Vailima Letters Part 16

Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more decorative, the picture frames, will look sublime.

_Jan._ 30_th_.

I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson's Syntax and Dance of Death out of our house, and begging for anything about fas.h.i.+ons and manners (fas.h.i.+ons particularly) for 1814. Can you help? Both the Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I got into St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for the other. There is a kind of fancy list of Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in Edinburgh Castle.) I. Story of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made, and given to a girl visitor). II. Story of a pair of scissors. III. St.

Ives receives a bundle of money. IV. St. Ives is shown a house. V. The Escape. VI. The Cottage (Swanston College). VII. The Hen-house. VIII.

Three is company and four none. IX. The Drovers. X. The Great North Road. XI. Burch.e.l.l Fenn. XII. The covered cart. XIII. The doctor.

XIV. The Luddites. V. Set a thief to catch a thief. XXVI. M. le Comte de Keroualle (his uncle, the rich _emigre_, whom he finds murdered).

XVII. The cousins. XVIII. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. XIX. A meeting at the s.h.i.+p, Dover. XX. Diane. XXI. The Duke's Prejudices. XXII. The False Messenger. XXIII. The gardener's ladder. XXIV. The officers. XXV.

Trouble with the Duke. XXVI. Fouquet again. XXVII. The Aeronaut.

XXVIII. The True-Blooded Yankee. XXIX. In France. I don't know where to stop. Apropos, I want a book about Paris, and the _first return_ of the _emigres_ and all up to the _Cent Jours_: d'ye ken anything in my way? I want in particular to know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries and officers, and to get the colour and some vital details of the business of exchange of departments from one side to the other. Ten chapters are drafted, and VIII. re-copied by me, but will want another dressing for luck. It is merely a story of adventure, rambling along; but that is perhaps the guard that 'sets my genius best,' as Alan might have said. I wish I could feel as easy about the other! But there, all novels are a heavy burthen while they are doing, and a sensible disappointment when they are done.

For G.o.d's sake, let me have a copy of the new German Samoa White book.

R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXVI

_At Sea_, _S.S. & Mariposa_, _Feb._ 19th, '93.

MY DEAR COLVIN,-You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is indeed one reason why f.a.n.n.y, Belle, and I have started out for a month's lark.

To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. f.a.n.n.y ate a whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle and I floored another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no sooner done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put myself outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying of consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. In the matter of David, I have never yet received my proofs at all, but shall certainly wait for your suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. This is doubtless what you complain of. Indeed, I placed my single reliance on Miss Grant.

If she couldn't ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there.

About _Island Nights' Entertainments_ all you say is highly satisfactory.

Go in and win.

The extracts from the _Times_ I really cannot trust myself to comment upon. They were infernally satisfactory; so, and perhaps still more so, was a letter I had at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time as I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George Grey.

Now I really think that's all the business. I have been rather sick and have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However, you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appet.i.te, peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up, pitched into, and about one half demolished another tale, once intended to be called _The Pearl Fisher_, but now razeed and called _The Schooner Farralone_. We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at sunrise, and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed again. The manager of the German firm (O strange, changed days!) danced attendance upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and from the steamer.

_Feb._ 21_st_.

All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a day, but afoot again and jolly; f.a.n.n.y enormously bettered by the voyage; I have been as jolly as a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits opposite to me writing to her offspring. f.a.n.n.y is on deck. I have just supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and so left her in good hands. You should hear me at table with the Ulster purser and a little punning microscopist called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse Boswellising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests that would pay here, I observed, 'Boswell is Barred during this cruise.'

23_rd_.

We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. All goes well with the trio. Both the ladies are hanging round a beau-the same-that I unearthed for them: I am general provider, and especially great in the beaux business. I corrected some proofs for f.a.n.n.y yesterday afternoon, fell asleep over them in the saloon-and the whole s.h.i.+p seems to have been down beholding me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whiskey punch and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; a recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and had to go to the saloon clock for the hour-no sign of dawn-all heaven grey rainy fog. Have just had breakfast, written up one letter, register and close this.

CHAPTER XXVII

Bad pen, bad ink, bad light, bad blotting-paper.

_S. S. Mariposa_, _at Sea_.

_Apia due by daybreak to-morrow_ 9 _p.m._

MY DEAR COLVIN,-Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we return in disarray. f.a.n.n.y quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in a perfectly airless state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy.

Poor f.a.n.n.y had very little fun of her visit, having been most of the time on a diet of maltine and slops-and this while the rest of us were rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle's only devil in the hedge was the dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like Saint Paul, all things to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which I meant to have enclosed in this. . . . Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a medallion by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George Grey; what a wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling ancient events and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent to which he approved what I had done-or rather have tried to do-encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at least, he knows these races: he is not a small employe with an ink-pot and a Whittaker.

Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even f.a.n.n.y had some lively sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through. We got f.a.n.n.y a dress on the sly, gaudy black velvet and d.u.c.h.esse lace. And alas! she was only able to wear it once. But we'll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it really is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings, etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I should change. Slovenly youth, all right-not slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce; always a white s.h.i.+rt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk, socks, O a great sight!-No more possible,

R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXVIII

_April_, 1893.

1. _Slip_ 3. Davie would be _attracted_ into a similar dialect, as he is later-e.g., with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish.

4, _to lightly_; correct; 'to lightly' is a good regular Scots verb.

15. See Allan Ramsay's works.

15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to draw the character of Prestongrange. 'Tis a most curious thing to render that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my effect. And till the day he died, _Davie_ was never sure of what P. was after. Not only so; very often P. didn't know himself. There was an element of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his Barbara would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable.

That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot _know_; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method condemns me to give only the outside both of Prestongrange and his policy.

-I'll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me they seem a part of the story, which is historical, after all.

-I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or where to say so? I will try.

-20, _Dean_. I'll try and make that plainer.

_Chap._ XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I could get the pair-No, can't be.

-XIV. All right, will abridge.

-XV. I'd have to put a note to every word; and he who can't read Scots can _never_ enjoy Tod Lapraik.

-XVII. Quite right. I _can_ make this plainer, and will.