No one but myself knows what I have suffered, nor
what my books have gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness
and admirable pertinacity. And now here is a
volume that goes into the world and lacks your imprimatur:
a strange thing in our joint lives; and the reason
of it stranger still! I have watched with interest,
with pain, and at length with amusement, your unavailing
attempts to peruse The Black Arrow; and I think I
should lack humour indeed, if I let the occasion slip
and did not place your name in the fly-leaf of the
only book of mine that you have never read—and
never will read.
That others may display more constancy is still my
hope. The tale was written years ago for a particular
audience and (I may say) in rivalry with a particular
author; I think I should do well to name him, Mr.
Alfred R. Phillips. It was not without its reward
at the time. I could not, indeed, displace Mr.
Phillips from his well-won priority; but in the eyes
of readers who thought less than nothing of Treasure
Island, The Black Arrow was supposed to mark a clear
advance. Those who read volumes and those who
read story papers belong to different worlds.
The verdict on Treasure Island was reversed in the
other court; I wonder, will it be the same with its
successor?
R. L. S.
Saranac Lake, April 8, 1888.
On a certain afternoon, in the late springtime, the
bell upon Tunstall Moat House was heard ringing at
an unaccustomed hour. Far and near, in the forest
and in the fields along the river, people began to
desert their labours and hurry towards the sound; and
in Tunstall hamlet a group of poor country-folk stood
wondering at the summons.
Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old
King Henry VI., wore much the same appearance as it
wears to-day. A score or so of houses, heavily
framed with oak, stood scattered in a long green valley
ascending from the river. At the foot, the road
crossed a bridge, and mounting on the other side,
disappeared into the fringes of the forest on its
way to the Moat House, and further forth to Holywood
Abbey. Half-way up the village, the church stood
among yews. On every side the slopes were crowned
and the view bounded by the green elms and greening
oak-trees of the forest.
Hard by the bridge, there was a stone cross upon a
knoll, and here the group had collected—half
a dozen women and one tall fellow in a russet smock—discussing
what the bell betided. An express had gone through
the hamlet half an hour before, and drunk a pot of
ale in the saddle, not daring to dismount for the
hurry of his errand; but he had been ignorant himself
of what was forward, and only bore sealed letters
from Sir Daniel Brackley to Sir Oliver Oates, the
parson, who kept the Moat House in the master’s
absence.
