rivate quarrels and
dissensions. It is evident that, the kind uncle being dead and affairs
in general so little propitious, there would be little chance in the
resources of the farm of securing further university training for the
boy who had his own way to make somehow in the world; and perhaps his
experience of Paris and possession of the French language (no
inconsiderable advantage when there were so many French adventurers and
hangers on about the Court) might be expected to give him chances of
promotion; while his service perhaps exempted an elder brother, of more
use than he upon the farm, from needful service, when his feudal lord
called out his men on the summons of the Regent.

[5] I must explain that this chapter was written before the publication
of the recent, and I believe excellent, biography of Buchanan by Mr. P.
Hume.

[Illustration: NORTH DOORWAY, HERIOT'S HOSPITAL]

George Buchanan accordingly followed the Laird's flag upon one of the
wildest and most fruitless of Albany's expeditions to the Border, for
the siege of Wark. The great Border stronghold, the size and wonderful
proportions of which astonished the Scots army, stands forth again,
clear as when it first struck his boyish imagination, in the description
which Buchanan gives of it nearly half a century later in his history of
that time--where the reader can still see the discomfited army with its
distracted captains and councils, and futile leader, straggling back
through the deep snow, each gloomy band finding its way as best it could
to its own district. Buchanan would seem to have had enough of fighting;
and perhaps he had succeeded in proving to his relatives that neither
arms nor agriculture were his vocation; for we next find him on his way
to St. Andrews, "to hear John Major who was then teaching dialectics or
rather sophistry." Here he would seem to have studied for two years;
taking his degree in 1525 at the age of nineteen. After this he followed
Major to France, whether for love of his master, or with the idea that
Major's interest as a doctor of the Sorbonne might help him to find
employment in Paris, we are not told. One of the many stories to his
prejudice which were current in his after-career describes Buchanan as
dependent on Major and ungrateful to him, repaying with a cruel epigram
the kindness shown him. But there seems absolutely no foundation for
this accusation which was probably suggested to after-detractors anxious
for