Bab Bab 1 · BOOK I CHAPTER I

As far back as I can remember I have faithfully followed the banner of

Romance. It has given colour to my life, made me a dreamer of dreams, a

player of parts. As a boy, roaming alone the wild heather hills, I have

heard the glad shouts of the football players on the green, yet never

ettled to join them. Mine was the richer, rarer joy. Still can I see

myself in those days, a little shy-mannered lad in kilts, bareheaded to

the hill breezes, with health-bright cheeks, and a soul happed up in

dreams.

And, indeed, I lived in an enchanted land, a land of griffins and

kelpies, of princesses and gleaming knights. From each black tarn I

looked to see a scaly reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby

emerge. There were green spaces among the heather where the fairies

danced, and every scaur and linn had its own familiar spirit. I peopled

the good green wood with the wild creatures of my thought, nymph and

faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise surprised to meet

in the leafy coolness the great god Pan himself.

It was at night, however, that my dreams were most compelling. I strove

against the tyranny of sleep. Lying in my small bed, I revelled in

delectable imaginings. Night after night I fought battles, devised

pageants, partitioned empires. I gloried in details. My rugged

war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures sounded many periods

of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone; I was a Roman

soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion. Always I

fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel. I

feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick

Turpin on the gibbet-haunted heath; I followed Morgan, the Buccaneer,

into strange and exotic lands of trial and treasure. It was a wonderful

gift of visioning that was mine in those days. It was the bird-like

flight of the pure child-mind to whom the unreal is yet the real.

Then, suddenly, I arrived at a second phase of my mental growth in which

fancy usurped the place of imagination. The modern equivalents of

Romance attracted me, and, with my increasing grasp of reality, my gift

of vision faded. As I had hitherto dreamed of knight-errants, of

corsairs and of outlaws, I now dreamed of cowboys, of gold-seekers, of

beach-combers. Fancy painted scenes in which I, too, should play a

rousing part. I read avidly all I could find dealing with the Far West,

and ever my wistful gaze roved over the grey sea. The spirit of Romance

beaconed to me. I, too, would adventure in the stranger lands, and face

their perils and brave their dangers. The joy of the thought exulted in

my veins, and scarce could I bide the day when the roads of chance and

change would be open to my feet.

It is strange that in all these years I confided in no one. Garry, who

was my brother and my dearest friend, would have laughed at me in that

affectionate way of his. You would never have taken us for brothers. We

were so different in temperament and appearance that we were almost the

reverse of each other. He was the handsomest boy I have ever seen,

frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour and none too

well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish, and the

idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found

somewhere among the heather hills, always by my lone self, and nearly

always with a story book in my pocket. He was clever, practical and

ambitious, excelling in all his studies; whereas, except in those which

appealed to my imagination, I was a dullard and a dreamer.

Yet we loved each others as few brothers do. Oh, how I admired him! He

was my ideal, and too often the hero of my romances. Garry would have

laughed at my hero-worship; he was so matter-of-fact, effective and

practical. Yet he understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy

reserve which is the armour of a sensitive soul. Garry in his fine

clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered me. He was so buoyant and

charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and braced you like a

morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother, Garry knew

me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It seems

overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour,

enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young god--all that was

manfully endearing was expressed in this brother of mine.

So we grew to manhood there in that West Highland country, and surely

our lives were pure and simple and sweet. I had never been further from

home than the little market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed

the estate till Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour

and grasp that delighted every one. I think our little Mother stood

rather in awe of my keen, capable, energetic brother. There was in her a

certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made her beautiful in my eyes, and

to look on she was as fair as any picture. Specially do I remember the

delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue like deep

corn-flowers. She was not overstrong, and took much comfort from

religion. Her lips, which were fine and sensitive, had a particularly

sweet expression, and I wish to record of her that never once did I see

her cross, always sweet, gentle, smiling.

Thus our home was an ideal one; Garry, tall, fair and winsome; myself,

dark, dreamy, reticent; and between us, linking all three in a perfect

bond of love and sympathy, our gentle, delicate Mother.