FIRST JOINT BOTANICAL STUDIES. 149 



go alone. And who shall say that these two men, deeply 

 religious and God-fearing as they were by constitution and 

 conviction, did wrong in thus employing the sacred day in 

 the study of God's great book of Nature, twin volume as it 

 is, and as it ought to be with even the most orthodox, to 

 that of Revelation ? 



Their self-denying eagerness in pursuit of plants was 

 exemplary ; as their friend the shoemaker strongly put it, 

 they were simply " wild " about them a description which 

 shows the impression their enthusiasm produced on their 

 non-scientific neighbours. They would often leave White- 

 house before daybreak, and walk up Donside to the Bridge 

 of Alford, scanning every cranny for specimens, and return 

 to the house before the housekeeper was out of bed, after 

 going at least ten miles of a morning before breakfast. On 

 one occasion, they slept together at " the big house," and 

 set out next morning at four o'clock, " before the screech o' 

 day," carrying bread and cheese and a bottle of milk as 

 their simple lunch. They went across Tough, by the high 

 ground bounding the Vale on the south-; down into the 

 valley of the Leochel at Skuttery Mill ; up by Droughsburn, 

 John's future residence ; past Dorsell and Asloun to the Don 

 beyond Breda;* and back along the plain to the farm of 

 Guise, in Tough, where they were entertained to tea by " the 

 goodwife," the sister of a friend ; and home again that night 

 very late. They were not rewarded, however, by the 

 discovery of many new plants that day, after a tramp over 

 hill and dale of at least thirty miles. Another journey led 

 them right over the Forest of Corennie, sixteen hundred 



* Pronounced Breddh. It has no connection with the continental 

 town of the name, but is probably a corruption of Braidhaugh. 



