FIRST ESSAYS IN LITERATURE 263 



on which his pen could most effectively be exercised. 

 In the meantime he began to record the legends and 

 traditions of his native district. Most of these had 

 been familiar to him from childhood, when he heard 

 them from the lips of old grey-headed men and 

 women, but they were dying out of remembrance as 

 the older generations passed away. Part of his 

 leisure for several years was given to this pleasant 

 task, until there grew up under his hand a bulky 

 volume of manuscript. This time he was in no hurry 

 to publish ; the book did not make its appearance 

 until 1835, as his charming Scenes and Legends of 

 the North of Scotland. In this work some of the 

 most striking passages were to be found, not so 

 much in the tales themselves which were narrated, as 

 in the local colouring and graphic setting that were 

 given to them. The writer displayed a singularly 

 vivid power in the delineation of scenery, and his 

 allusions to the geology of the district, then almost 

 wholly unknown, attracted attention, since they 

 showed that besides his keen eye for the picturesque 

 above ground, he knew something of the marvels 

 that lay beneath. He was feeling his way to what 

 ultimately became his most cherished and most useful 

 task. He had realised that his main object should be 

 to know what was not generally known, ' to stand as 

 an interpreter between nature and the public,' and 

 to perform the service of narrating as pleasingly as 

 he could, the facts which he culled in walks not 

 previously trodden, and of describing, as graphically 

 as might be, the inferences which he drew from 

 them. 



