A Daughter of Heth

William Black, born in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 13, 1841, was
educated with a view to being a landscape painter, a training
that clearly influenced his literary life. He became a painter
of scenery in words. At the age of twenty-three he went to
London, after some experience in Glasgow journalism, and
joined the staff of the "Morning Star," and, later, the "Daily
News," of which journal he became assistant-editor. His first
novel appeared in 1868, but it was not until the publication
of "A Daughter of Heth," in 1871, that Black secured the
attention of the reading public. "The Strange Adventures of a
Phaeton" followed, and in 1873 "A Princess of Thule" attained
great popularity. Retiring from journalism the next year he
devoted himself entirely to fiction. A score of novels
followed, the last in 1898, just before his death on December
10 of that year. No novelist has lavished more tender care on
the portrayal of his heroines, or worked up more delicately a
scenic background for plaintive sentiment.


_I.--In Strange Surroundings_


"Noo, Wattie," said the Whaup, "ye maun say a sweer before ye get up.
I'm no jokin', and unless ye be quick ye'll be in the water."

Wattie Cassilis, the "best boy" of the Airlie Manse, paragon of
scholars, and exemplar to his four brothers, was depending from a small
bridge over the burn, his head downward and a short distance from the