Life, could we only be well assured of it, is at the best when it is
simple. The woods of Lake Megantic in the summer cast a spell upon the
spirit. They are calm and serene, and just a little sad. They invite to
rest, and their calm strength and deep silence are a powerful rebuke to
passion.
Amongst the deep woods of Marsden, Donald Morrison spent his young
years. His parents were in fairly comfortable circumstances, as the term
is understood in Compton. Donald was a fair-haired boy, whose white
forehead his mother had often kissed in pride as she prepared him, with
shining morning face, for the village school. Donald was the pride of
the village. Strong for his years and self-assertive, the boys feared
him. Handsome and fearless, and proud and masterful, his little girl
school-mates adored him. They adored him all the more that he thought it
beneath his boyish dignity to pay them attention. This is true to all
experience. Donald was passionate. He could not brook interference. He
even thus early, when he was learning his tablets at the village school,
developed those traits, the exercise of which, in later life, was to
make his name known throughout the breadth of the land. Generous and
kind-hearted to a degree, his impatience often hurried him into actions
which grieved his parents. He was generally in hot water at school. He
fought, and he generally won, but his cause was not always right. He was
supple, and he excelled in the village games.