_Monday._--The end of the work displays gaps, cairns of ten ton blocks, stones torn from their places and turned right round. The damage above water is comparatively little: what there may be below, on _ne sait pas encore_. The roadway is torn away, cross-heads, broken planks tossed here and there, planks gnawn and mumbled as if a starved bear had been trying to eat them, planks with spates lifted from them as if they had been dressed with a rugged plane, one pile swaying to and fro clear of the bottom, the rails in one place sunk a foot at least. This was not a great storm, the waves were light and short. Yet when we are standing at the office, I felt the ground beneath me _quail_ as a huge roller thundered on the work at the last year's cross wall. How could _noster amicus Q. maximus_ appreciate a storm at Wick? It requires a little of the artistic temperament, of which Mr. T. S.,[6] C.E., possesses some, whatever he may say. I can't look at it practically however: that will come, I suppose, like grey hair or coffin nails. Our pole is snapped: a fortnight's work and the loss of the Norse schooner all for nothing!--except experience and dirty clothes.--Your affectionate son, R. L. STEVENSON. TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON I omit the letters of 1869, which describe at great length, and not very interestingly, a summer trip on board the lighthouse steamer to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Fair Isle. The following of 1870 I give (by consent of the lady who figures as a youthful character in the narrative) both for the sake of its lively social sketches--including that of the able painter and singular personage, the late Sam Bough,--and because it is dated from the Isle of Earraid, celebrated alike in _Kidnapped_ and in the essay _Memoirs of an Islet_. _Earraid, Thursday, August 5th, 1870._ MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have so much to say, that needs must I take a large sheet; for the notepaper brings with it a chilling brevity of style. Indeed, I think pleasant writing is proportional to the size of the material you write withal. From Edinburgh to Greenock, I had the ex-secretary of the E.U. Conservative Club, Murdoch. At Greenock I spent a dismal evening, though I found a pretty walk. Next day on board the _Iona_, I had Maggie Thomson to Tarbet; Craig, a well-read, pleasant medical, to Ardrishaig; and Professor, Mrs., and all the little Fleeming Jenkinseses to Oban.