A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN

THE PRAYER p. 16

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOYD & PUBLISHED AT LONDON BY CHATTO & WINDUS MCMIX

First Illustrated Edition published 1898, and a Second Impression in the same year. New Edition in 1907; and with Coloured Frontispiece in 1909.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO

THE MEMORY OF

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

BY

THE ILLUSTRATOR

A Lowden Sabbath Morn

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

AUTHOR'S NOTE

It may be guessed by some that I had a certain parish in my eye, and this makes it proper I should add a word of disclamation. In my time there have been two ministers in that parish. Of the first I have a special reason to speak well, even had there been any to think ill. The second I have often met in private and long (in the due phrase) "sat under" in his church, and neither here nor there have I heard an unkind or ugly word upon his lips. The preacher of the text had thus no original in that particular parish; but when I was a boy he might have been observed in many others; he was then (like the schoolmaster) abroad; and by recent advices, it would seem he has not yet entirely disappeared.

ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTE

I am not certain of the particular parish Stevenson had in his mind when he wrote this poem, but I am certain that the description is typical of almost any Scottish rural parish, Lowden (that is, Lothian) or other. In illustrating the verses it has seemed to me, therefore, unnecessary to make portraits from any one locality. I fancy the writer looked back to the period of his boyhood and to the people he knew in more than one part of his native country, so I have tried to depict that period and that class of people as I remember them in various counties of his land and mine.

A. S. B.