Vailima Letters Part 9

_March_ 2_nd_.

Since I last wrote, fifteen chapters of _David Balfour_ have been drafted, and five _tires au clair_. I think it pretty good; there's a blooming maiden that costs anxiety-she is as virginal as billy; but David seems there and alive, and the Lord Advocate is good, and so I think is an episodic appearance of the Master of Lovat. In Chapter XVII. I shall get David abroad-Alan went already in Chapter XII. The book should be about the length of _Kidnapped_; this early part of it, about D.'s evidence in the Appin case, is more of a story than anything in _Kidnapped_, but there is no doubt there comes a break in the middle, and the tale is practically in two divisions. In the first James More and the M'Gregors, and Catriona, only show; in the second, the Appin case being disposed of, and James Stewart hung, they rule the roast and usurp the interest-should there be any left. Why did I take up _David Balfour_? I don't know. A sudden pa.s.sion.

Monday, I went down in the rain with a colic to take the chair at a public meeting; dined with Haggard; sailed off to my meeting, and fought with wild beasts for three anxious hours. All was lost that any sensible man cared for, but the meeting did not break up-thanks a good deal to R.

L. S.-and the man who opposed my election, and with whom I was all the time wrangling, proposed the vote of thanks to me with a certain handsomeness; I a.s.sure you I had earned it . . . Haggard and the great Abdul, his high-caste Indian servant, imported by my wife, were sitting up for me with supper, and I suppose it was twelve before I got to bed.

Tuesday raining, my mother rode down, and we went to the Consulate to sign a Factory and Commission. Thence, I to the lawyers, to the printing office, and to the Mission. It was dinner time when I returned home.

This morning, our cook-boy having suddenly left-injured feelings-the archangel was to cook breakfast. I found him lighting the fire before dawn; his eyes blazed, he had no word of any language left to use, and I saw in him (to my wonder) the strongest workings of gratified ambition.

Napoleon was no more pleased to sign his first treaty with Austria than was Lafaele to cook that breakfast. All morning, when I had hoped to be at this letter, I slept like one drugged and you must take this (which is all I can give you) for what it is worth-

D.B.

_Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad_. _The Second Part_; _wherein are set forth the misfortunes in which he was involved upon the Appin Murder_; _his troubles with Lord Advocate Prestongrange_; _captivity on the Ba.s.s Rock_; _journey into France and Holland_; _and singular relations with James More Drummond or Macgregor_, _a son of the notorious Rob Roy_.

Chapters.-I. A Beggar on Horseback. II. The Highland Writer. III. I go to Pilrig. IV. Lord Advocate Prestongrange. V. b.u.t.ter and Thunder. VI.

I make a fault in honour. VII. The Bravo. VIII. The Heather on Fire.

IX. I begin to be haunted with a red-headed man. X. The Wood by Silvermills. XI. On the march again with Alan. XII. Gillane Sands.

XIII. The Ba.s.s Rock. XIV. Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik. XV. I go to Inveraray.

That is it, as far as drafted. Chapters IV. V. VII. IX. and XIV. I am specially pleased with; the last being an episodical bogie story about the Ba.s.s Rock told there by the Keeper.

CHAPTER XVII

_March_ 9_th_.

MY DEAR S. C.,-Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business impediment-I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road-and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a _faipule_-parliament man-come begging. All the time _David Balfour_ is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12 chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time the month is out, one-half should be completed, and I'll be back at drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think of Scott turning out _Guy Mannering_ in three weeks! What a pull of work: heavens, what thews and sinews! And here am I, my head spinning from having only re-written seven not very difficult pages-and not very good when done. Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself, to make such a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an old nursery yarn, not worth spitting on when done. Still, there is no doubt I turn out my work more easily than of yore, and I suppose I should be singly glad of that.

And if I got my book done in six weeks, seeing it will be about half as long as a Scott, and I have to write everything twice, it would be about the same rate of industry. It is my fair intention to be done with it in three months, which would make me about one-half the man Sir Walter was for application and driving the dull pen. Of the merit we shall not talk; but I don't think Davie is _without_ merit.

_March_ 12_th_.

And I have this day triumphantly finished 15 chapters, 100 pages-being exactly one-half (as near as anybody can guess) of _David Balfour_; the book to be about a fifth as long again (altogether) as _Treasure Island_: could I but do the second half in another month! But I can't, I fear; I shall have some belated material arriving by next mail, and must go again at the History. Is it not characteristic of my broken tenacity of mind, that I should have left Davie Balfour some five years in the British Linen Company's Office, and then follow him at last with such vivacity?

But I leave you again; the last (15th) chapter ought to be re-wrote, or part of it, and I want the half completed in the month, and the month is out by midnight; though, to be sure, last month was February, and I might take grace. These notes are only to show I hold you in mind, though I know they can have no interest for man or G.o.d or animal.

I should have told you about the Club. We have been asked to try and start a sort of weekly ball for the half-castes and natives, ourselves to be the only whites; and we consented, from a very heavy sense of duty, and with not much hope. Two nights ago we had twenty people up, received them in the front verandah, entertained them on cake and lemonade, and I made a speech-embodying our proposals, or conditions, if you like-for I suppose thirty minutes. No joke to speak to such an audience, but it is believed I was thoroughly intelligible. I took the plan of saying everything at least twice in a different form of words, so that if the one escaped my hearers, the other might be seized. One white man came with his wife, and was kept rigorously on the front verandah below! You see what a sea of troubles this is like to prove; but it is the only chance-and when it blows up, it must blow up! I have no more hope in anything than a dead frog; I go into everything with a composed despair, and don't mind-just as I always go to sea with the conviction I am to be drowned, and like it before all other pleasures. But you should have seen the return voyage, when nineteen horses had to be found in the dark, and nineteen bridles, all in a drench of rain, and the club, just const.i.tuted as such, sailed away in the wet, under a cloudy moon like a bad s.h.i.+lling, and to descend a road through the forest that was at that moment the image of a respectable mountain brook. My wife, who is president _with power to expel_, had to begin her functions. . . .

25_th_ _March_.

Heaven knows what day it is, but I am ashamed, all the more as your letter from Bournemouth of all places-poor old Bournemouth!-is to hand, and contains a statement of pleasure in my letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive, desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and little transacted or at least peracted.

Let me give you a review of the present state of our live stock.-Six boys in the bush; six souls about the house. Talolo, the cook, returns again to-day, after an absence which has cost me about twelve hours of riding, and I suppose eight hours' solemn sitting in council. 'I am sorry indeed for the Chief Justice of Samoa,' I said; 'it is more than I am fit for to be Chief Justice of Vailima.'-Lauilo is steward. Both these are excellent servants; we gave a luncheon party when we buried the Samoan bones, and I a.s.sure you all was in good style, yet we never interfered.

The food was good, the wine and dishes went round as by mechanism.-Steward's a.s.sistant and washman Arrick, a New Hebridee black boy, hired from the German firm; not so ugly as most, but not pretty neither; not so dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton. When he came first, he ate so much of our good food that he got a prominent belly. Kitchen a.s.sistant, Tomas (Thomas in English), a Fiji man, very tall and handsome, moving like a marionette with sudden bounds, and rolling his eyes with sudden effort.-Washerwoman and precentor, Helen, Tomas's wife. This is our weak point; we are ashamed of Helen; the cook-house blushes for her; they murmur there at her presence. She seems all right; she is not a bad-looking, strapping wench, seems chaste, is industrious, has an excellent taste in hymns-you should have heard her read one aloud the other day, she marked the rhythm with so much gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is wrong, then? says you. Low in your ear-and don't let the papers get hold of it-she is of no family.

None, they say; literally a common woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who _may_ be villeins; but we give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste, the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns; but Helen seems to know the whole repertory, and the morning prayers go far more lively in consequence.-Lafaele, provost of the cattle. The cattle are Jack, my horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, and he is as steady as a doctor's cob; Tif.a.ga Jack, a circus horse, my mother's piebald, bought from a pa.s.sing circus; Belle's mare, now in childbed or next door, confound the s.l.u.t! Musu-amusingly translated the other day 'don't want to,' literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and resistance-my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her-she has no vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention and humouring; lastly (of saddle horses) Luna-not the Latin _moon_, the Hawaiian _overseer_, but it's p.r.o.nounced the same-a pretty little mare too, but scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has to be ridden with a stock-whip and be brought back with her rump criss-crossed like a clan tartan; the two cart horses, now only used with pack-saddles; two cows, one in the straw (I trust) to-morrow, a third cow, the Jersey-whose milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration-she gives good exercise to the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return with cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; G.o.d knows how many ducks and chickens, and for a wager not even G.o.d knows how many cats; twelve horses, seven horses, five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I have builded? Call it _Subpriorsford_.

Two nights ago the club had its first meeting; only twelve were present, but it went very well. I was not there, I had ridden down the night before after dinner on my endless business, took a cup of tea in the Mission like an a.s.s, then took a cup of coffee like a fool at Haggard's, then fell into a discussion with the American Consul . . . I went to bed at Haggard's, came suddenly broad awake, and lay sleepless the live night. It fell chill, I had only a sheet, and had to make a light and range the house for a cover-I found one in the hall, a macintosh. So back to my sleepless bed, and to lie there till dawn. In the morning I had a longish ride to take in a day of a blinding, staggering sun, and got home by eleven, our luncheon hour, with my head rather swimmy; the only time I have _feared_ the sun since I was in Samoa. However, I got no harm, but did not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played the pipe, and read-a novel by James Payn-sometimes quite interesting, and in one place really very funny with the quaint humour of the man. Much interested the other day. As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan had written a word on a board, and there was an A, perfectly formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing in Europe; but it is as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm; it is common to find a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a tempting problem for psychologists.

I am now on terms again with the German Consulate, I know not for how long; not, of course, with the President, which I find a relief; still, with the Chief Justice and the English Consul. For Haggard, I have a genuine affection; he is a loveable man.

Wearyful man! 'Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd, _not as he told it_, _but as it was afterwards written_.' These words were left out by some carelessness, and I think I have been thrice tackled about them. Grave them in your mind and wear them on your forehead.

The Lang story will have very little about the treasure; _The Master_ will appear; and it is to a great extent a tale of Prince Charlie _after_ the '45, and a love story forbye: the hero is a melancholy exile, and marries a young woman who interests the prince, and there is the devil to pay. I think the Master kills him in a duel, but don't know yet, not having yet seen my second heroine. No-the Master doesn't kill him, they fight, he is wounded, and the Master plays _deus ex machina_. I _think_ just now of calling it _The Tail of the Race_; no-heavens! I never saw till this moment-but of course n.o.body but myself would ever understand Mill-Race, they would think of a quarter-mile. So-I am nameless again.

My melancholy young man is to be quite a Romeo. Yes, I'll name the book from him: _Dyce of Ythan_-p.r.o.nounce Eethan.

Dyce of Ythan

by R. L. S.

O, Shovel-Shovel waits his turn, he and his ancestors. I would have tackled him before, but my _State Trials_ have never come. So that I have now quite planned:-

Dyce of Ythan. (Historical, 1750.)

Sophia Scarlet. (To-day.)

The Shovels of Newton French. (Historical, 1650 to 1830.)

And quite planned and part written:-

The Pearl Fisher. (To-day.) (With Lloyd a machine.)

David Balfour. (Historical, 1751.)

And, by a strange exception for R. L. S., all in the third person except D. B.