The southwest wind brought us the soft aroma of the pines, the dry odor of dead leaves, the scent of the marsh and of the gray mud, washed by the tides. It seemed to me the most beautiful country in the world—more beautiful, in spite of the November chill and the dull autumn twilight, than the mountains of Spain or the parks of England—than the broad rivers, the prairies, the lakes, the towering cliffs of the west. There was something about it that caught at my throat—that filled me with a sense of exultation: of freedom. It was my country. In it there was something mysterious and unseen that could never be taken from me. Others might call it theirs: might drive me from it: might burn down the house: might fell the gnarled apple tree beside the kitchen door; but the river would be there still, winding in S’s through the marsh. The sea and the pines and the rounded ledges would be there always, waiting. There would always be ducks, contentedly peering beneath the banks for the strange things ducks eat: always a green heron to flop from the marsh in a frenzy of fear: always the fragrance of mallow and lilacs in the spring, the sweet breath of the sea, the web of song from the bobolinks and robins. Whatever happened, it would be my country still.

In the travail and the turmoil, in the sweat and the pain and the blood that lay behind me—that probably lay before me—a nation was being born. Those crowded ranks in the dead pits of Isle aux Noix had labored and died to form that nation. They had been a part of it. In the dark waters beneath the cliffs of Valcour lay others who had been a part of it. Those whose gnawed bones were scattered in the thickets of Freeman’s Farm had been a part of it. We, living, were part of it. Millions yet to be born were part of it; and other millions that would come from foreign lands would be part of it. Whatever we did with it, or made of it, one thing was certain: the suffering and the labor had been ours, and so must the fulfillment be ours.

ARUNDEL

A CHRONICLE OF THE PROVINCE OF MAINE

ST. LOUIS GLOBE DEMOCRAT:

“Scott created the historical novel; Thackeray improved it; but a modern author, Kenneth Roberts, has achieved a supremely great book in Arundel, the story of the secret expedition led by Col. Benedict Arnold against Quebec in Revolutionary days … This is a book for lovers of adventure, for lovers of style. It is long, but at the end the reader feels that he has found depth, sincerity, power and even wit.”

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER:

“Arundel is a novel to defy the years.”

DALLAS NEWS: