to which at length a local tragedy appertained. The scene was laid in
Spain or Portugal and the hero of the story was a very gallant
character, indeed, one to be relied upon for the accomplishment of
great slaughter in an emergency, but who was singularly unlucky in his
love affair, in the outcome of which Grant became deeply interested,
too deeply, as the event proved. Upon the country boy of eleven or
twelve devolve always, in a new country, certain responsibilities not
unconnected with the great fuel question,--the keeping of the wood-box
full,--and these duties, in the absorption of the novel, the youth
neglected shamefully. A casual allusion or two, followed by a direct
announcement of what must come, had been entirely lost upon him, and,
one day, as he was lying by the unreplenished fire, deep in the pages
of the book, the volume was lifted gently from his hands, and, to his
horror, dropped upon the blazing coals against the back-log. Many
things occurred to him in later life of the sort men would avoid, but
never came much greater mental shock than on that black occasion.
Stunned, dazed, he went outside and threw himself upon the grass and
tried to reason out what could be done. Was he never to know the fate
of Don Sebastian? It was beyond endurance! A cheap quality of
literature the book was, no doubt, but he was not critical at that age,
and in later years he often sought the volume out of curiosity to learn
what in his boyhood had entranced him, but he never found it. It was a
small, fat volume, very like a pocket Bible in shape, bound cheaply in
green cloth, and printed in England, probably somewhere in the '30's,
but it had disappeared. The bereaved youth was, henceforth, in as sore
a retrospective strait over "Don Sebastian" as Mr. Andrew Lang declares
he is, to-day, with his "White Serpent" story.

Byron--"Don Juan," in particular--had an effect upon the youth, and
"The Prisoner of Chillon" gave him dreams. "Snarleyow" was the book,