afterwards detained by some affairs, put it off and stayed the night in
town. The good man had lain some time awake; it was far on in the small
hours by the Tron bell; when suddenly there came a crack, a jar, a faint
light. Softly he clambered out of bed and up to a false window which
looked upon another room, and there, by the glimmer of a thieves'
lantern, was his good friend the Deacon in a mask."

At length after a certain robbery in one of the government offices the
Deacon was suspected. He escaped to Holland, but was arrested in
Amsterdam as he was about to start for America. He was brought back to
Edinburgh, was tried and convicted and hanged on the second of October,
1788, at the west end of the Tolbooth, which was the famous old
Edinburgh prison known as the Heart of Midlothian.

[Illustration: Edinburgh Castle]

This story of Brodie had always interested Stevenson since he had heard
it as a child, and a cabinet made by the clever Deacon himself formed
part of the furniture of his nursery.

"Deacon Brodie" and other plays were finished and produced, but never
proved successful. Indeed, the money came in but slowly from any of his
writings and, aside from the critics, it was many a long day before he
was appreciated by the people of his own city and country. They refused
to believe that "that daft laddie Stevenson," who had so often shocked
them by his eccentric ways and scorn of conventions, could do anything
worth while. So by far his happiest times were spent out of Scotland,
principally in London, where a membership in the Savile Club added to
his enjoyment. Here he met several interesting men, among them Edmund
William Gosse and Sidney Colvin, both writers and literary critics, with