A story which shows Stevenson''s powder of vividly descriptive writing at perhaps its highest level, but one which, as a story, has been variously criticized. It was written in the Highlands in 1881, the year after his marriage, as one of a series of tales of horror ('' crawlers,'' as he called them), planned in collaboration with his wife. Aros of the story is the tidal islet of Earraid, famous under its own name in Kidnapped ; the Ross of Grisapol is the Ross of Mull ; and Ben Ryan, Ben More. The name of the Merry Men is plainly taken from the Merry Men of Mey, as sailors call certain rocks in the dangerous channels of the Pentland Firth. In writing what he called '' a fantastic sonata of the sea and wrecks '' Stevenson seems to have adopted a more complex and subtle scheme than was commonly his plan of construction, which perhaps is the reason why the tale is pronounced good or bad by the critics according to their discernment of its motive.
