and (what you will
appreciate, Mr. Barrie) very shy. There came one day to lunch at the
house two very formidable old ladies--or one very formidable, and the
other what you please--answering to the honoured and historic name of
the Miss C---- A----'s of Balnamoon. At table I was exceedingly funny,
and entertained the company with tales of geese and bubbly-jocks. I was
great in the expression of my terror for these bipeds, and suddenly this
horrid, severe, and eminently matronly old lady put up a pair of gold
eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in silence, and pronounced in a
clangorous voice her verdict. "You give me very much the effect of a
coward, Mr. Stevenson!" I had very nearly left two vices behind me at
Glenogil--fishing and jesting at table. And of one thing you may be very
sure, my lips were no more opened at that meal.

_July 29th._--No, Barrie, 'tis in vain they try to alarm me with their
bulletins. No doubt, you're ill, and unco ill, I believe; but I have
been so often in the same case that I know pleurisy and pneumonia are in
vain against Scotsmen who can write. (I once could.) You cannot imagine
probably how near me this common calamity brings you. _Ce que j'ai
tousse dans ma vie!_ How often and how long have I been on the rack at
night and learned to appreciate that noble passage in the Psalms when
somebody or other is said to be more set on something than they "who dig
for hid treasures--yea, than those who long for the morning"--for all
the world, as you have been racked and you have longed. Keep your heart
up, and you'll do. Tell that to your mother, if you are still in any
danger or suffering. And by the way, if you are at all like me--and I
tell myself you are very like me--be sure there is only one thing good
for you, and that is the sea in hot climates. Mount, sir, into "a little
frigot" of 5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for the tropics; and
what if the ancient mariner, who guides your frigot, should startle the
silence of the ocean with the cry of land ho!--say, when the day is
dawning--and you should see the turquoise mountain tops of Upolu coming
hand over fist above the horizon? Mr. Barrie, sir, 'tis then there would
be larks! And though I cannot be certain that our climate would suit you
(for it does not suit some), I am sure as death the voyage would do you
good--would do you _Best_--and if Samoa didn't do, you needn't stay
beyond the month, and I should have had another pleasure in my