The Great Shadow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

And now I come to a bit of my story that clean takes my breath away as I / think of it, and makes me wish that I had never taken the job of telling / it in hand. For when I write I like things to come slow and orderly and / in their turn, like sheep coming out of a paddock. So it was at West / Inch. But now that we were drawn into a larger life, like wee bits of / straw that float slowly down some lazy ditch, until they suddenly find / themselves in the dash and swirl of a great river; then it is very hard / for me with my simple words to keep pace with it all. But you can find / the cause and reason of everything in the books about history, and so I / shall just leave that alone and talk about what I saw with my own eyes / and heard with my own ears.

The regiment to which our friend had been appointed was the 71st / Highland Light Infantry, which wore the red coat and the trews, and had / its depot in Glasgow town. There we went, all three, by coach: the / Major in great spirits and full of stories about the Duke and the / Peninsula, while Jim sat in the corner with his lips set and his arms / folded, and I knew that he killed de Lissac three times an hour in his / heart. I could tell it by the sudden glint of his eyes and grip of his / hand. As to me, I did not know whether to be glad or sorry; for home is / home, and it is a weary thing, however you may brazen it out, to feel / that half Scotland is between you and your mother.