His own estimate of his appearance was comprised in the idea that he was “very Scotch.” That milky whiteness of complexion, touched with just enough ruddy colour to give life to the face, those brilliant blue eyes, the straight nose, clear-cut nostrils, firm lips and firmer chin, the high broad brow, and crisp auburn hair, constituted to his mind nothing more than his brevet of nationality. “No one would ever take me for anything but a Scotchman,” he would say lightly, if any acquaintance ventured to hint at his good looks. “There’s no mistake about me. Albion is written on my brow.” From his childhood upwards he had cared only for large things—intent upon investigation and discovery from the time he could crawl—asking the most searching questions of mother and of nurse—prying into those abstract mysteries which perplex philosophers before he could speak plain. The thirst for knowledge had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength. His hardy boyhood had been spent for the most part in the windy streets of Aberdeen, marching with swinging stride along that granite pavement, his shabby red gown flapping in the north-easter; faring anyhow, as indifferent to what he ate as he was to what he wore; ahead of his fellows in all things intellectual, and abreast with the best athletes of his year in the sports they valued,—a king among men; and of such a happy disposition that nothing in life came amiss to him, and what would have been hardship to another seemed sport to him.