

Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





                           TALES AND FANTASIES


                                    BY

                          ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                                * * * * *

                                  LONDON

                             CHATTO & WINDUS
                                   1905




CONTENTS

                 THE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN NICHOLSON
     CHAP.                                                        PAGE
        I.  IN WHICH JOHN SOWS THE WIND                              1
       II.  IN WHICH JOHN REAPS THE WHIRLWIND                       10
      III.  IN WHICH JOHN ENJOYS THE HARVEST HOME                   18
       IV.  THE SECOND SOWING                                       27
        V.  THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN                                   35
       VI.  THE HOUSE AT MURRAYFIELD                                45
      VII.  A TRAGI-COMEDY IN A CAB                                 63
     VIII.  SINGULAR INSTANCE OF THE UTILITY OF PASS-KEYS           78
       IX.  IN WHICH MR. NICHOLSON ACCEPTS THE PRINCIPLE            95
            OF AN ALLOWANCE
                     THE BODY-SNATCHER                             109
                          THE STORY OF A LIE
        I.  INTRODUCES THE ADMIRAL                                 145
       II.  A LETTER TO THE PAPERS                                 154
      III.  IN THE ADMIRAL’S NAME                                  162
       IV.  ESTHER ON THE FILIAL RELATION                          172
        V.  THE PRODIGAL FATHER MAKES HIS DEBUT AT HOME            178
       VI.  THE PRODIGAL FATHER GOES ON FROM STRENGTH TO           189
            STRENGTH
      VII.  THE ELOPEMENT                                          204
     VIII.  BATTLE ROYAL                                           219
       IX.  IN WHICH THE LIBERAL EDITOR RE-APPEARS AS              233
            ‘DEUS EX MACHINA’

THE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN NICHOLSON


CHAPTER I—IN WHICH JOHN SOWS THE WIND


JOHN VAREY NICHOLSON was stupid; yet, stupider men than he are now
sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the authors of their
own distinction.  He was of a fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined
to a cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life; and possibly this
attitude of mind was the original cause of his misfortunes.  Beyond this
hint philosophy is silent on his career, and superstition steps in with
the more ready explanation that he was detested of the gods.

His father—that iron gentleman—had long ago enthroned himself on the
heights of the Disruption Principles.  What these are (and in spite of
their grim name they are quite innocent) no array of terms would render
thinkable to the merely English intelligence; but to the Scot they often
prove unctuously nourishing, and Mr. Nicholson found in them the milk of
lions.  About the period when the churches convene at Edinburgh in their
annual assemblies, he was to be seen descending the Mound in the company
of divers red-headed clergymen: these voluble, he only contributing
oracular nods, brief negatives, and the austere spectacle of his
stretched upper lip.  The names of Candlish and Begg were frequent in
these interviews, and occasionally the talk ran on the Residuary
Establishment and the doings of one Lee.  A stranger to the tight little
theological kingdom of Scotland might have listened and gathered
literally nothing.  And Mr. Nicholson (who was not a dull man) knew this,
and raged at it.  He knew there was a vast world outside, to whom
Disruption Principles were as the chatter of tree-top apes; the paper
brought him chill whiffs from it; he had met Englishmen who had asked
lightly if he did not belong to the Church of Scotland, and then had
failed to be much interested by his elucidation of that nice point; it
was an evil, wild, rebellious world, lying sunk in _dozenedness_, for
nothing short of a Scots word will paint this Scotsman’s feelings.  And
when he entered into his own house in Randolph Crescent (south side), and
shut the door behind him, his heart swelled with security.  Here, at
least, was a citadel impregnable by right-hand defections or left-hand
extremes.  Here was a family where prayers came at the same hour, where
the Sabbath literature was unimpeachably selected, where the guest who
should have leaned to any false opinion was instantly set down, and over
which there reigned all week, and grew denser on Sundays, a silence that
was agreeable to his ear, and a gloom that he found comfortable.

Mrs. Nicholson had died about thirty, and left him with three children: a
daughter two years, and a son about eight years younger than John; and
John himself, the unlucky bearer of a name infamous in English history.
The daughter, Maria, was a good girl—dutiful, pious, dull, but so easily
startled that to speak to her was quite a perilous enterprise.  ‘I don’t
think I care to talk about that, if you please,’ she would say, and
strike the boldest speechless by her unmistakable pain; this upon all
topics—dress, pleasure, morality, politics, in which the formula was
changed to ‘my papa thinks otherwise,’ and even religion, unless it was
approached with a particular whining tone of voice.  Alexander, the
younger brother, was sickly, clever, fond of books and drawing, and full
of satirical remarks.  In the midst of these, imagine that natural,
clumsy, unintelligent, and mirthful animal, John; mighty well-behaved in
comparison with other lads, although not up to the mark of the house in
Randolph Crescent; full of a sort of blundering affection, full of
caresses, which were never very warmly received; full of sudden and loud
laughter which rang out in that still house like curses.  Mr. Nicholson
himself had a great fund of humour, of the Scots order—intellectual,
turning on the observation of men; his own character, for instance—if he
could have seen it in another—would have been a rare feast to him; but
his son’s empty guffaws over a broken plate, and empty, almost
light-hearted remarks, struck him with pain as the indices of a weak
mind.

Outside the family John had early attached himself (much as a dog may
follow a marquis) to the steps of Alan Houston, a lad about a year older
than himself, idle, a trifle wild, the heir to a good estate which was
still in the hands of a rigorous trustee, and so royally content with
himself that he took John’s devotion as a thing of course.  The intimacy
was gall to Mr. Nicholson; it took his son from the house, and he was a
jealous parent; it kept him from the office, and he was a martinet;
lastly, Mr. Nicholson was ambitious for his family (in which, and the
Disruption Principles, he entirely lived), and he hated to see a son of
his play second fiddle to an idler.  After some hesitation, he ordered
that the friendship should cease—an unfair command, though seemingly
inspired by the spirit of prophecy; and John, saying nothing, continued
to disobey the order under the rose.

John was nearly nineteen when he was one day dismissed rather earlier
than usual from his father’s office, where he was studying the practice
of the law.  It was Saturday; and except that he had a matter of four
hundred pounds in his pocket which it was his duty to hand over to the
British Linen Company’s Bank, he had the whole afternoon at his disposal.
He went by Princes Street enjoying the mild sunshine, and the little
thrill of easterly wind that tossed the flags along that terrace of
palaces, and tumbled the green trees in the garden.  The band was playing
down in the valley under the castle; and when it came to the turn of the
pipers, he heard their wild sounds with a stirring of the blood.
Something distantly martial woke in him; and he thought of Miss
Mackenzie, whom he was to meet that day at dinner.

Now, it is undeniable that he should have gone directly to the bank, but
right in the way stood the billiard-room of the hotel where Alan was
almost certain to be found; and the temptation proved too strong.  He
entered the billiard-room, and was instantly greeted by his friend, cue
in hand.

‘Nicholson,’ said he, ‘I want you to lend me a pound or two till Monday.’

‘You’ve come to the right shop, haven’t you?’ returned John.  ‘I have
twopence.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Alan.  ‘You can get some.  Go and borrow at your
tailor’s; they all do it.  Or I’ll tell you what: pop your watch.’

‘Oh, yes, I dare say,’ said John.  ‘And how about my father?’

‘How is he to know?  He doesn’t wind it up for you at night, does he?’
inquired Alan, at which John guffawed.  ‘No, seriously; I am in a fix,’
continued the tempter.  ‘I have lost some money to a man here.  I’ll give
it you to-night, and you can get the heir-loom out again on Monday.
Come; it’s a small service, after all.  I would do a good deal more for
you.’

Whereupon John went forth, and pawned his gold watch under the assumed
name of John Froggs, 85 Pleasance.  But the nervousness that assailed him
at the door of that inglorious haunt—a pawnshop—and the effort necessary
to invent the pseudonym (which, somehow, seemed to him a necessary part
of the procedure), had taken more time than he imagined: and when he
returned to the billiard-room with the spoils, the bank had already
closed its doors.

This was a shrewd knock.  ‘A piece of business had been neglected.’  He
heard these words in his father’s trenchant voice, and trembled, and then
dodged the thought.  After all, who was to know?  He must carry four
hundred pounds about with him till Monday, when the neglect could be
surreptitiously repaired; and meanwhile, he was free to pass the
afternoon on the encircling divan of the billiard-room, smoking his pipe,
sipping a pint of ale, and enjoying to the masthead the modest pleasures
of admiration.

None can admire like a young man.  Of all youth’s passions and pleasures,
this is the most common and least alloyed; and every flash of Alan’s
black eyes; every aspect of his curly head; every graceful reach, every
easy, stand-off attitude of waiting; ay, and down to his shirt-sleeves
and wrist-links, were seen by John through a luxurious glory.  He valued
himself by the possession of that royal friend, hugged himself upon the
thought, and swam in warm azure; his own defects, like vanquished
difficulties, becoming things on which to plume himself.  Only when he
thought of Miss Mackenzie there fell upon his mind a shadow of regret;
that young lady was worthy of better things than plain John Nicholson,
still known among schoolmates by the derisive name of ‘Fatty’; and he
felt, if he could chalk a cue, or stand at ease, with such a careless
grace as Alan,