THE AUTHOR'S LAST VISIT. 449 



" It was a mistak' in me a great mistak'. I thocht it 

 was somebody come to scrutineeze me. I didna ken ye 

 ava, and I sent word wi' the lassie when I did. O, had ye 

 but seen me twenty or thretty years syne ! I was a 

 different concern a'thegether then, and cu'd hae ga'en 

 aboot wi' ye and shown ye the flo'ors, ilk ane o' them." I 

 told him that I should like to have known and botanised 

 with him then, but that I was happy and proud to know 

 and respect him now ; as I had done long before I saw 

 him, having heard so much about him from his friend 

 Charles. I told him also how Charles remembered and 

 loved him, and ever would do so, till he should follow him 

 to the grave. These words brought all the spirit into his 

 face and thrilled him with a new tide of life, and he wept 

 with mingled sadness and joy, hiding his face in his hands, 

 while the tears rolled between and gradually relieved him. 

 He then handed me Charles's last letter to him, received 

 a month before, which he asked me to read, though he had 

 heard it often before. I read it in parts, broken by our 

 mutual comments as I proceeded, while his increasing 

 tears flowed unstinted and unheeded. Charles, addressing 

 him as his " dear and much respected freend," said he was 

 truly glad that the appeal in his favour had been so well 

 responded to, and that his comfort in his old age was now 

 secured. He thought he should have been able to see him, 

 as he had long wished to do, if it had not been for the 

 trying weather and the weight of sixty-seven years. He 

 spoke of the pleasure Geology had also been to him, in 

 which his study of Botany had greatly assisted him. " I 

 often think," he went on, " if you and me had known some- 

 thing of it forty years ago, it would have told us wonderful 



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