My Boyhood and Youth 



seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the 

 rocks when the tide was low; and best of all 

 to watch the waves in awful storms thundering 

 on the black headlands and craggy ruins of the 

 old Dunbar Castle when the sea and the sky, 

 the waves and the clouds, were mingled to- 

 gether as one. We never thought of playing 

 truant, but after I was five or six years old I 

 ran away to the seashore or the fields almost 

 every Saturday, and every day in the school 

 vacations except Sundays, though solemnly 

 warned that I must play at home in the garden 

 and back yard, lest I should learn to think bad 

 thoughts and say bad words. All in vain. In 

 spite of the sure sore punishments that followed 

 like shadows, the natural inherited wildness in 

 our blood ran true on its glorious course as 

 invincible and unstoppable as stars. 



My earliest recollections of the country were 

 gained on short walks with my grandfather 

 when I was perhaps not over three years old. 

 On one of these walks grandfather took me to 

 Lord Lauderdale's gardens, where I saw figs 

 [2 ] 



