Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/255

 the ending of the tacit reproaches of his people at the choice he had made.

The next story of Stevenson's to be published by the House was "Kidnapped," which was issued in July, 1886, after running through Young Folks. Its first title was "Balfour." Stevenson planned it as the result of the accidental inclusion, in a parcel of old trials sent down to him from London, of a report of "The Trial of James Stewart in Aucharn in Duror of Appin, for the Murder of Colin Campbell of Glenure." In this report was bound up a map of the Appin country, and Stevenson's imagination, as Mr. Gosse records, was always fired by a map. To his father he spoke of "Kidnapped" as in his judgment "a far better story, and far sounder at heart," than "Treasure Island." In another letter, written after the book was finished, he wrote: "I began 'Kidnapped' partly as a lark, partly as a pot-boiler; and I found I was in another world." In a letter to Mr. Gosse (July 17, 1886), he said of the book: "It is my own favourite of my works, not for craftsmanship, but for human niceness, in which I have been wanting hitherto; Alan and David I do really like."

The third of the Cassell Stevensons' was "The Black Arrow," published in July, 1888. It had been written in 1883, before "Kidnapped," in order to capture the fancy of the juveniles who took in Young Folks for Stevenson was piqued by the failure of "Treasure Island" to touch their imagination. He admits that he wrote in rivalry with Mr. Alfred R. Phillips, and he gracefully concedes that he did not displace that writer from his "well-won priority." His idea was to combine correct historical colouring with what he calls "tushery," i.e. clap-trap dialogue. He appears to have found little pleasure in the task, for he wrote to Henley: