winter as well. It ever remained one of his favorite spots and with
Colinton stood out as a place that meant much in his life.

[Illustration: Swanston Cottage]

These years saw great change in him; from a frank and happy child he had
grown into a lonely, moody boy making few friends and shunning the
social life that his father's position in Edinburgh offered him. He
describes himself as a "lean, ugly, unpopular student," but those who
knew him never applied the term "ugly" to him at any time.

At Swanston he explored the hills alone and grew to know them so well
that the Pentland country ever remained vividly in his memory and found
its way into many of his stories, notably "St. Ives," where he describes
Swanston as it was when they first made it their summer home.

Many solitary winter evenings he spent there rereading his favorite
novels, particularly Dumas's "Vicomte de Bragelonne," which always
pleased him. "Shakespeare has served me best," he said. "Few living
friends have had upon me an influence so strong for good as Hamlet or
Rosalind. Perhaps my dearest and best friend outside of Shakespeare is
D'Artagnan, the elderly D'Artagnan of the 'Vicomte de Bragelonne.'

"I would return in the early night from one of my patrols with the
shepherd, a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly
retriever scurry up stairs to fetch my slippers, and I would sit down
with the Vicomte for a long, silent, solitary lamp-lit evening by the
fire."

At Swanston he first began to really write, "bad poetry," he says, and