- Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
VAILIMA, DECEMBER 5, 1893.
MY DEAREST CUMMY, - This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you about NOOR'S DAY. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you remember when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry me to the back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me.
'A' the hills are covered wi' snaw, An' winter's noo come fairly'?
There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how my mother is going to stand the winter. If she can, it will be a very good thing for her. We are in that part of the year which I like the best - the Rainy or Hurricane Season. 'When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is horrid,' and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven; such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a baby's breath, and yet not hot!
The mail is on the move, and I must let up. - With much love, I am, your laddie,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
6TH DECEMBER 1893.
'OCTOBER 25, 1685. - At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the King's Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle, to produce her. . . . But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle's son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen years old.' But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no further. - FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.
'MAY 6, 1685. - Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all, and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving security for 7000 marks.' - i. 372.
No, it seems to have been HER brother who had succeeded.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can be thrown on it. I prefer the girl's father dead; and the question is, How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to 'apprehend' and his power to 'sell' her in marriage?
Or - might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles, and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?
A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it will be the corner-stone of my novel.
This is for - I am quite wrong to tell you - for you will tell others - and nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish and reappear again like shapes in the clouds - it is for HEATHERCAT: whereof the first volume will be called THE KILLING TIME, and I believe I have authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to be called (I believe) DARIEN, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal of truck:-
DARIEN PAPERS, CARSTAIRS PAPERS, MARCHMONT PAPERS, JERVISWOODE CORRESPONDENCE,
I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to have - the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690-1700 - a deuce of a want of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also - I am the daughter of the horse-leech truly - 'Black's new large map of Scotland,' sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can get the
CALDWELL PAPERS,
they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work - but no, I must call a halt. . . .
I fear the song looks doubtful, but I'll consider of it, and I can promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it's an unco business to SUPPLY deid-heid coapy.