f many waters," the roar, the hiss, the "shrieking"
among the shingle as it fell head over heels at your feet. I watched if
it threw the big stones at the wall; but it never moved them.

_Monday._--The end of the work displays gaps, cairns of ten ton blocks,
stones torn from their places and turned right round. The damage above
water is comparatively little: what there may be below, on _ne sait pas
encore_. The roadway is torn away, cross-heads, broken planks tossed
here and there, planks gnawn and mumbled as if a starved bear had been
trying to eat them, planks with spates lifted from them as if they had
been dressed with a rugged plane, one pile swaying to and fro clear of
the bottom, the rails in one place sunk a foot at least. This was not a
great storm, the waves were light and short. Yet when we are standing at
the office, I felt the ground beneath me _quail_ as a huge roller
thundered on the work at the last year's cross wall.

How could _noster amicus Q. maximus_ appreciate a storm at Wick? It
requires a little of the artistic temperament, of which Mr. T. S.,[6]
C.E., possesses some, whatever he may say. I can't look at it
practically however: that will come, I suppose, like grey hair or coffin
nails.

Our pole is snapped: a fortnight's work and the loss of the Norse
schooner all for nothing!--except experience and dirty clothes.--Your
affectionate son,

R. L. STEVENSON.

TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

I omit the letters of 1869, which describe at great length, and not
very interestingly, a summer trip on board the lighthouse steamer to
the Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Fair Isle. The following of 1870 I
give (by consent of the lady who figures as a youthful character in
the narrative) both for the sake of its lively social
sketches--including that of the able painter and singular personage,
the late Sam Bough,--and because it is dated from the Isle of
Earraid, celebrated alike in _Kidnapped_ and in the essay _Memoirs of
an Islet_.

_Earraid, Thursday, August 5th, 1870._

MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have so much to say, that needs must I take a large
sheet; for the notepaper brings with it a chilling brevity of style.
Indeed, I think pleasant writing is proportional to the size of the
material you write withal.

From Edinburgh to Greenock, I had the ex-secretary of the E.U.
Conservative Club, Murdoch. At Greenock I spent a dismal evening, though
I found a pretty walk. N