My father belonged to the widespread family of the Campbells, and possessed a small landedproperty in the north of Argyll. But although of long descent and high connection, he was no richerthan many a farmer of a few hundred acres. For, with the exception of a narrow belt of arable landat its foot, a bare hill formed almost the whole of his possessions. The sheep ate over it, and nodoubt found it good; I bounded and climbed all over it, and thought it a kingdom. From my verychildhood, I had rejoiced in being alone. The sense of room about me had been one of my greatestdelights. Hence, when my thoughts go back to those old years, it is not the house, nor the familyroom, nor that in which I slept, that first of all rises before my inward vision, but that desolate hill, the top of which was only a wide expanse of moorland, rugged with height and hollow, anddangerous with deep, dark pools, but in many portions purple with large-belled heather, andcrowded with cranberry and blaeberry plants. Most of all, I loved it in the still autumn morning, outstretched in stillness, high uplifted towards the heaven. On every stalk hung the dew in tinydrops, which, while the rising sun was low, sparkled and burned with the hues of all the gems. Hereand there a bird gave a cry; no other sound awoke the silence. I never see the statue of the Romanyouth, praying with outstretched arms, and open, empty, level palms, as waiting to receive and holdthe blessing of the gods, but that outstretched barren heath rises before me, as if it meant the samething as the statue-or were, at least, the fit room in the middle space of which to set the prayingand expectant youth.There was one spot upon the hill, half-way between the valley and the moorland, which was myfavourite haunt. This part of the hill was covered with great blocks of stone, of all shapes andsizes-here crowded together, like the slain where the battle had been fiercest; there parting asunderfrom spaces of delicate green-of softest grass. In the centre of one of these green spots, on a steeppart of the hill, were three huge rocks-two projecting out of the hill, rather than standing up fromit, and one, likewise projecting from the hill, but lying across the tops of the two, so as to form alittle cave, the back of which was the side of the hill. This was my refuge, my home within a home, my study-and, in the hot noons, often my sleeping chamber, and my house of dreams. If the windblew cold on the hillside, a hollow of lulling warmth was there, scooped as it were out of the body ofthe blast, which, sweeping around, whistled keen and thin through the cracks and crannies of therocky chaos that lay all about; in which confusion of rocks the wind plunged, and flowed, andeddied, and withdrew, as the sea-waves on the cliffy shores or the unknown rugged bottoms. Here Iwould often lie, as the sun went down, and watch the silent growth of another sea, which the stormyocean of the wind could not disturb-the sea of the darkness. First it would begin to gather in thebottom of hollow places. Deep valleys, and all little pits on the hill-sides, were well-springs where itgathered, and whence it seemed to overflow, till it had buried the earth beneath its mass, and, risinghigh into the heavens, swept over the faces of the stars, washed the blinding day from them, and letthem shine, down through the waters of the dark, to the eyes of men below. I would lie till nothingbut the stars and the dim outlines of hills against the sky was to be seen, and then rise and go home, as sure of my path as if I had been descending a dark staircase in my father's ho