Unquestionably much of his disposition to remain aloof and to resist the on-coming intruder was bred by the experiences of his early youth. His native place, Tsangarada, is a village of eastern Thessaly, far up among the slopes of the Pindus. Thither, several centuries ago, an ancestor led a migration from the west coast of Greece, and sought a refuge from Turkish oppression. From generation to generation his fathers continued to be shepherds of their people, the office of Proëstos, or governor, being hereditary in the house. Sturdy men those ancestors must have been, and picturesque their times. In late winter afternoons, at 3 Holworthy, when the dusk began to settle among the elms about the yard, legends of these heroes and their far-off days would loiter through the exile's mind. At such times bloody doings would be narrated with all the coolness that appears in Cæsar's Commentaries, and over the listener would come a sense of a fantastic world as different from our own as that of Bret Harte's Argonauts. "My great-grandfather was not easily disturbed. He was a young man and Proëstos. His stone house stood apart from the others. He was sitting in its great room one evening, and heard a noise. He looked around, and saw three men by the farther door. 'What are you here for?' 'We have come to assassinate you.' 'Who sent you?' 'Andreas.' It was a political enemy. 'How much did Andreas promise you?' 'A dollar.' 'I will promise you two dollars if you will go and assassinate Andreas.' So they turned, went, and assassinated Andreas. My great-grandfather went to Scyros the next day, and remained there five years. In five years these things are forgotten in Greece. Then he came back, and brought a wife from Scyros, and was Proëstos once more." Another evening: "People said my grandfather died of leprosy. Perhaps he did. As Proëstos he gave a decision against a woman, and she hated him. One night she crept up behind the house, where his clothes lay on the ground, and spread over his clothes the clothes of a leper. After that he was not well. His hair fell off and he died. But perhaps it was not leprosy; perhaps he died of fear. The Knights of Malta were worrying the Turks. They sailed into the harbor of Volo, and threatened to bombard the town. The Turks seized the leading Greeks and shut them up in the mosque. When the first gun was fired by the frigate, the heads of the Greeks were to come off. My grandfather went into the mosque a young man. A quarter of an hour afterwards, the gun was heard, and my grandfather waited for the headsman. But the shot toppled down the minaret, and the Knights of Malta were so pleased that they sailed away, satisfied. The Turks, watching them, forgot about the prisoners. But two hours later, when my grandfather came out of the mosque, he was an old man. He could not walk well. His hair fell off, and he died."