said he, in
low tones, "that he's a lord." And a lord he was; a peer of the realm
pacing that inhospitable beach with his Greek Testament, and his plaid
about his shoulders, set upon doing good, as he understood it, worthy
man! And his grandson, a good-looking little boy, much better dressed
than the lordly evangelist, and speaking with a silken English accent
very foreign to the scene, accompanied me for a while in my exploration
of the island. I suppose this little fellow is now my lord, and wonder
how much he remembers of the Fair Isle. Perhaps not much; for he seemed
to accept very quietly his savage situation; and under such guidance, it
is like that this was not his first nor yet his last adventure.

II

RANDOM MEMORIES

II. THE EDUCATION OF AN ENGINEER

Anstruther is a place sacred to the Muse; she inspired (really to a
considerable extent) Tennant's vernacular poem "Anster Fair"; and I have
there waited upon her myself with much devotion. This was when I came as
a young man to glean engineering experience from the building of the
breakwater. What I gleaned, I am sure I do not know; but indeed I had
already my own private determination to be an author; I loved the art of
words and the appearances of life; and _travellers_, and _headers_, and
_rubble_, and _polished ashlar_, and _pierres perdues_, and even the
thrilling question of the _string-course_, interested me only (if they
interested me at all) as properties for some possible romance or as
words to add to my vocabulary. To grow a little catholic is the
compensation of years; youth is one-eyed; and in those days, though I
haunted the breakwater by day, and even loved the place for the sake of
the sunshine, the thrilling seaside air, the wash of waves on the
sea-face, the green glimmer of the divers' helmets far below, and the
musical chinking of the masons, my one genuine pre-occupation lay
elsewhere, and my only industry was in the hours when I was not on duty.
I lodged with a certain Bailie Brown, a carpenter by trade; and there,
as soon as dinner was despatched, in a chamber scented with dry
rose-leaves, drew in my chair to the table and proceeded to pour forth
literature, at such a speed, and with such intimations of early death
and immortality, as I now look back upon with wonder. Then it was that
I wrote "Voces Fidelium," a series of dramatic monologues in verse; then
that I indited the bulk of a covenanting novel--like so many others,