John Buchan wrote these sixteen essays as a young man. They have as a common theme his love of the classics, literature and the outdoors. And as Buchan says in his introduction 'they were written in close connection with that most beautiful country, the upper valley of Tweed, where the grace of old times seems to have long lingered.' The tales are peopled by tramps, gentlemen of leisure, fishermen and wanderers, whose free spirit Buchan admired. The changing landscape with spring's arrival is beautifully captured in April in the Hills. In Afternoon a twelve-year-old boy plays at being a Jacobite and dreams about his future and the adventures he plans.