At the river’s mouth a wraith lay upon the sand bar misting the lines of drying nets, the masts of smacks inside the harbour pointing upwards, brittle and motionless. High stone ramparts still ringed this Border burgh, with captured Crimean cannon making perches for the gulls as they pecked at partan crabs. Down the slope of the northern Scottish bank tumbled the town of Tweedside, its tiled roofs a crazy quilt of pink and yellow, masking the maze of cobbled streets.

He preferred this way despite his infirmities to the less arduous ascent of Mercat Wynd and having reached the narrow door of his walled-in garden he paused with a kind of naïve triumph – recovering his breath, contemplating the view he had always loved.īeneath him was the River Tweed, a great wide sweep of placid silver tinted by the low saffron smudge of autumn sunset. Late one afternoon in September 1938 old Father Francis Chisholm limped up the steep path from the church of St Columba to his house upon the hill. Cronin include: The Stars Look Down, The Citadel, Three Loves, The Green Years, Beyond This Place, and The Keys of the Kingdom. In 1931 he published his first book, Hatter’s Castle, which was compared with the work of Dickens, Hardy and Balzac, winning him critical acclaim. He moved to London and built up a successful practice in the West End. He was later appointed to the Ministry of Mines, studying the medical problems of the mining industry. In 1916 he served as a surgeon sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteers Reserve, and at the war’s end he completed his medical studies and practiced in South Wales. Cronin studied at the University of Glasgow. We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.īorn in Cardross, Scotland, A. Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.Īt Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

The keys of the kingdom by aj cronin