he peace and the restfulness of the
Highlands, the charm of the heather and the hills, the long, lazy
days with my rod, whipping some favorite stream--ah, they made me
happy for a moment, but they could not make me forget! My duty called
me back, and the thought of war, and suffering, and there were
moments when it seemed to me that nothing could keep me from plunging
again into the work I had set out to do.

In those days I was far too restless to be taking my ease at home, in
my wee hoose at Dunoon. A thousand activities called me. The rest had
been necessary; I had had to admit that, and to obey my doctor, for I
had been feeling the strain of my long continued activity, piled up,
as it was, on top of my grief and care. And yet I was eager to be off
and about my work again.

I did not want to go back to the same work I had been doing. No! I
was still a young man. I was younger than men and officers who were
taking their turn in the trenches. I was but forty-six years old, and
there was a lot of life and snap in the old dog yet! My life had been
rightly lived. As a young man I had worked in a pit, ye ken, and that
had given me a strength in my back and my legs that would have served
me well in the trenches. War, these days, means hard work as well as
fighting--more, indeed. War is a business, a great industry, now.
There is all manner of work that must be done at the front and right
behind it. Aye, and I was eager to be there and to be doing my share
of it--and not for the first time.

Many a time, and often, I had broached my idea of being allowed to
enlist, e'en before the Huns killed my boy. But they would no listen
to me. They told me, each time, that there was more and better work
for me to do at hame in Britain, spurring others on, cheering them
when they came back maimed and broken, getting the country to put its
shoulder to the wheel when it came to subscribing to the war loans
and all the rest of it. And it seemed to me that it was not for me to
decide; that I must obey those who were better in a position to judge
than I could be.

I went down south to England, and I talked again of enlisting and
trying to get a crack at those who had killed my boy. And again my
friends refused to listen to me.

"Why, Harry," they said to me--and not my own friends, only, but men
highly placed enough to make me know that I must pay heed to what
they said--"you must not think of it! If you enlisted, or if we got
you a co