thinking of the long whiles before I'd be seeing them again. And then
all my goodbys were said, and we went aboard, and my voyage had begun.

I looked back at the hills and the heather, and I thought of all I
was to do and see before I saw those hills again. I was going half
way round the world and back again. I was going to wonderful places
to see wonderful things and curious faces. But oftenest the thought
came to me, as I looked at my son, that him I would see again before
I saw the heather and the hills and all the friends and the relations
I was leaving behind me. For on his trip around the world he was to
meet us in Australia! It was easier to leave him, easier to set out,
knowing that, thinking of that!

Wonderful places I went to, surely. And wonderful things I saw and
heard. But the most wonderful thing of all that I was to see or hear
upon that voyage I did not dream of nor foresee. How was a mortal man
to foresee? How was he to dream of it?

Could I guess that the very next time I set out from Dunoon pier the
peaceful Clyde would be dotted with patrol boats, dashing hither and
thither! Could I guess that everywhere there would be boys in khaki,
and women weeping, and that my boy, John----! Ah, but I'll not tell
you of that now.

Peaceful the Clyde had been, and peaceful was the Mersey when we
sailed from Liverpool for New York. I look back on yon voyage--the
last I took that way in days of peace. Next time! Destroyers to guard
us from the Hun and his submarines, and to lay us a safe course
through the mines. And sailor boys, about their guns, watching,
sweeping the sea every minute for the flash of a sneaking pirate's