emerged from the moor and reached the valley of the Awe, we plunged into dense woods, and the fitful flare of the glow-worm was the only light we saw. We reached Taynuilt about eleven; but we had made up our minds to push on to Oban, which lay about thirteen miles beyond, and therefore we left Taynuilt and its inn behind us after supping. But we were rather spent, and our progress in the darkness was slow. We felt uncertain about the distance which separated us from Oban, refreshment and rest. We saw a light in a cottage, and thinking that someone was awake at that early hour for some reason, we knocked. The door was opened by a Highlander who had evidently just risen. We asked lamely for a drink of milk. This simple and very natural request seemed to act like a blow in the face to the gentleman, who upbraided us sharply for disturbing his rest on so trivial a matter. We apologised and left him to his slumbers, conceiving that he really was under no obligation to be hospitable to strangers in the middle of the night. We continued to tramp on in the darkness and silence. Suddenly I became conscious of a strange musical murmur in the distance. Then I knew precisely where we were. I had never been there before, but I remembered "the murmuring stream of Lora" in Ossian 1 and felt certain that this was what we heard. As we advanced the murmur became more distinct until we stood beside the so-called Falls of Lora. This phenomenon is produced by the tide flowing into and out of Loch Etive, an arm of the sea, over a bar which stretches across the narrows at Connel Ferry. The pebbles on this bar, being moved by the incoming or outgoing waters, produce the murmur. We were rejoiced to know exactly where we were, but we were too spent after our fifty-four mile tramp to go farther. We therefore decided to arouse the innkeeper at the "Ferry Inn," and put up there for the rest of the night. Day was just beginning to break. The innkeeper was sleepy and reluctant, but persistent applications of our sticks to his door, and threats of the pains and penalties of the law, which in Scotland in such matters is wholly on the side of the traveller, brought him at last, and caused him to say:

"Ye'll be no shentlemans, or ye would na be walkin' at this time in the mornin'."

We told him that gentlemen walked when and where they found it convenient, and that his exclusive business at that moment was to fetch us a bottle of port and three glasses, with some whisky for himself if he wanted it, and then to prepare beds for us without delay.

Lora is frequently mentioned in Ossian as the "murmuring stream," the "echoing stream," the "gliding stream," etc.

To these indications of habit to command he capitulated and made us very comfortable, putting everything in the house at our disposal, and even sitting up with us for a while listening to the tale of our adventures. In the morning we took the train to Oban, and the steamer up the Sound of Mull to Tobermory. On the steamer we ran across Professor John Stuart Blackie, who was striding up and down the deck with his grey plaid over his shoulder, as was his custom. We joined him in his stride, and he expounded to us his interpretation of the meaning of every place-name in the region. Gaelic, of which I know nothing, must be a language with a meagre vocabulary, for one word seems to do the duty for which, in other languages, half a dozen may be employed. This circumstance gives a large range of choice of interpretation, and of this the Gaelic scholars seem to avail themselves. Two of them rarely agree upon the meaning of almost any word, and they seem thus to exist in a region of surmise and controversy. This feature of the language is not without significance. The Celt probably never knew his own mind, and therefore spoke as he thought, vaguely and without attaching precise and invariable meaning to the words he employed. He is consistent only in demanding extension of poetic licence.

Professor Blackie had Highland blood in his veins, no doubt, but he was a Lowlander. Nevertheless, for many years he was the chief protagonist in Scotland of the Celtic Revival. At the time I speak of (1878 or 1879) he was in his seventieth year, still in the active discharge of the duties of the Chair of Greek in the University of Edinburgh, and urging with all his vigour the establishment of a Celtic Chair in the same University. The chair was founded in 1882, and thus the Celtic Revival in Scotland1 antedated the similar revival in Ireland, which did not come into being until nearly twenty years later, The Celtic Revival in Scotland was purely literary and artistic. It had no political bearing. In Ireland, the revival has been, so to say, adulterated with politics and religion. Blackie was a copious and amusing talker. As he walked up and down the deck of the steamer in the Sound of Mull, he stopped frequently to re-enforce his sometimes extravagant and already emphatic phrases by thumping me on the back, on the principle, I suppose, of the "whipping-post." Blackie was not merely versatile and entertaining, he had a great fund of good-nature and common-sense as well as not

1 There was, of course, the earlier revival initiated by the publication of Macpherson's Ossian (1761-63). The modern revival of interest in Celtic literature may be said to date from Renan's La poésie des races celtiques, followed by Matthew Arnold's Essays on the Study of Celtic Literature, 1870.

a little moral energy. Blackie left us at Loch Aline, and we went on to Tobermory. After spending a few days there, in which we boasted about our walking exploit, only to find that there was an old woman in Tobermory who thought nothing of trudging sixty miles a day, we went on to Staffa and Iona. This excursion is so much within the ordinary route of the tourist that I need not detail our experiences.

Upon other long walks in Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Stirlingshire, Perthshire and Argyllshire, and particularly in Bute and Arran, I need not dwell. Sometimes, as may be surmised, it rained as it can rain in the west of Scotland. Once I remember walking through a heavy shower from Inversnaid to Callander through the Trossachs, in adhering mud up to the ankles or higher; but youth is reckless of these trifles. Somewhere between Inversnaid and Stronachlachar, in spite of the moisture without, I felt intolerably thirsty within, and noticing a cottage at no great distance from the road, I approached the open door, and as I did so there came and stood placidly in it a woman of austere and matronly beauty. I asked for a glass of milk. She brought and gave it me with so mature and gracious ease that I regretted the lapse of time and the change in convention that prevented me from swinging my hat in a wide curve and bowing low after the manner of the Middle Age. Had I acted instinctively and disregarded the anachronism, she would have thought quite as instinctively that I was trying to make a fool of her. I therefore thanked her in a commonplace and clumsily offered payment for my refreshment. This she waved aside with a superb gesture, and I tramped on humiliated as though I had been guilty of gaucherie in the palace of a princess.

Of one holiday of this time, I think it was in 1872, I may give some details because it involved fresh experiences. This holiday was spent with a farmer on the estate of Mr. Malcolm of Poltalloch, near Lochgilphead on Loch Fyne. The Crinan Canal, which connects the loch system of the Firth of Clyde directly with the sea and saves the long detour round the Mull of Cantire, passes near by. The farming of the district is concerned chiefly with cattle and sheep raising. The cattle are for the most part the native Highland stock-small, shaggy, hardy animals, very shy and wild. The sheep are partly of native breed and partly of imported stocks. The less hardy sheep are sent as "hoggs," or one-year-olds, to Ayrshire for the winter, in order to avoid undue loss from the severity of the climate. The farms are sometimes of vast extent. One farmer whom I visited on one of the long drives I took while I was there, had a large tract on the shores

of Loch Awe, and had, moreover, several islands. He had a fleet of boats for the purpose of conveying his sheep to and from the island pastures. About 30,000 sheep formed at that time his usual flock. The farmer with whom I stayed had a very large herd of Highland cattle, how many I do not now remember. His farm was called Kilbride, from a chapel dedicated to St. Bride in the neighbourhood. Near it is Carnassary Castle, at one time an important stronghold because it guarded one of the principal passes into Argyleshire. There is a legend to the effect that after a long and unsuccessful siege the fortress was captured through the treachery of a woman, who opened a gate by which the enemy entered. I went with my farmer host to a farm on the east side of Loch Awe, a drive of about twenty-five miles, to buy sheep. We started early and arrived at our destination before noon. Our reception was so characteristic of the place and the people that I must give it in detail. The farm was of moderate size; the farmer was in comfortable circumstances, but had not an extensive flock. On our arrival we were shown into the parlour, and the farmer's wife immediately placed upon the table a bottle of whisky with a number of sherry glasses. Water was conspicuous by its absence. There was a service of whisky all round. Then we went out to look at the sheep, which had been brought into a fold for the purpose of inspection. My farmer spent about half an hour looking them over; then we returned to the house. There was another application of neat whisky, and another and another. Then we went out again and looked over the sheep once more, then we returned for lunch. This meal was quite substantial, accompanied, of course, by more whisky, and also by tea. Then we looked at some more sheep, and afterwards had more whisky. Late in the afternoon we turned our faces homewards. My farmer was about sixty years of age, a sturdy and wellpreserved man. Our way had some difficult bits in it, steep hills and sharp turnings; but in spite of the very considerable amount of potent spirit he had imbibed, he took them all without a tremor. I came to the conclusion that there must be definite compensatory affinity between Highland whisky and Highland atmosphere.

On the farm where I was staying there were several crofters' cottages with minute lots of land, upon which garden produce was grown by the occupants. The crofter question had assumed at that time an acute form, but it varied in different places. Here the crofters were employed on the farm, and there was no difficulty, excepting that of immobility, in so far as that might be regarded as undesirable.

There were many interesting and some notable personalities in

the district. There was, for example, Sir John Orde of Kilmory. He was a man of eccentric character. I saw him frequently driving about in a peculiar conveyance. It was a kind of glorified baker's van. He drove this waggon himself, and as he disapproved of a dashboard and disliked either to dock the tails of his horses or to permit them to be swished about to keep off the flies or for equine enjoyment, he had them plaited into white manilla rope and lashed to the whippletree. Sir John had been a sailor and liked to have everything taut and trim. I drove more than once down a steep and narrow pass between the hills which my driver told me was celebrated as the scene of an encounter between Sir John and a party of tinkers.1 When two vehicles meet at this place, it is necessary for one of them to draw close to the cliff on one side in order to allow the other to Sir pass. John ordered the tinkers to draw their cart to the side. They refused, and with his customary acerbity he proceeded to emphasise his orders with his whip. But the tinkers were free roadfarers who looked with contempt upon Gringo dignitaries. They had their weapons ready to their hands and they pelted him with tins, drew his horses to the side, retrieved the ammunition, and left him in possession of the field in which he had been defeated. I was told a story of a similar encounter which Sir John had with Malcolm of Poltalloch, grandfather of the present Lord Malcolm, on a similar occasion, with similar consequences for him. In spite of the violence of his temper, Sir John was liked in the district because of his joviality when he had a mind to be jovial.

I need not detail others of my longer holidays in these years of the seventies, at Blairgowrie, for example, which I happened to visit in 1871, at a time when the town was stirred by preparations for the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott; from there I drove to Meigle where I saw the ancient monuments, then rather ill cared for, but now I believe properly housed, and to TradiGlamis Castle, one of the finest French châteaux in Scotland. tion says that in the older castle Malcolm II. was murdered.

One holiday we spent at Alloway in Ayrshire, the birthplace of Burns. We rented the cottage next to Burns's, and took long walks and drives through the whole of the Burns country, visiting the fine woods round Loch Doon and every other beautiful place within reach. We used often to go at night to the ruined Kirk of Alloway, but perhaps, owing to inadequate preparation, we failed to see what Tam O'Shanter

In Scotland gypsies are known as tinkers. They often practise the trade of making and mending tin cans.