to Sidney Colvin

Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, Perthshire, June 1881.

MY DEAR COLVIN,—The Black Man and Other Tales.

The Black Man:

I. Thrawn Janet.

II. The Devil on Cramond Sands.

The Shadow on the Bed.

The Body Snatchers.

The Case Bottle.

The King’s Horn.

The Actor’s Wife.

The Wreck of the Susanna.

This is the new work on which I am engaged with Fanny; they are all supernatural.  ‘Thrawn Janet’ is off to Stephen, but as it is all in Scotch he cannot take it, I know.  It was so good, I could not help sending it.  My health improves.  We have a lovely spot here: a little green glen with a burn, a wonderful burn, gold and green and snow-white, singing loud and low in different steps of its career, now pouring over miniature crags, now fretting itself to death in a maze of rocky stairs and pots; never was so sweet a little river.  Behind, great purple moorlands reaching to Ben Vrackie.  Hunger lives here, alone with larks and sheep.  Sweet spot, sweet spot.

Write me a word about Bob’s professoriate and Landor, and what you think of The Black Man.  The tales are all ghastly.  ‘Thrawn Janet’ frightened me to death.  There will maybe be another—‘The Dead Man’s A Letter.’  I believe I shall recover; and I am, in this blessed hope, yours exuberantly,

R. L. S.