The Heathen

“He Abuses Me for a Heathen Man”

The letter that begins this story is dated 12th July 1894 and was written from Crockett's home at Bank House in Penicuik to Dan Mowat, a Glasgow book collector. The subject, at first, is books. Then, near the top of the letter, he raises something new. 

“Some day I think you must teach me to play golf. I stay at St.A with Lang pretty often and he abuses me for a heathen man and a publican for not playing. I tell him I don’t believe he can play much — only enough to impose on a novice. Some day I shall see a real player to teach me and then I shall give him a hole; I think (providentially) you must be the man.” 

The tone is characteristic: amused, gently competitive, not quite serious. The Andrew Lang referred to is the writer, folklorist, and St Andrews man who had been among the earliest champions of Crockett’s fiction, supporting his work in Longman’s Magazine that same spring. The two were friends — Lang appears affectionately fictionalised as “Mr Sagaman” in Sweetheart Travellers (1896) — and Lang’s influence on Crockett’s growing interest in medieval Scottish history is visible in the novels of these years.

The same letter, almost as an afterthought, lists five forthcoming publications across the next twelve months. This was the year Crockett became a bestseller. Golf, for the moment, was something he had never tried.