Mamma's death, when the weekly letter from him took the place of hers,
and never stopped till I came home."

At Rugby, Donald was accounted a dreamer. Without the outlet he
had hitherto had for his confidences and his thoughts no doubt the
tendency to dream grew upon him. "Behold this dreamer cometh," was
actually said of him by one of his masters.

Nevertheless there were happy times when youth asserted itself and
boyish friendships were made. In work he did well, for he entered the
sixth form at the early age of 16½, and was thereby enabled, though he
left young, to have his name painted up "in hall" below those of his
three brothers, and also on his "study" door which belonged to each of
the four in turn.

He entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, straight from
Rugby, and before he was seventeen. We have his word for it that
he was spiritually very unhappy there, finding evils with which he
was impotent to grapple, going up as he did so young from school
and before he had had time to acquire a "games" reputation--that
all-important qualification for a boy if he wishes to influence
his fellows. Nevertheless youthful spirits were bound to triumph
sometimes. He was a perfectly sound and healthy, well-grown boy and a
friend who was with him at "the Shop" says he can remember no apparent
trace of unhappiness, and is full of tales of his jokes and his fun,
his quaint caricatures and doggerel rhymes, his love of flowers and
nature, his hospitalities, and his joy in getting his friends to meet
and know and like each other. Though he made no mark at Woolwich he
did carry off the prize for the best essay on the South African War.
With it he made his first appearance in print, for it was printed in