93 



THE BLOODY DOCTOR 

 (a bad day on clearburn) 



HOU askest me, my brother, 

 how first and where I met 

 the Bloody Doctor ? The tale 

 is weird, so weird that to a 

 soul less proved than thine I 

 scarce dare speak of the adventure. 



This, perhaps, would be the right way of begin- 

 ning a story (not that it is a story exactly), with the 

 titleforced on me by the name and nature of thehero. 

 But I do not think I could keep up the style withbut 

 a lady-collaborator ; besides, I have used the term 

 ' weird ' twice already, and thus played away the 

 trumps of modern picturesque diction. To return 



