A Boyhood in Scotland 



darkest comers of the house, and oftentimes 

 a long search was required to find me. But after 

 we were a few years older, we enjoyed bathing 

 with other boys as we wandered along the shore, 

 careful, however, not to get into a pool that 

 had an invisible boy-devouring monster at the 

 bottom of it. Such pools, miniature maelstroms, 

 were called "sookin-in-goats" and were well 

 known to most of us. Nevertheless we never 

 ventured into any pool on strange parts of the 

 coast before we had thrust a stick into it. If 

 the stick were not pulled out of our hands, we 

 boldly entered and enjoyed plashing and duck- 

 ing long ere we had learned to swim. 



One of our best playgrounds was the famous 

 old Dunbar Castle, to which King Edward fled 

 after his defeat at Bannockburn. It was built 

 more than a thousand years ago, and though 

 we knew little of its history, we had heard 

 many mysterious stories of the battles fought 

 about its walls, and firmly believed that every 

 bone we found in the ruins belonged to an 

 ancient warrior. We tried to see who could 

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