With Apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson




I never heard from many of my schoolmates again. The things that we hid in the woods 

still lie there, for all that I know, and the castle still carries many of the marks that we 

made. Sometimes, in a dream, I can hear the surf booming below the parapets and the 

cries of the sea-gulls between the turrets. I smell again the heady mixture of brine and 

woodland air. Then I start upright in bed with the cries of the sea-gulls ringing in my ears 

and still believe that I am there...