CHAPTER I

The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The single horseman,
cloaked and booted, who pursued his way across Willesden Common, had not
met a traveller, when the sound of wheels----

CHAPTER I

"Yes, sir," said the old pilot, "she must have dropped into the bay a
little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks."

"She shows no colours," returned the young gentleman musingly.

"They're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark," resumed the old salt.
"We shall soon know more of her."

"Ay," replied the young gentleman called Mark, "and here, Mr. Seadrift,
comes your sweet daughter Nancy tripping down the cliff."

"God bless her kind heart, sir," ejaculated old Seadrift.

CHAPTER I

The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great
house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties
finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from
one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little did he
think what strange adventures were to befall him!----

That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead.

What should be: What is:
The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy.
Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece.
Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel.

R. L. S.

TO THE REV. PROFESSOR LEWIS CAMPBELL

In reply to a gift of books, including the correspondent's well-known
translation of Sophocles.

[_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._]

MY DEAR CAMPBELL,--The books came duly to hand. My wife has occupied the
translation ever since, nor have I yet been able to dislodge her. As for
the primer, I have read it with a very strange result: that I find no
fault. If you knew how, dogmatic and pugnacious, I stand warden on the
literary art, you would the more appreciate your success and my--well, I
will own it--disappointment. For I love to put people right (or wrong)
about the arts. But what you say of Tragedy and of Sophocles very amply
satisfies me; it is well felt and well said; a little less technically
than it is my weakness to desire to see it put, but clear and adequate.
You are very right to express your admiration for the resource displayed
in Oedipus King; it is a miracle. Would it not have been well to mention
Voltaire's interesting onslaught, a thing which gives the best lesson of
the difference of neighbour arts?--since all his criticisms, which had
b