Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/9

 ined them—a sixpence dated 1859, a pair of eye-glasses (probably once belonging to an officer), a pair of nail scissors, a farrier's hook, a pen. Every one of them seemed to speak!

"Look at this!" cried Mr. Haggard, almost excitedly. "I never noticed that till this moment."

It was an English revolver-cartridge that had missed fire! Some poor fellow had pinned his faith to it. The little piece of lead I now held in my hand probably meant—a life lost.

The shelves are well stocked with volumes; one of them is devoted to holding the bulky covers which contain the original MSS. of his works. Every one is marked with the time it took to write. A small shelf near the window is peculiarly interesting. The scores of paper volumes it supports are all pirated editions of his works issued in America. No author has suffered more than he in this respect. He has even had books published under his name in the States of which he never wrote a line. In the case of "Allan Quartermain" some enterprising Americans got hold of a set of uncorrected proof-sheets and published them.

And so we passed the evening going through the house, and, when the morrow came, walked through the meadows and newly-planted orchards round the farm. Now Mr. Haggard appears in an easy knickerbocker suit, and carries a long Zulu stick surmounted with a huge knob, which has helped him over rough paths for many years. The Mexican ferns are flourishing, the chrysanthemum houses loaded with blossoms. "Poacher," a fine young dog, which follows in every step of its master, bounds up. Poacher has a family history.