The Red Axe(1898), by S. R. Crockett (illustrated)

Samuel Rutherford Crockett (24 September 1859 - 16 April 1914), who published under the name "S. R. Crockett," was a Scottish novelist.He was born at Duchrae, Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire, on 24 September 1859, the illegitimate son of dairymaid Annie Crocket. He was raised on his grandfather's Galloway farm, won a bursary to Edinburgh University in 1876, and graduated from there during 1879. After some years of travel, he became in 1886 minister of Penicuik. During that year he produced his first publication, Dulce Cor (Latin: Sweet Heart), a collection of verse under the pseudonym Ford Brereton. He eventually abandoned the Free Church ministry for full-time novel-writing in 1895.Crockett was well travelled in Europe and beyond, spending time in most European countries and he wrote several novels of European history including The Red Axe (1898), A Tatter of Scarlet (1913), and the non fiction The Adventurer in Spain (1903) which holds its own against Robert Louis Stevenson's travel writing.