s, though
modified by a keener perception and a broader intelligence, affected
him as he grew older. There were a few books available to him; and
what a reader he was, and what a listener! His father would sometimes
read aloud at night from current weeklies, and then the boy would
sprawl along the floor, his feet toward the great fireplace, his head
upon a rolled-up sheepskin, and drink in every word. "East Lynne" was
running as a serial then, and he would have given all his worldly
possessions to have had Sir Francis Levison alone in the wood, and had
his spear, and at his back some half-dozen of the boys whom he could
name. In some publication, too, at about that time, appeared the tale
of the adventures of Captain Gardiner and Captain Daggett in antarctic
wastes, seeking the sea-lions' skins, and the story of pluckiness and
awful trial affected his imagination deeply. Years afterward, when he
himself was at death's portal once, because of a grievous injury, and
when ice was bound upon his head to keep away the fever from his brain,
he imagined in his delirium that he was Captain Gardiner, and called
aloud the orders to the crew which he had heard read when a boy, and
which had so long lain in his memory's storehouse among the
unconsidered lumber.

The boy's reading included all there was in his home, and the small
collection was not a bad one. "Chambers' Miscellany" was in the
accidental lot, and good for him it was. "Chambers' Miscellany" is
better reading than much that is given to the world to-day, and the boy
rioted in the adventure-flavored tales and sketches. Scott's poetical
works were there, and Shakespeare, but the latter was read only for the
story of the play, and "Titus Andronicus" outranked even "Hamlet" among
the tragedies. As for Scott, the stirring rhymes had marked effect,
and this had one curious sequence. Tales of the lance and tilting have
ever captivated boys, and Grant was no exception. Alf did not read so
much, was of a nature less imaginative, and his younger brother,
Valentine, read not at all, but among them was enacted a great scene of
chivalry which ended almost in a tragedy. Grant, his mind absorbed in
jousting and its laurels, explained the thing to Alf and induced him to
read the tales of various encounters. Alf was more or less affected by
the literature and ready to do his share toward making each of them a
proper warrior fit for any fray. They considered the situation w