Tales and Fantasies | Page 3

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Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson Scanned and proofed
by David Price [email protected]

Tales and Fantasies

Contents
The Misadventures of John Nicholson The Body-Snatcher The Story of
a Lie
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