rther know my new, my marvellous self.

Yes, that first day! It was Autumn, but only early Autumn. The leaves
were changing colour upon the birch trees, upon the rowans. At dawn,
mists stood round to shield the toilet of the rising sun. At evening,
they thronged together like a pale troop of shadowy mutes to assist at
his departure to the under world. It was a misty season, through which
the bracken upon the hillsides of my Carlounie glowed furtively in
tints of brown and of orange; and my mind, my whole being, seemed to
move in mists. I was just twenty-two, an orphan, master of my estate of
Carlounie, a Scotch laird, and my own governor. And some idiots envied
me then, as many begin to envy me now. I even remember one ghastly old
man who clapped me on the shoulder, and, with the addition of an
unnecessary oath, swore that I was "a lucky youngster." I, with my thin,
chetif body, my burning, weakly, starved, and yet ambitious soul--lucky!
I remember that I broke into a harsh laugh, and longed to kill the
babbling beast.

And it was the next day, in the afternoon, that I took that book--my
Bible--and went forth alone to the long den in which the burn hides and
cries its presence. Yes, I took Goethe's "Faust," and my own complaining
spirit, and went out into the mist with my misty, clouded mind. My
cousin Gavin wanted me to go out shooting. He laughed and rallied me
upon my ill-luck on the previous day, when I had gone out and been the
joke of my own keepers because I had missed every bird; and I turned and
railed at him, and told him to leave me to myself. And, as I went, I
heard him muttering, "That wretched little fellow! To think that he
should be owner of Carlounie!" Now, he sings another tune.

With "Faust" in my hand, and hatred in my heart, I went out into the
delicately chilly air, down the winding ways of the garden, through the
creaking iron gateway. I emerged on to the wilder land, irregular,
grass-covered ground, strewn with grey granite boulders, among which
coarse, wiry ferns grew sturdily. The blackfaced sheep whisked their
broad tails at me as I passed, then stooped their ever-greedy mouths to
their damp and eternal meal again. I heard the thin and distant cry of a
hawk, poised somewhere up in the mist. The hills, clothed in the
death-like glory of the bracken, loomed around me, like some phantom,
tricked-out procession passing through desolate places. And then I heard
the voice of the burn--that voice w