ales had come to an end.

From my first school at Newton Abbot I went to Clifton, and from Clifton
in my nineteenth year to Oxford. It was here that the old desire to
weave stories began to come back. Mr. Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' was
the immediate cause. I had been scribbling all through my school days;
had written a prodigious quantity of bad reflective poetry and burnt it
as soon as I really began to reflect; and was now plying the _Oxford
Magazine_ with light verse, a large proportion of which was lately
reprinted in a thin volume, with the title of 'Green Bays.' But I wrote
little or no prose. My prose essays at school were execrable. I had
followed after false models for a while, and when gently made aware of
this by the sound and kindly scholar who looked over our sixth-form
essays at Clifton, had turned dispirited and wrote scarcely at all.
Though reading great quantities of fiction, I had, as has been said, no
thought of telling a story, and so far as I knew, no faculty. The
desire, at least, was awakened by 'Treasure Island,' and, in explanation
of this, I can only quote the gentleman who reviewed my first book in
the _Athenaeum_, and observed that 'great wits jump, and lesser wits jump
with them.' That is just the truth of it. I began as a pupil and
imitator of Mr. Stevenson, and was lucky in my choice of a master.

The germ of 'Dead Man's Rock' was a curious little bit of family lore,
which I may extract from my father's history of Polperro, a small haven
on the Cornish coast. The Richard Quiller of whom he speaks is my great
grandfather.

'In the old home of the Quillers, at Polperro, there was hanging on
a beam a key, which we as children regarded with respect and awe,
and never dared to touch, for Richard Quiller had put the key of
his quadrant on a nail, with strong injunctions that no one should
take it off until his return (which never happened), and there, I
believe, it still hangs. His brother John served for several years
as commander of a hired armed lugger, employed in carrying
despatches in the French war, Richard accompanying him as
subordinate officer. They were engaged in the inglorious
bombardment of Flushing in 1809. Some short time after this they
were taken, after a desperate fight with a pirate, into Algiers,
but were liberated on the severe remonstrances of the British
Consul. They returned to their homes in most mise