The notes to this edition are designed to aid comprehension: the translation of a Scots vocabulary, the identification of technical and rare words or phrases, and the citation of slang, colloquial, or dialectal expressions. Stevenson had an irregular habit of defining Scots terms in the margins, and these are noted here with the initials “R.L.S.” in brackets following the gloss. Since his general lexicon was both studied and broad, many other terms may seem exotic to the reader but are readily defined in a standard reference, such as the OED, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, or The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. I have also cited allusions that may not be immediately apparent or available in a standard encyclopaedia, as well as place names that are accessible only in obscure gazetteers. But as Henry James would have said, the main job of interpretation is the reader’s: these notes are simply the provisions for a clear reading of the stories.
At the beginning of his career Stevenson published his short stories in established English magazines like the Cornhill and Temple Bar, or, in the case of The Suicide Club and The Rajah’s Diamond, in a short-lived polemical journal called London, edited by his good friend William Ernest Henley and featuring as one of its contributors George Saintsbury. In a letter written to Saintsbury years later from Samoa, Stevenson recalled those early London days: “As the first person who encouraged me to publish my fiction in book form, you may be called the father of my fortunes” ([September 1890], Letters, 6:413). Stevenson published three collections of his stories during his lifetime: New Arabian Nights (London, 1882), The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables (London, 1887), and Island Nights’ Entertainments (London, 1893). The texts in this volume, with the exception of “Markheim,” “The Isle of Voices,” and “The Beach of Falesá,” are drawn from these first English editions. For the first two stories, the texts are the holographs at the Houghton Library and the Rosenbach Museum and Library. There are numerous differences between the holograph and printed versions of both stories, particularly in the matter of punctuation, but also in details of vocabulary and expression. In order to reproduce the manuscripts faithfully, Stevenson’s unorthodox use of capitals and lowercase letters has been retained. Emendations have been made in a small number of cases: supplying an absent quotation mark, period, or hyphen; adding or removing an apostrophe; or altering Stevenson’s spelling in less than a dozen instances (e.g., wiegh, niether, nieghbour, siezed, dwellt, Christmass, hasard). In all cases the emendations conform with the printed versions. For “The Beach at Falesá” the text is that of the holograph manuscript at the Huntington Library, as originally edited by Barry Menikoff and published by Stanford University Press in 1984. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reproduces the first English edition published by Longmans, Green, and Co. (London, 1886). For “The Story of a Lie,” “The Body-Snatcher,” and “The Misadventures of John Nicholson,” all uncollected in book form during his lifetime, the texts are from the first Vailima edition (P. F. Collier & Son, New York, 1912), which reproduced them from their serial publications. As for “An Old Song,” the text reprinted here, with permission, is from the edition prepared by Roger G. Swearingen (Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut, 1982), who discovered the story in the files of London magazine.
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE SUICIDE CLUB
Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts
1. temerarious: unreasonably adventurous; rash, reckless.
2. penny gaff: a cheap, low music hall or theater (J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, 7 vols. [London, 1890–1904], hereafter cited as F&H).
3. for all who desire to be out of the coil: “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause” (Hamlet, 3.1.65–67).
4. four-wheeler: a four-wheeled hackney carriage.
5. All Fools’-Day: April Fools’ Day.
6. vogue la galère: “come what may” (proverbial),
7. pasteboard: playing card.
8. devil’s dozen: thirteen, the original baker’s dozen, from the number of witches supposed to gather on a sabbath (F&H).
Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk
1. Saratoga trunk: a very large trunk used for traveling, named after the upstate New York resort (J. S. Farmer, Americanisms [London, 1889]).
2. counterjumpers: a contemptuous term for junior clerks in dry goods stores.
3. bistery: scalpel.
4. boots: a hotel servant who cleans boots and offers minor assistance to guests.
5. consumptive marker: a marker keeps score in competitive games; consumption was the common term for tuberculosis.
The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs
1. nine days’ vitality: something that causes a sensation for a few days and then passes into oblivion (a nine days’ wonder).
2. paletot: a loose outer coat, or cloak.
3. Manillas: a cigar (or cheroot) made of tobacco grown in the philippines.
4. Joshua in the Bible: “and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour” (Joshua 8:3).
5. parc aux cerfs: deer park.
6. postern: a back or side door separate from the main entrance.
7. “God defend the right!”: Richard II, 1.3.101.
8. hound of hell: Cerberus, the watchdog guarding the entrance to the infernal regions.
THE RAJAH’S DIAMOND
Story of the Bandbox
1. Tame Cat: a woman’s “fetch-and-carry” (F&H), or gofer.
2. Mechlin: delicate lace used for dresses and millinery, produced at Mechlin (Belgium).
3. Gloire de Dijons: a variety of tea rose.
4. Rag-fair: an old clothes market in Houndsditch, an area surrounding the original wall of the City of London.
5. oakum: loose fiber obtained by untwisting and picking old rope, used in caulking ships’ seams and stopping leaks; picking it was an employment of convicts and workhouse inmates.
6. Bendigo: a city in central Australia, northwest of Melbourne, founded in 1851 with a rush for gold.
7. Trincomalee: a town in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) overlooking a fine natural harbor, contested by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English and finally ceded to England in the early nineteenth century.
Story of the Young Man in Holy Orders
1. St. Ambrose: Ambrose (c. 340–97), early father of the Roman church, noted for oratory, magnanimity, and stainless character. L. 31. St. Chrysostom: Chrysostom (c. 347–407), one of the fathers of the Greek church, patriarch of Constantinople, noted for wide learning and ascetic discipline.
2. Gaboriau: Emile Gaboriau (1832–1873), French originator of the roman policier, or police novel (L’affaire Lerouge, 1866).
3. Paley’s Evidences: William Paley (1743–1805), English theologian and clergyman (Evidences of Christianity, 1794).
4. old gentleman: the devil (John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary: A New Edition [London, 1874]).
Story of the House with the Green Blinds
1. chevaux-de-frise: a line of sharp points (as of spikes or nails) set firmly into the top of a fence or wall.
2. Trichinopoli: a district and city in southern India.
3. wideawake: a soft felt hat with a broad brim and low crown.
The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective
1. as Jacob served Laban: (Genesis 29:15–20).
THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS
1. Fidra: a rocky islet near North Berwick (Francis Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, vol. 3 [Edinburgh, 1883]).
2. Sea-Wood: situated in or by the sea.
3. Easter: eastern, lying toward the east; common in place names and in names of farms (William Grant, ed., The Scottish National Dictionary, 10 vols. [Edinburgh, 1931–1936], hereafter cited as SND).
4. German Ocean: North Sea.
5. Ness: a promontory, headland; in general used as a place-name. L. 10. Bullers: a loud gurgling noise, the boiling of an eddy or torrent.
6. Floe: a pool, a marsh, or bay, especially in place names (SND). L. 17. sea quags: marshy or boggy spots, especially ones covered with a layer of turf which yields when walked on.
7. policies: the enclosed grounds of a large country house; the park of an estate (SND).
8. the rose-leaf … the Princess: Supersensitivity was considered characteristic of nobility, and tales like Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea” are common, including a Persian story where the princess was in constant pain because a rose leaf “had pressed against her side and had rubbed her skin till the bones showed” (N. M. Penzer, ed., The Ocean of Story, vol. 6 [Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968], 293–94).
9. Wester: western, lying toward the west, usually in place names (SND).
10. black-avised: dark complexioned (Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols. [Oxford, 1898–1905], hereafter cited as EDD).
11. “trump”: first-rate, good-natured person (Hotten, Slang Dictionary); in the original Cornhill magazine version the text reads: “She’s a perfect cock-sparrow, Frank.”
12. carbonaro: Carbonari were members of a secret political society that originated in Naples during the French occupation (1808–1815); their major aim was the establishment of a republican government.
13. Tridentino: the city of Trent in the Tyrolean Alps; in the nineteenth century it was part of Austria, but because it had always been Italian in language and culture, a strong movement developed for union with Italy, which was achieved in 1919.
14. Parma: capital of the province of Parma in northern Italy.
15. tan your liver: “white-livered” means cowardly, mean (F&H). L. 20. precisian: one who is rigidly precise in the observance of rules or forms.
16. fey: fated to die, doomed; also, behaving oddly as if bewitched or crazy (SND).
17. millstone: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Luke 17:2; also, Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42).
18. tail of his eye: the outer corner of the eye (F&H). L. 20. beaux yeux: beautiful eyes.
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
1. ballade: Stevenson’s spelling distinguishes between two different poetic forms: “Ballade was by precedent the allotted name of certain verses written after old French models [which] had no kinship whatever with the ordinary ballad” (Gleeson White, “Of the Ballade,” Atalanta 4 [1890–1891]: 303).
2. Elias: “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11).
3. Hominibus impossibile: impossible for men.
4. The black dog was on his back: melancholy, depression of spirits (F&H).
5. Henry V. of England: Henry (1388–1422) was proclaimed king in 1413, fought at Agincourt two years later, and died just before consolidating his victories in France.
6. gripes: colic or stomach pains (F&H).
7. Man is not a solitary animal: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him” (Genesis 2:18).
8. Cui Deus faeminam tradit: To whom God gives woman.
9. pantler: a servant or officer in charge of the bread and the pantry in a great family.
10. linking: walking smartly and vigorously, passing by quickly (EDD).
THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT’S DOOR
1. bartizan: any kind of fence, as of stone or wood (SND).
2. weir: a river dam.
3. debouched: led out from a narrower to a wider space.
4. damoiseau: page, squire.
5. messire: sir (title of honor).
6. groining: a rib (of wood or stone) designed to cover the projecting edge formed by the intersection of two vaults.
7. Queen Isabeau: (1371–1435), married Charles VI in 1385, saw her daughter married to Henry V of England in 1420.
8. salle: hall; large room.
9. steadings: the buildings on a farm (SND).
PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR
1. Molière: As befits a story of vagabond thespians, there are allusions to classic playwrights of the French theater like Molière and Beaumarchais, as well as to contemporary actors who were noted for their Romantic excess (Étienne Mélingue, Antoine Frédérick).
2. tombola: a kind of lottery game.
3. art and part: Scots law term, to be an accomplice in a chargeable act.
4. Sédan: at the foot of the Ardennes, near the Belgian border; scene of a decisive French defeat (1870) during the Franco-Prussian War and the capture of Napoleon III.
5. “Fichu Commissaire!”: Rotten Commissioner!
6. Maire: mayor.
7. “Y a des honnêtes gens partout!”: There are honest people everywhere.
8. Garde Champêtre: guard of the field.
9. Eugène Sue: (1804–1857), popular novelist during the 1830s and 1840s, republican and socialist in his sympathies.
10. Béranger’s:—“Commissaire … ménagère”: Pierre Béranger (1780–1857), songwriter, lyric poet, ardent republican; “Commissioner! Commissioner! Colin beats his wife.”
11. “Sauve qui peut”: Each man for himself.
12. Alceste and Célimène: protagonists in Molière’s The Misanthrope.
13. “Dites … aller”: Tell me, beautiful young lady, where do you want to go?
14. Bezonian: a raw recruit; a base fellow or wretch.
15. Montrouge, Belleville … Montmartre: all sections of what is now Paris.
16. “Let dogs delight”: “Let dogs delight to bark and bite,/For God hath made them so”; Isaac Watts (1674–1748), Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the use of Children (1715).
17. Pierre Dupont’s: Pierre Dupont (1821–1870), popular songwriter, expressed republican and socialistic aspirations.
18. Savez-vous … mois?: Do you know where May lies, that beautiful month? Stevenson provides his own translation: “Know you the lair of May, the lovely month?”
19. Admetus’s sheep … Apollo: Apollo was sentenced to tend the flocks of Admetus, who, because he was kind to the god, was rewarded by having his flocks increased.
20. “non … que mois!”: no—I will not keep quiet—I can’t help it!
21. O mon amante … charmante!: O my love / O my desire / Let’s seize this charming time.
STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
1. mortify: to subdue the appetites by discipline and self-denial.
2. catholicity: liberality, inclusiveness.
3. by-street: a side street, one lying out of the way of the main road.
4. coquetry: an affected charm or prettiness, akin to the manner of a coquette.
5. Juggernaut: a massive inexorable force that crushes whatever is in its path.
6. long tongue: proverbial, “little can a long tongue conceal,” i.e., to talk more than is good for you.
7. fanciful: not governed by facts, realities, and reason.
8. immodest: indecent.
9. Damon and Pythias: classical figures synonymous with devoted friendship.
10. concourse: at the gathering of crowds or throngs.
11. the old story of Dr. Fell: alludes to a seventeenth-century translation of a Latin epigram that was made as a punishment by an Oxford student for his teacher: “I do not love thee, Dr. Fell / The reason why I cannot tell / But this alone I know full well / I do not love thee, Dr. Fell”; it signifies an inexplicable, even visceral antipathy or hatred.
12. pede claudo: slowly but inevitably.
13. accosted: approached and spoke to.
14. penny numbers: the sensational pulp fiction of the day, also called “penny dreadfuls.”
15. baize: a coarsely woven fabric made to imitate felt and used to line furniture.
16. cheval glass: a full-length mirror in a frame which may be tilted.
17. circulars: printed advertisements, announcements, or notices that are widely distributed.
18. carbuncles: deep-red gemstones.
19. wrack: rack, a wind-driven mass of high, often broken clouds.
20. get this through hands: thoroughly deal with or dispose of this matter.
21. exorbitant: deviating from the normal or ordinary course (archaic); also, excessive, beyond customary limits.
22. scud: loose clouds or fragments of cloud driven swiftly by the wind.
23. glazed presses: cupboards fitted or set with glass windowpanes.
24. farrago: confused or disordered assemblage of words and ideas.
25. version book: a school exercise book.
26. debility of constitution: weakness or feebleness of mind or temperament.
27. incipient rigor: goose bumps.
28. ebullition: the process of boiling or bubbling up.
29. prodigy: something extraordinary or inexplicable; a marvel.
30. injected: congested.
31. blazoned: proclaimed, boasted.
32. polity: civil order, political organization.
33. multifarious, incongruous: great diversity or variety; lacking harmony, consistency, or compatibility.
34. faggots: a bunch or bundle of sticks tied together and used for fuel.
35. effulgence: strong radiant light; brilliance.
36. Philippi: ancient city of Macedonia, whose prisoners were freed by an earthquake that was seen as miraculous (Acts 16:26).
37. swart: blackish, swarthy.
38. abstinence: self-restraint or self-denial.
39. insensibility: lack of emotional feeling or response; apathy.
40. insensate: unfeeling; cruel, harsh, brutal.
THE MERRY MEN AND OTHER TALES AND FABLES
THE MERRY MEN
1. overlooked: looked over, i.e., inspected, reviewed.
2. a certain saint: St. Columba (521–597), the “Apostle of Caledonia,” established a monastery on the island of Iona in 563.
3. King Philip: Philip II of Spain (r. 1556–1598), whose naval Armada was defeated in war with England (1588).
4. Dr. Robertson: William Robertson (1721–1793), a distinguished historian of Scotland, England, and America.
5. King Jamie’s: James I (1566–1625), who as James VI was king of Scotland (r. 1567–1603) at the time of the Armada’s defeat.
6. Cameronians: militant sect of Presbyterians founded by Richard Cameron, a young schoolteacher and field preacher who in 1680 renounced allegiance to Charles II.
7. the killing times: period in Scottish history (c. 1683–1685) when Presbyterians (or Covenanters) opposed to Charles II were put to death.
8. the peace of God: “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
9. “Andnow … glad”: Metrical Psalm 65 (Kenneth Gelder, ed., Robert Louis Stevenson: The Scottish Stories and Essays [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989], 286).
10. “And in … wonders see”: Metrical Psalm 107 (Gelder, 286).
11. Cutchull’ns: Cuchullins or Cuillin Hills, group of rugged and serrated mountain ranges, among the wildest scenery in Scotland, situated on the island of Skye.
12. Soa: Soay, an isle separated from Skye by a channel of the same name.
13. Loch Uskevagh … Benbecula: Benbecula is a low island in the Outer Hebrides, indented with bays, including Uskevagh on its eastern side.
14. Norwegian city: Christiana was the name of the capital of Norway, which changed back to its original name, Oslo, in 1925.
15. Eilean Gour: “Not far from the north-eastern extremity of Coll [an island west of Mull, where David Balfour began his Highland adventures] is the island Eilean-Mhor, uninhabited” (Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, vol. 2 [London, 1846], 544).
16. The mark is on his brow: a sign or token of imminent death (God’s marks).
WILL O’ THE MILL
1. coil: tumult, turmoil.
2. tumbril: a two-wheeled cart used to carry ammunition.
3. dicky: a seat at the back of a carriage for servants.
4. wagged: continued, moved along.
5. hipped: morbidly depressed; low-spirited.
6. shrift: confession, i.e., admission of sin or wrong for the sake of absolution (archaic).
MARKHEIM
1. as he began to re-arise: Stevenson wrote “rëarise” in the manuscript, which was altered to “re-arise” in all the printed texts.
2. Bohemian goblets: By the end of the seventeenth century Bohemian crystal was the most fashionable in Europe. L. 24. the image of the dead dealer reinspired: Stevenson again used the diaeresis in “rëinspired,” which was dropped in the printed editions.
3. Brownrigg … Thurtell: Elizabeth Brownrigg, employed by a London parish to look after its poor pregnant women, was executed in 1767 after savagely abusing a young female apprentice to death; Frederick and Maria Manning murdered a dinner guest and buried him under the kitchen floor (they were executed in 1849); John Thurtell, gambler and son of a prosperous merchant, lured William Weare to a rural cottage and slit his throat when he refused to die after a brutal beating (executed in 1823).
4. dropping cavern: The printed texts substituted “dripping” for Stevenson’s less common word.
5. the defeated tyrant: Napoleon would fly into fits of rage at small irritations such as losses at chess (George Henry Nettleton, ed., Specimens of the Short Story [New York: Henry Holt, 1907], 229). L. 22. Napoleon: The winter of 1812 came unseasonably early and was responsible for much of the disastrous Russian campaign (Nettleton, 229).
6. Sheraton sideboard: Thomas Sheraton (1751–1806), English furniture maker whose designs were artistically simple and utilitarian.
7. chance-medley: legal term; unpremeditated wounding or killing in a casual encounter.
THRAWN JANET
1. those hints that Hamlet deprecated: “To be or not to be” (3.1.55–87)
2. the moderates: a group of professional clergymen in the late seventeenth century opposed to the traditional Calvinism of the Presbyterians who upheld the Westminster Confession; they controlled the Church of Scotland after 1712.
3. Accuser of the Brethren: “for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:10).
OLALLA
1. tatterdemalion: decayed, broken down; beggarly.
2. Kelpie: a water demon, in the form of a horse, that haunts rivers and lures the unwary to their deaths.
3. wicket: a small gate or door; in this case, built into the larger gate.
4. shuttle-witted: His mind moved back and forth like a shuttle, i.e., his “broken talk” or “disjointed babble.”
5. debauch: to lead or entice away from duty or obligations (archaic).
6. impoverished: exhausted in strength or fertility; made sterile.
7. contrabandista: smuggler (Spanish).
8. hebetude: lethargy, dullness.
9. brandished: flashed.
10. maceration: excessive fasting; mortification.
11. insolation: exposure to the sun’s rays.
12. vamped up: patched together; concocted, fabricated.
13. basilisks: legendary reptiles whose breath and look were fatal.
THE TREASURE OF FRANCHARD
1. embrocation: liniment.
2. knock me up: to arouse or awaken from sleep.
3. laureation: academic degree; the term for “graduation” in Scottish universities.
4. cestus: a woman’s belt, especially a symbolic one worn by a bride.
5. malapert: impudently bold; saucy.
6. “Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre”: “Malbrouck is going to war,” the name of a popular song about the Duke of Marlborough.
7. ichor: in Greek mythology, the ethereal fluid that takes the place of blood in the veins of the gods.
8. dive: also “div,” an evil spirit or demon in Persian folklore.
9. brune: brunette.
10. hitch: entanglement, impediment.
11. “Mummia”: mummy, a medicinal preparation sold by pharmacists (obsolete).
12. pinetum: a plantation of pine trees.
13. cinchona: the medicinal bark of a genus of trees native to the Andes.
14. cigale: cicada.
15. Golden mediocrity: the common phrase, citing Horace, is “golden mean.”
16. homologate: agree with, sanction; ratify, confirm.
17. a sheet in the wind’s eye: slightly drunk; the proverbial phrase “three sheets in the wind” meaning very drunk.
18. bemused: here meaning engrossed or lost in thought or reverie.
19. Noddy: a small two-wheeled carriage used in Ireland and Scotland.
20. baldric: a belt, often ornamented, worn over the shoulder and across the chest, usually supporting a sword or a bugle.
21. simples: medicinal plants.
22. patens: shallow round dishes or plates, usually made of silver.
23. precisian: one who scrupulously adheres to a strict standard of religious observance or morality; formerly synonymous with puritan.
24. bemused: here meaning bewildered, confused.
25. whet: a stimulant that sharpens or makes keen the appetite.
26. bedizened: dressed or adorned with gaudy vulgarity.
27. pharos: a lighthouse or beacon to guide seamen.
28. smash: commercial failure; bankruptcy.
29. occultation: concealment, i.e., for its being cut off from view.
30. blackguard: low, coarse, vicious, and vulgar.
31. re-edified: rebuilt.
32. Gunpowder Day: November 5, the day of the plot to blow up the English Parliament (1605).
33. indue: or “endue,” put on, don, clothe oneself.
34. “Bigre!”: Confound it!
ISLAND NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS
THE BEACH OF FALESÁ
1. line: the equator.
2. stick: familiar term for mast.
3. Pain-Killer and Kennedy’s Discovery: patent medicines that had a high alcoholic content.
4. Black Jack: sobriquet; a black-jack was a piratical-looking individual or the ensign of a pirate; also, a large, tarred, leather vessel for beer.
5. Whistling Jimmie: sobriquet; a whistling-shop was a place where liquor was sold without a license.
6. pass: abbreviation of “passage.”
7. stern sheets: the after part of an open boat, often furnished with seats to accommodate passengers.
8. gallows: an intensifier signifying very or exceedingly.
9. Kanaka: Hawaiian term for “man”; also used pejoratively to signify an indigenous islander.
10. Manu’a: Manua is the easternmost group of islands of the principal range of Samoan islands.
11. does: to get on, thrive, flourish.
12. get his shirt out: get angry.
13. Miller a Dutchman: sailors often called all northern Europeans “Dutchmen.”
14. a labour ship: “blackbirding” was the term for the recruitment of men (often called kidnapping) from the islands of the Western Pacific to work as contract laborers, especially on plantations in Australia.
15. Fiddler’s Green: where all good sailors go when they die, a place of fiddling, dancing, rum, and tobacco.
16. cutty sark: a short or scanty chemise.
17. the cut of your jib: the look of your face.
18. to hurt: to matter, signify.
19. full: drunk.
20. old man: the term applied to the captain by a crew.
21. Dry up: Hush; be quiet.
22. old gentleman: the devil.
23. Hard-shell Baptis’: strict and uncompromising, also known as primitive Baptist.
24. mortal: an intensifier signifying extremely or great.
25. shipshape and Bristol fashion: proverbial phrase referring to Bristol in its flourishing days as the chief port on the west coast of England.
26. Devil a wink: an indefinite intensifier; e.g., devil of a mess, devil of a row.
27. fussy-ocky: fasioti in Samoan means to kill someone.
28. Buncombe: Bunkum, or talking merely for talk’s sake; also, nonsense, claptrap.
29. cure: an odd or eccentric person; abridged from “curiosity.”
30. the horrors: delirium tremens.
31. taking: agitation; a fit of temper.
32. Johnny had slipped his cable: to “slip the cable” means to let go of the inboard end and allow the entire cable to run out.
33. slanging: abusing in foul language.
34. goods: what is expected or required; the real thing.
35. struck all of a heap: suddenly astonished.
36. sawder: flattery; wheedling talk.
37. to come any of their native ideas over me: “to come over” or “come it over one” is to get the better of someone by craft or guile.
38. put my monkey up: rouse one’s passion or ill temper.
39. They have a down on you: “to have a down on” means to dislike, to regard with suspicion or alarm.
40. bacon: body.
41. mummy-apple: mammee apple, a tropical fruit that grows well in Hawaii.
42. Beach de Mar: the jargon or pidgin of the Western Pacific.
43. beachcomber: a contemptuous term for someone who hangs about the shore on the lookout for jobs; chiefly applied to runaway seamen and deserters from whalers who lived along the beaches in South America and the South Seas.
44. Apia and Papeete: port centers of Samoa and Tahiti where beachcombers and rough seamen congregated.
45. flash: low and vulgar; pertaining to thieves and criminals.
46. “Ioe”: Yes.
47. cut up downright rough: become obstreperous and dangerous.
48. sweep: a contemptuous term for a low or disreputable man.
49. bunged: thrown with force.
50. “Aué!”: Alas!
51. flying: circulating as a rumor, without definite authority.
52. buffer: a good-humored or liberal old man.
53. big don and the funny dog: “don” is a distinguished man, a leader; also, an adept; “funny dog” is a gay or jovial man; a good fellow.
54. obstropulous: a corrupt variant of obstreperous.
55. pot-hunting: a hunter shooting anything he comes across, having more regard to filling his bag than to the rules of the sport.
56. skylarked: fooled around, engaged in rough sport or horseplay.
57. cracked on: added sail in a strong wind.
58. gone up: gone to heaven, i.e., dead.
59. woundy: an intensifier signifying extremely or excessively (obsolete).
60. Tyrolean harp: Aeolian harp: a stringed instrument adapted to produce musical sounds on exposure to a current of air.
61. bum: cry.
62. plant: a hidden store of goods or valuables.
63. clapped down: sat down suddenly or abruptly.
64. sick: spiritually or morally unsound or corrupt (obsolete).
65. trick: business; dealings.
THE BOTTLE IMP
1. Prester John: a legendary Christian king and priest of the Middle Ages whose kingdom (believed to be in either Asia or Africa) was associated with marvelous tales.
2. Chinese Evil: Hawaiian has no word for leprosy; ma’i Pake literally means “Chinese disease.”
3. the smitten: Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, was the site of Hawaii’s leper colony.
4. Berger: Henry Berger (1844–1929), composer, arranger, and bandmaster of the Royal Hawaiian Military Band.
5. the true helper after all: Kōkua means help or helper in Hawaiian.
6. a flat: a fool; a dim-witted person.
THE ISLE OF VOICES
1. Lehua: The flower of the ōhia tree as well as the tree itself, the lehua is now the official flower of the island of Hawaii.
2. Kamehameha: Kamehameha I (1758–1819) united the Hawaiian islands in 1809. “Kamehameha the First, founder of the realm of the Eight Islands, was a man properly entitled to the style of Great” (Robert Louis Stevenson, The South Seas, in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, vol. 9 [New York: P. F. Collier, 1912], 171).
3. the directory: Alexander Findlay, A Directory for the Navigation of the South Pacific Ocean, 5th ed. (London, 1884).
4. it was just such a night as this: “The moon shines bright. In such a night as this …” (The Merchant of Venice, 5.1.1).
5. steep-to: said of a coast or shore that rises abruptly from the water.
6. ramping: to sail swiftly.
7. payed off: the movement by which a ship’s head falls off from the wind and drops to leeward.
8. Donat-Kimaran: a minor government official whom Stevenson met in the Paumotu islands, or the Dangerous Archipelago: “my friend Mr. Donat—Donat-Rimarau, ‘Donat the much handed’—acting Vice-Resident, present ruler of the archipelago, by far the man of chief importance on the scene, but known besides for one of an unshakable good temper” (Stevenson, South Seas, 128).
9. cried fair: a fair proclaimed in advance by public announcement.
10. by-day: a day out of the ordinary course, incidental, apart from major events.
UNCOLLECTED STORIES
AN OLD SONG
1. raciest: the liveliest, the most exhilarating.
2. pink: the most perfect condition or degree; the height, extreme.
3. bate an ace: to make the slightest abatement, i.e., to make any effort to diminish or moderate.
4. paltered: equivocated; lied; dealt evasively.
5. talent: treasure, riches.
6. fanfaronade: swaggering or empty boasting; bluster.
7. plump: bluntly, directly, in plain terms.
8. providence generally does: providence here meaning a disastrous accident, or fatality, regarded as an act of God (obsolete or dialectal).
9. panniers: large baskets carried in pairs over the back of a beast of burden.
THE STORY OF A LIE
1. declension: deterioration.
2. carronades: short cannons chiefly used on ships.
3. coup d’œil: “stroke of the eye,” a glance that takes in a wide view.
4. done: cheated (slang).
5. buckrammed: made rigid; stiffened, as if with buckram.
6. integuments: coverings, coatings.
7. freemasonry: natural sympathy (i.e., between those with the same passion).
8. siruping: variant of syrup.
9. décavé: cleaned out, ruined, beggared.
10. bum-baily: contemptuous term for bailiff, sheriff’s deputy.
11. let out all my cats: disclose all my secrets.
12. till all’s blue: until we are very drunk.
13. spinney: a small wood or grove.
14. nutting: the act of gathering nuts.
15. rip: a reckless, dissolute person; a libertine.
THE BODY-SNATCHER
1. camlet: a fine fabric of silk and wool.
2. mazily: dizzily, confusedly.
3. canted: mouthed pieties.
4. fillip: a smart blow, usually with the fist (rare).
5. out at elbows: ragged, poor.
6. wynd: a narrow street or passage.
7. Irish voices: the historical models for the body-snatchers, William Burke and William Hare, emigrated from Ireland to Scotland (Gelder, 284).
8. Bashaw: earlier form of pasha.
9. cras tibi: hodie mihi, cras tibi—it is my lot today, yours tomorrow (a line often found in old epitaphs).
10. precentor: one who directs the singing of a choir or congregation.
11. by-name: a secondary name; a nickname.
12. gig: a light carriage that has one pair of wheels and is drawn by one horse.
13. ululations: howls, wails; cries of lamentation.
THE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN NICHOLSON
1. sows the wind: to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind: proverbial, to labor in vain, or in Sir Walter Scott’s words, “indiscriminate profusion.”
2. Candlish and Begg: Edinburgh ministers (Gelder, 287).
3. right-hand defections or left-hand extremes: a veiled allusion to Patrick Walker, the uncompromising historian of the early Covenanters (Gelder, 287–88).
4. pop: pawn (slang).
5. knock: piece of bad luck.
6. arch-shebeener: A shebeen is an unlicensed or illegally operated saloon or bar.
7. shebeening: the illegal selling of liquor.
8. peri: in Persian folklore, an elf or fairy, originally regarded as evil but later as benevolent and even beautiful.
9. rooked: cheated, swindled.
10. abortion: a malformed or misshapen person.
11. vesta: a short wooden match.
12. on the randan: on a spree.
13. jarvey: cabdriver.
14. fetor: stench; offensive smell.
15. derision: an object of ridicule, a laughingstock.
16. taking heart of grace: to pluck up courage (proverbial).
17. combe: a hollow, usually on the flank of a hill.
18. took the pet: took offence, sulked.
19. chap-fallen: crestfallen; dejected, dispirited.
20. muff: a bungler, without skill or aptitude.