THE GREAT SHADOW AND OTHER NAPOLEONIC TALES A. CONAN DOYLE CONTENTS THE GREAT SHADOW I. THE NIGHT OF THE BEACONS II. COUSIN EDIE OF EYEMOUTH III. THE SHADOW ON THE WATERS IV. THE CHOOSING OF JIM V. THE MAN FROM THE SEA VI. A WANDERING EAGLE VII. THE SHADOW ON THE LAND VIII. THE COMING OF THE CUTTER IX. THE DOINGS AT WEST INCH X. THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW XI. THE GATHERING OF THE NATIONS XII. THE SHADOW ON THE LAND XIII. THE END OF THE STORM XIV. THE TALLY OF DEATH XV. THE END OF IT THE CRIME OF THE BRIGADIER THE "SLAPPING SAL" THE GREAT SHADOW. CHAPTER I. THE NIGHT OF THE BEACONS. It is strange to me, Jock Calder of West Inch, to feel that though now, in the very centre of the nineteenth century, I am but five-and-fifty years of age, and though it is only once in a week perhaps that my wife can pluck out a little grey bristle from over my ear, yet I have lived in a time when the thoughts and the ways of men were as different as though it were another planet from this. For when I walk in my fields I can see, down Berwick way, the little fluffs of white smoke which tell me of this strange new hundred-legged beast, with coals for food and a thousand men in its belly, for ever crawling over the border. On a shiny day I can see the glint of the brass work as it takes the curve near Corriemuir; and then, as I look out to sea, there is the same beast again, or a dozen of them maybe, leaving a trail of black in the air and of white in the water, and swimming in the face of the wind as easily as a salmon up the Tweed. Such a sight as that would have struck my good old father speechless with wrath as well as surprise; for he was so stricken with the fear of offending the Creator that he was chary of contradicting Nature, and always held the new thing to be nearly akin to the blasphemous. As long as God made the horse, and a man down Birmingham way the engine, my good old dad would have stuck by the saddle and the spurs.