The Boys and the Traveler

The Boys and the Traveler Prologue

 Collin MacKay always had been an obstinate and rebellious child. His father, a gamekeeper in the Highlands, was a guarantee for a stern and harsh upbringing, in which the man didn’t shun to use his trouser belt as a means to elaborate on his pedagogic principles and ideas. But with the passing years even he had to admit that nothing came of it and that the boy only got more and more obstinate and rebellious. The man had no idea why it was. But it seemed the boy was like his grandfather.

Yes, his grandfather, the father of his mother, now that was something completely different. The old man lived in a small cottage at the end of the village. When Collin didn’t feel like going to school, if he wanted to evade the weekly obligation of Sunday services or if he had another encounter with his father’s trouser belt, he was with his grandfather. It was a handsome, almost beautiful old man with a tanned face, slim but sinewy body, long curly grey hair, a white beard and eyes black as night. His face had a certain Slavic flavour, something that Collin recognized in his own face, when he looked into the mirror.

Grandfather could tell wonderful stories about his voyages all over Europe. Collin was totally fascinated, when the man recounted his adventures in Bohemia, where he was born, and about all the adventures and peculiarities of all the countries, through which he travelled while scratching together a living until he ended up in the Highlands for reasons, which were only clear to himself.

But his grandfather taught the boy more as only stories. Through the years he transferred his knowledge of a difficult and delicate profession, which he mastered as no other. He taught the boy all steps, from idea via design to final realization and spent hours in teaching the boy the handicraft that resulted in the perfect control over an unruly, natural piece of material, that was, despite its resistance, shaped in the form that the boy had thought out on paper. The old man gave the young boy a unique gift, because it enabled Collin to do something that was rapidly becoming extinct.

Besides that the grandfather taught the boy to think independently, to make his own decisions and stick to them and he instilled an urge for freedom in him: in acting, in doing and not doing but above all in thinking.

But when the boy reached puberty the grandfather also had his questions. Especially his grandson’s attitude to girls was totally different from his own at that age. But he was not only old, but also wise: he decided to shut up about it. It wouldn’t be very wise or concise if he started counseling the boy with morals after teaching him to pursue and realize his own dreams and to form his own life. The old man had no urge to become a moralizer and he decided to let it rest, not asking any questions.

During the years Collin didn’t only look like his grandfather, but in a sense became his grandfather. He was almost a reincarnation of his grandfather, in a sense an example of eternal life in body, mind and character of the unique old man, who felt that his end was nearing, but only wanted to stop breathing after he had the ability and opportunity to teach his grandson all lessons he could possibly teach.

Only when the old man was satisfied and was convinced that his pupil had absorbed everything, he felt his life was completed and on a quiet night he passed away peacefully.