heart of all Scotland deeper than the exigencies of ordinary warfare need wound the heart of a nation.
He had gone for vengeance and he had revenged himself thoroughly on many an enemy; then the hour had come when a ragged sliver of filth-encrusted iron had entered his breast and poisoned his blood. After weeks on the border land he had dragged back to his feet, and now he carried with him two wounds that would not heal, one in his heart that the world could not see, and one on his breast over which doctors and nurses vainly laboured.
When it was definitely settled that he could not go back to service he was sent home. There another wound was added to the already deep ones that were torturing him. During the three years of his absence the frail little mother, eaten with fear and anxiety for her only son, had made her crossing, and his father, always dependent upon her, had not long survived. The small property had been sold to pay for their resting places, and nothing remained in all this world that belonged to him—neither relative nor fire side. Even his friends had scattered, and there was nothing for him but to remain a ward of the Government until such time as he was pronounced able to begin life again for himself.
In recognition of valiant service, indicated by a couple of medals and a Service Bar pinned over the wound he carried, he had been sent to California, where it was hoped that the brilliant sunshine, the fruits, and the clean salt air, the eternal summer of a beneficent land, would work the healing that the physicians had been unable to bring
