MISUNDERSTANDINGS UNDER WHICH HE LIVED. 337 



The real feeling in this meagre estimate of Duncan and 

 all such students was that which is so inimitably expressed 

 by Dr. Douglas Maclagan in his clever satire of " the Battle 

 o' Glen Tilt ; " * which humorously describes an unsuccess- 

 ful attempt by a great lord, in 1847, some time before John 

 left Tough, to stop a party of botanists for trespass, in 

 an excursion through the Grampians, over ground John 

 knew well. Of John, his contemporaries were ever ready- 

 to exclaim, as of his fellow botanists : 



" Some folk'll tak' a heap o' fash 



For unco little en', man ; 

 An' meikle time and meikle cash 



For nocht ava' they'll spen', man. 

 That chap wu'd gang a hunder' mile 

 For what was hardly worth his while ; 

 And a' to poo 

 Some girse that grew 

 On Ben Mac Dhu 

 That ne'er a coo 

 Would care to pit her mou' till ! " 



What's the use of it ! That question could be answered 

 abundantly even in its narrower aspects, putting aside the 

 higher pleasure and profit of these pursuits. But John 

 once gave a reply which should have melted the heart of 

 the hardest, had they known his history, and of which we 

 who know a little of his hidden tragedy, the secret grief of 

 his life, can feel to some extent the real pathos. When 

 asked why he went after the flowers so much as he did, and 

 what benefit they were to him, he replied that they might 



* Written on the extraordinary attempt of the Duke of Athol to 

 prevent Professor Balfour and some of his students from passing 

 through Glen Tilt, on a botanical excursion, in August, 1847, before John 

 left Tough, in 1849. 



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