A MINSTREL IN FRANCE

CHAPTER I

Yon days! Yon palmy, peaceful days! I go back to them, and they are
as a dream. I go back to them again and again, and live them over.
Yon days of another age, the age of peace, when no man dared even to
dream of such times as have come upon us.

It was in November of 1913, and I was setting forth upon a great
journey, that was to take me to the other side of the world before I
came back again to my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon. My wife
was going with me, and my brother-in-law, Tom Valiance, for they go
everywhere with me. But my son John was coming with us only to
Glasgow, and then, when we set out for Liverpool and the steamer that
was to bring us to America he was to go back to Cambridge. He was
near done there, the bonnie laddie. He had taken his degree as
Bachelor of Arts, and was to set out soon upon a trip around the
world.

Was that no a fine plan I had made for my son? That great voyage he
was to have, to see the world and all its peoples! It was proud I was
that I could give it to him. He was--but it may be I'll tell you more
of John later in this book!

My pen runs awa' with me, and my tongue, too, when I think of my boy
John.

We came to the pier at Dunoon, and there she lay, the little ferry
steamer, the black smoke curling from her stack straight up to God.
Ah, the braw day it was! There was a frosty sheen upon the heather,
and the Clyde was calm as glass. The tops of the hills were coated
with snow, and they stood out against the horizon like great big
sugar loaves.