e for his boy, Bill, so you may get ready to travel back
with him next week, when the vacation finishes."

In those days (how long ago I almost blush to record) Catholics were
not allowed access to our own universities as they now are, and we
Flemings were Catholics to the core, and of old staunch Jacobites, as
befitted our Scottish race and name.

So Bill Atfield took me under his wing, and to Bonn I went the very
next week. There I remained until the end of my course, returning home
for vacations, as a rule, but ending up with a week or two, in company
with Dad, in Paris, whither Val had gone for his philosophy. But such
rare meetings became rarer still when Val went off to Rome, and I had
to take up a profession; and our separation was apparently destined to
last indefinitely when Val had been ordained, and I went out to India
after a civil service appointment.

And yet so kindly at times is Fate that, quite beyond my most ardent
hopes, I have been thrown together with Val, in daily companionship, as
long as life permits.

For, as it fell out, I was invalided home at quite an early stage of my
public career, and, contrary to all family traditions, disgraced my kin
by contracting lung disease--at least, so the doctors have declared,
though I have experienced very little inconvenience thereby, except
that of being condemned to act the invalid for the rest of my life.
For years I was forced by arbitrary decrees to winter in clement
climes, as the only means of surviving till the spring; but now that I
am fifty I have emancipated myself from such slavery, and insist on
spending winter as well as summer in "bonnie Scotland." So far I have
found no difference in health and strength. Thus it came about that a
long visit to Val lengthened out indefinitely, and is not likely to
terminate until one or other of us is removed hence.

The _ego_ appears rather prominently in these introductory paragraphs,
it is true, but it was almost unavoidable; for my presence had to be
accounted for in Ardmuirland before I could give reminiscences of this
delightful spot. Now, however, I am free to speak of other folks; and
first of dear old Val.

It was a long and arduous apprenticeship (if it is not irreverent so to
style it) which Val had to pass in order to fit himself for priestly
work; he was curate for I know not how many years in a large and
extremely poor mission in one of our big towns. He worked well and
thoroughly, as