OF SCOTLAND AND SAMOA, I DEDICATE THESE STORIES OF THAT GREY GALLOWAY LAND WHERE ABOUT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS THE WHAUPS ARE CRYING— HIS HEART REMEMBERS HOW.

OF SCOTLAND AND SAMOA, I DEDICATE THESE STORIES OF THAT GREY GALLOWAY LAND WHERE ABOUT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS THE WHAUPS ARE CRYING— HIS HEART REMEMBERS HOW.

Still much fearing and trembling, how needlessly I guessed not then, I packed up and despatched a copy to Samoa. Whereupon, after due interval, there came back to these shores a letter—the sense of which reached me deviously—not to myself but to his friend, Mr. Sidney Colvin. "If I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather, and a table tombstone like the martyrs; 'where the whaups and plovers are crying!'  Did you see a man who wrote 'The Stickit Minister,' and dedicated it to me, in words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them?  'Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying—his heart remembers how.'  Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!"

Still much fearing and trembling, how needlessly I guessed not then, I packed up and despatched a copy to Samoa. Whereupon, after due interval, there came back to these shores a letter—the sense of which reached me deviously—not to myself but to his friend, Mr. Sidney Colvin. "If I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather, and a table tombstone like the martyrs; 'where the whaups and plovers are crying!'  Did you see a man who wrote 'The Stickit Minister,' and dedicated it to me, in words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them?  'Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying—his heart remembers how.'  Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!"

To another friend he added some criticism of the book.  "Some of the tales seem to me a trifle light, and one, at least, is too slender and fantastic—qualities that rarely mingle well."  (How oft in the stilly night have I wondered which one he meant!)  "But the whole book breathes admirably of the soil.  'The Stickit Minister,' 'The Heather Lintie,' are two that appeal to me particularly. They are drowned in Scotland. They have refreshed me like a visit home.  'Cleg Kelly' also is a delightful fellow. I have enjoyed his acquaintance particularly."

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