

E-text prepared by Guus van Baalen



Transcriber's Notes:

  1. Words which may seem to be transcriber's typos, or otherwise
     suspect, but which are reproduced faithfully (archaic spellings,
     printer's typos--sometimes I couldn't tell):

     Ch. I:    befel, undigged
     Ch. III:  chaperon
     Ch. IV:   babby, mun, valtz
     Ch. V:    zounded, dimpsey, after'n, ax'n, ax
     Ch. VI:   picquet, damitol
     Ch. XI:   alwaies, Desarts, Eternitie

  2. Diphthongs, given as single characters in the printed copy, are
     transcribed as two separate characters.






THE WESTCOTES

by

ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH







DEDICATION



MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,

A spinster, having borrowed a man's hat to decorate her front hall,
excused herself on the ground that the house 'wanted a something.'
By inscribing your name above this little story I please myself at
the risk of helping the reader to discover not only that it wants a
something, but precisely what that something is. It wants--to confess
and have done with it--all the penetrating subtleties of insight, all
the delicacies of interpretation, you would have brought to Dorothea's
aid, if for a moment I may suppose her worth your championing. So I
invoke your name to stand before