ation with R. L. S. Never, in any young lives past
or to come, could there be an instant of purer excitement and
glory than when, after bicycling hotly all day with the blue
outline of Arthur's Seat apparently always receding before us, we
trundled grimly into Auld Reekie and set out for the old
Stevenson home at 17 Heriot Row, halting only to bestow our
pneumatic steeds in the nearest and humblest available hostelry.
There (for we found the house empty and "To Let") we sat on the
doorstep evening by evening, smoking in the long northern
twilight and spinning our youthful dreams. This lust for hunting
out our favourite author's footsteps even led one of the pair to
a place perhaps never visited by any other Stevensonian
pilgrim--old Cockfield Rectory, in Suffolk, where Mrs. Sitwell
and Sidney Colvin first met the bright-eyed Scotch boy in 1873.
The tracker of footprints remembers how kind were the then
occupants of the old rectory, and how, in a daze of awe, he trod
the green and tranquil lawn and hastened to visit a cottage near
by where there was an ancient rustic who had been coachman at
the rectory when R. L. S. stayed there, fabled to retain some
pithy recollection. Alas, the Suffolk ancient, eager enough to
share tobacco and speech, would only mull over his memories of a
previous rector, describing how it had fallen to him to prepare
the good man for burial; how he smiled in death and his cheeks
were as rosy as a babe's.

It would take many pages to narrate all the bypaths and happy
excursions trod by these simple youths in their quest of the
immortal Louis. The memories come bustling, and one knows not
where to stop. The supreme adventure, for one of the pair, lay in
the kindness of Sir Sidney Colvin. To this prince of gentlemen
and scholars one of these lads wrote, sending his letter (with
subtle cunning) from a village in Suffolk only a few miles from
Sir Sidney's boyhood home. He calculated that this might arouse
the interest of Sir Sidney, whom he knew to be cruelly badgered
with letters from enthusiasts; and fortune turned in his favour,
granting him numerous ecstatic visits to Sir Sidney and Lady
Colvin and much unwarranted generosity. But, since our mind has
been turned in this direction by Mrs. Sanchez's book, it might be
appropriate to add that one of the most thrilling moments in the
crusade was a season of April days spent beside the green and
stripling Loing, in the forest of Fontainebleau region,