It hung on the wall for as long as I could remember. A lake scene that my grandfather brought back from the Second World War. It was a simple picture that took you into its vast tranquillity. The gilt frame was cracked and peeling but the scene inside was forever pristine. I can still see it now, a vast lake, a reach of unruffled water stretching to a distant shore. From the shore rose a steep mountainside bristling with fir trees. As a child I would lose myself in this untrammelled wilderness, imagine myself wandering up that never-ending dark line of trees. Would I be lost; would I ever find anyone again once I had wandered through that forest? And in the middle of the lake over those bottomless waters, a boat drifted. It was a dugout canoe and in it sat a native American, his fishing p