FIRST JOINT BOTANICAL STUDIES. 147 



To this was added in time the pleasures of mutual help, 

 when the pupil could take his part with the master in 

 determining a new-found specimen, the one using the book, 

 and the other calling out the successive characteristics that 

 were to guide them step by step to the very name ; and 

 none but those who have thus worked hand in hand with 

 a dear friend and fellow-student of plants can adequately 

 realise the sweetness of such joint study of a favourite 

 science. Like all such higher delights, it is one " which the 

 world cannot give, and which it cannot take away." 



During all that summer and autumn, both were busily 

 searching for plants, John being simply indefatigable. 

 With his greater leisure, he gathered more than Charles, 

 who was a servant under command, with long hours and no 

 holidays. Of course, John had more to get, as Charles had 

 already a good collection, and he had only begun to form 

 one. Charles had many duplicates, and kept only two 

 specimens, handing over the others to his friend, whose 

 herbarium began to swell to proud proportions in the 

 weaving shop where he kept it. In all his gathering of 

 plants, John, of course, loyally collected for both. 



The two students made many an excursion near and 

 far throughout the Vale of Alford and its enclosing hills, in 

 search of the loved flowers ; thus not only increasing their 

 store of specimens, but gathering a thousand delightful 

 memories to cheer them in after years, when they could be 

 viewed only by that "inward eye which is the bliss of 

 solitude " and distance. So that at last, as Charles Black 

 gratefully and truthfully expresses it, " the Vale of Alford 

 became to us one of the sweetest spots on earth. And the 

 Tap o' Benachie, what does it not recall ? How often did 



