One day I saw an old shepherd called Gowanlock coming up to me, holding my pony by the rein.  I had never noticed that it had strayed away and, after thanking him, I observed him looking at me quietly—­he knew something of the rage and anguish that Laura’s death had brought into my heart—­and putting his hand on my shoulder, he said: 

“My child, there’s no contending. ...  Ay—­ay”—­shaking his beautiful old head—­“That is so, there’s no contending. ...”

Another day, when it came on to rain, I saw a tramp crouching under the dyke, holding an umbrella over his head and eating his lunch.  I went and sat down beside him and we fell into desultory conversation.  He had a grand, wild face and I felt some curiosity about him; but he was taciturn and all he told me was that he was walking to the Gordon Arms, on his way to St. Mary’s Loch.  I asked him every sort of question—­as to where he had come from, where he was going to and what he wanted to do—­but he refused to gratify my curiosity, so I gave him one of my cigarettes and a light and we sat peacefully smoking together in silence.  When the rain cleared, I turned to him and said: 

“You seem to walk all day and go nowhere; when you wake up in the morning, how do you shape your course?”

To which he answered: 

“I always turn my back to the wind.”

Border people are more intelligent than those born in the South; and the people of my birthplace are a hundred years in advance of the Southern English even now.

When I was fourteen, I met a shepherd-boy reading a French book.  It was called “Le Secret de Delphine.”  I asked him how he came to know French and he told me it was the extra subject he had been allowed to choose for studying in his holidays; he walked eighteen miles a day to school—­nine there and nine back—­taking his chance of a lift from any passing vehicle.  I begged him to read out loud to me, but he was shy of his accent and would not do it.  The Lowland Scotch were a wonderful people in my day.

I remember nothing unhappy in my glorious youth except the violence of our family quarrels.  Reckless waves of high and low spirits, added to quick tempers, obliged my mother to separate us for some time and forbid us to sleep in the same bedroom.  We raged and ragged till the small hours of the morning, which kept us thin and the household awake.

My mother told me two stories of myself as a little child: 

“When you were sent for to come downstairs, Margot, the nurse opened the door and you walked in—­generally alone—­saying, ‘Here’s me! ...’”

This rather sanguine opening does not seem to have been sufficiently checked.  She went on to say: 

“I was dreadfully afraid you would be upset and ill when I took you one day to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Glasgow, as you felt things with passionate intensity.  Before starting I lifted you on to my knee and said, ’You know, darling, I am going to take you to see some poor people who cannot speak.’  At which you put your arms round my neck and said, with consoling emphasis, ’I will soon make them speak!’”