. Once I started reading it, I began to appreciate the similarities between the two novels although Salute to Adventurers is more than merely Prester John transposed from South Africa to the American state of Virginia.
However, like Prester John, Salute to Adventurers is an adventure story featuring a young hero, Andrew Garvald, who travels from his native Scotland to make his fortune abroad. Once there, he gets caught up in attempts to foil an uprising of the native Indians roused to uncharacteristic action by an inspirational but misguided (rather than malevolent as in Prester John) leader. Certainly, Andrew Garvald’s adversary lacks the powerful characterisation of John Laputa in Prester John.
Like David Crawfurd in Prester John, John Buchan endows his hero with a young person’s sense of adventure, seemingly tireless energy and just a little recklessness. There are exciting action scenes, perilous treks across wild country, narrow escapes, some remarkable coincidences (or are they fate?) and a final confrontation with the native Indians involved in the uprising. As you would expect from Buchan, there are some glorious descriptions of the scenery, more remarkable for the fact that the author had never crossed the Atlantic at the time of writing the book.
Buchan also introduces some love interest in the shape of a young woman, Elspeth Blair, whom Andrew first encounters in Scotland in curious circumstances. The lady in question conforms to many of the typical features of a Buchan heroine: she’s slim, beautiful, possesses a lovely singing voice and is a skilled horsewoman. Buchan also provides his hero with a rival for Elspeth’s affections who eventually becomes an unexpected ally.
Themes that occur frequently in many of Buchan’s book are present in Salute to Adventurers: fortitude, duty, sacrifice. Those who have followed my previous reviews of John Buchan books will know that an influential text for Buchan was The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. They may not be surprised to learn then that, like some of Christian’s fellow travellers in The Pilgrim Progress, not all of Andrew’s comrades make it to the end of the journey unscathed.
In my review of Prester John, I admitted I found the racial stereotyping, colonialism and outdated paternalism that pervaded that book problematic. In Salute to Adventurers there is still an element of the white man representing civilization and the native people representing savagery but I felt it was less marked. One reason for this is the positive characterisation of the Native American guide, Shalah, who is shown not only to possess admirable tracking skills but who plays a key role in safeguarding Andrew and his comrades. He also acts as an advocate for peace amongst his people.
Salute to Adventurers is one of the few John Buchan books I’ve not read before and I found it an entertaining, well-written adventure story that pays homage to the pioneer spirit.
However, like Prester John, Salute to Adventurers is an adventure story featuring a young hero, Andrew Garvald, who travels from his native Scotland to make his fortune abroad. Once there, he gets caught up in attempts to foil an uprising of the native Indians roused to uncharacteristic action by an inspirational but misguided (rather than malevolent as in Prester John) leader. Certainly, Andrew Garvald’s adversary lacks the powerful characterisation of John Laputa in Prester John.
Like David Crawfurd in Prester John, John Buchan endows his hero with a young person’s sense of adventure, seemingly tireless energy and just a little recklessness. There are exciting action scenes, perilous treks across wild country, narrow escapes, some remarkable coincidences (or are they fate?) and a final confrontation with the native Indians involved in the uprising. As you would expect from Buchan, there are some glorious descriptions of the scenery, more remarkable for the fact that the author had never crossed the Atlantic at the time of writing the book.
Buchan also introduces some love interest in the shape of a young woman, Elspeth Blair, whom Andrew first encounters in Scotland in curious circumstances. The lady in question conforms to many of the typical features of a Buchan heroine: she’s slim, beautiful, possesses a lovely singing voice and is a skilled horsewoman. Buchan also provides his hero with a rival for Elspeth’s affections who eventually becomes an unexpected ally.
Themes that occur frequently in many of Buchan’s book are present in Salute to Adventurers: fortitude, duty, sacrifice. Those who have followed my previous reviews of John Buchan books will know that an influential text for Buchan was The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. They may not be surprised to learn then that, like some of Christian’s fellow travellers in The Pilgrim Progress, not all of Andrew’s comrades make it to the end of the journey unscathed.
In my review of Prester John, I admitted I found the racial stereotyping, colonialism and outdated paternalism that pervaded that book problematic. In Salute to Adventurers there is still an element of the white man representing civilization and the native people representing savagery but I felt it was less marked. One reason for this is the positive characterisation of the Native American guide, Shalah, who is shown not only to possess admirable tracking skills but who plays a key role in safeguarding Andrew and his comrades. He also acts as an advocate for peace amongst his people.
Salute to Adventurers is one of the few John Buchan books I’ve not read before and I found it an entertaining, well-written adventure story that pays homage to the pioneer spirit.
August 31, 2023
Salute to the author for a stunningly written, well conceived plot, and loveable characters. Besides, it's got an Elspeth, and what could be better?
March 28, 2022
ဗိုလ်အေးမောင်ရဲ့ ဘာသာပြန်ကို ဖတ်ရတာ ချောမောပြေပြစ်လွန်းတယ်။
စာအုပ်ကလည်း ဆွဲဆောင်မှုရှိတယ်။
၁၆ရာစုလောက်က အမေရိကန်လို့တောင် မဖြစ်တည်သေးတဲ့ အချိန်။
ဗာဂျီးနီးယားနောက်ခံ စွန့်စားခန်းဝတ္ထုတပုဒ်။
စာအုပ်ကလည်း ဆွဲဆောင်မှုရှိတယ်။
၁၆ရာစုလောက်က အမေရိကန်လို့တောင် မဖြစ်တည်သေးတဲ့ အချိန်။
ဗာဂျီးနီးယားနောက်ခံ စွန့်စားခန်းဝတ္ထုတပုဒ်။
February 10, 2009
New note:
Totally forgot to add that one of the funniest things my husband and I noticed about this book is that Louis L'Amour totally ripped it off for his Sackett series, whether he meant to or not. Wow, even some of the same descriptions and word usages.
****
Another totally awesome Buchan book. In fact, the husband and I were vying for it all week.
This was a little different for Buchan as the story begins in Scotland in the late 1600's and ends in "Virginia." So we had the heath and the moor and then the woods and the Indians.
Resourceful but self-depreciating Andrew Garvald crosses the waters to oversee his uncle's trading business. Finds adventures, tragedies, triumphs and love. :)
Why do we like this author so much? For parts like these:
"A man cannot think whether his duty will succeed as long as it's there for him to do it. . .God has queer ways of working, if we trust Him with honest hearts."
There were a bunch more great quotes, but it's hard to put them in here without context. This Mr. Garvald was a dutiful young man full of faith and although he'd admit he'd rather stay at home by his fireside, he went out and fought the necessary fight with a trembling heart and ready hands.
All in all very fun book. Looking forward to son's thoughts on it.
Totally forgot to add that one of the funniest things my husband and I noticed about this book is that Louis L'Amour totally ripped it off for his Sackett series, whether he meant to or not. Wow, even some of the same descriptions and word usages.
****
Another totally awesome Buchan book. In fact, the husband and I were vying for it all week.
This was a little different for Buchan as the story begins in Scotland in the late 1600's and ends in "Virginia." So we had the heath and the moor and then the woods and the Indians.
Resourceful but self-depreciating Andrew Garvald crosses the waters to oversee his uncle's trading business. Finds adventures, tragedies, triumphs and love. :)
Why do we like this author so much? For parts like these:
"A man cannot think whether his duty will succeed as long as it's there for him to do it. . .God has queer ways of working, if we trust Him with honest hearts."
There were a bunch more great quotes, but it's hard to put them in here without context. This Mr. Garvald was a dutiful young man full of faith and although he'd admit he'd rather stay at home by his fireside, he went out and fought the necessary fight with a trembling heart and ready hands.
All in all very fun book. Looking forward to son's thoughts on it.
March 8, 2023
One of Buchan's better pure adventure stories, with a good structure, interesting characters and an exciting climax.
July 9, 2024
Good Buchan adventure, and again, the main female well depicted, a trait of his writings I love. (Don't read if you can't abide stories of Colonialism, esp. concerning the treatment of Native Americans.)
June 11, 2024
Buchan in his best early Robert Louis Stevenson historical swashbuckling mode. Especially interesting in that it's set mostly in the colonial Virginia backcountry rather than the British Isles. Full review for John Buchan June on the blog.
November 12, 2012
One of Buchan's early books.... But the pace of the novel moved swiftly enough that I could easily imagine it as a movie unfolding scene by scene. A Critique of Buchan is that his spy novels become formulaic. This is neither. This is a novel that captures the grand adventure of being an early American settler!
January 16, 2013
How can you go wrong with such an intro?-
"I tell of old Virginian ways;
And who more fit my tale to scan
Than you, who knew in far-off days
The eager horse of Sheridan;
Who saw the sullen meads of fate,
The tattered scrub, the blood-drenched sod,
Where Lee, the greatest of the great,
Bent to the storm of God?"
"I tell of old Virginian ways;
And who more fit my tale to scan
Than you, who knew in far-off days
The eager horse of Sheridan;
Who saw the sullen meads of fate,
The tattered scrub, the blood-drenched sod,
Where Lee, the greatest of the great,
Bent to the storm of God?"
April 8, 2016
Full of action, very competent. Scottish trader goes to Virginia to improve business, but makes enemies of old families. Because of contacts in Scotland he goes into Indian country. Escapades, fights, acts of bravery.
September 19, 2007
This is not a Hannay book, but it's one of my favorite Buchan books! It's set in the 1700s in New England (or thereabouts).
October 26, 2013
A ripping yarn.
Want to read
December 26, 2015Free download available at Project Gutenberg.
Read
January 30, 2016Brilliant
January 28, 2010
Wholly Adventure. Interesting. Good American History. Lovely Romance to it.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews