The beginning of Master Raymond's story

For those of you who are not excerpt-avoiders, here is something interesting that Diana Gabaldon posted on Compuserve yesterday: the beginning of the Master Raymond book!

Diana introduced it as follows:

Here's the beginning of Master Raymond's first book--I'm not _working_ on it, mind; it just decided to pop up yesterday while I _was_ working on something else. <g>

Please note: I have not actually peeked at this excerpt myself, except for the first sentence, which I'd seen some months ago. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to read this excerpt or not. If you want to comment on the specifics of this or any other excerpt from one of Diana's unpublished books or stories, you can post on Compuserve. Thanks.