2110-4-3-23

will secure your book the success it deserves & I wish you bumper sales here & in the U.S.A.

The other day as I was sitting in church trying to be comfortable a proportion occurred to me The Sea Rig: a week day : : Invocation: Sabbath neither particularly old tunes nor particularly beautiful but in tune with Scottish sentiment.

Yours ever

Stair A. Gillon.

14 CARLTON TERRACE, EDINBURGH.

11th Sept. 1923

My dear John,

many thanks for returning my M.S. and for your kindly criticism thereof. I may take your advice but it would be wise I think to recast the form and cite my authorities as well as the statements which I think are erroneous. I keep on forgetting that Mar's Regiment was the Scots Fusiliers but this time your reminder came to stay. I must read your book on the regiment.

Let me congratulate you on Midwinter. It gave me some nasty squirms when the gipsy was left alone with Alastair. I am not going to drag you into a correspondence so we must reserve for our next meeting the many points of historical interest, such as

the character of Kitty, Johnson as a young man (His pugilistic achievement reminded me of "un duel" in one of Maupassant's), the prospects of the West rising etc. etc. Mr Kyd & his man are a bonny pair. In one point you have fairly beaten me. I can't make out whether "Old England" is J.B. or has a historic basis. I suppose in 1745-6 one could go from Northumberland to Portland without leaving forest or waste & with no more contact with road or path than an occasional crossing. Although I hope it will be soon I hope our meeting will give me time for a re-read - this time not for the excitement of the story but for the appreciation of the characters & the setting. I must sip Otmoor & Cornbury over my sherry. But I should think that the far more important section of the reading public - the novel readers -