wind made speech impossible, and the seas rushed up and over the
great lighthouse like the hungry spirits of the deep. I like
better to remember the scent of the first cowslip field under the
warm side of the hedge, when I sang to myself for pure joy of their
colour and fragrance. Again, there were the bluebells in the
deserted quarry like the backwash of a southern sea, and below them
the miniature forest of sheltering bracken with its quaint
conceits; and, crowned above all, the day I stood on Watcombe Down,
and looked across a stretch of golden gorse and new-turned blood-
red field, the green of the headland, and beyond, the sapphire sea.

Time sped, and there came a day when I first set foot on German
soil and felt the throb of its paternity, the beat of our common
Life. England is my mother, and most dearly do I love her swelling
breasts and wind-swept, salt-strewn hair. Scotland gave me my
name, with its haunting derivation handed down by brave men; but
Germany has always been to me the Fatherland par excellence. True,
my love is limited to the southern provinces, with their medieval
memories; for the progressive guttural north I have little
sympathy, but the Rhine claimed me from the first, calling,
calling, with that wonderful voice which speaks of death and life,
of chivalry and greed of gold. If you would have the river's
company you should wander, a happy solitary, along its banks,
watching its gleaming current in the early morning, its golden
glory as it answers the farewell of parting day. Then, in the
silence of the night, you can hear the wash and eddy calling one to
another, count the heart-beats of the great bearer of burdens, and
watch in the moonlight the sisters of the mist as they lament with
wringing hands the days that are gone.