198 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



The footsteps of greed desecrate the stillnesses, 

 and the hand of greed lays more waste even than 

 curiosity or false enthusiasm. Where so many 

 are anxious to possess and willing to pay, there are 

 sure to arise sellers ; and so quite a trade goes on 

 in alpines. In addition to the amateur who 

 forages for himself and his friends, the professional 

 plant collector is abroad, whose business in life is 

 to hawk on his own account from door to door, or 

 to act on behalf of some man who keeps a nursery. 



Two forces are thus at work the man who 

 lives by it ; and a certain uninteresting type of 

 tourists and lodgers, who have not yet learned the 

 first lesson taught to all well-bred children to 

 look at everything and touch nothing. 



It is not so easy to draw the line between a wise 

 conservatism and an unwise interference as many 

 seem to think. There is another side to the access 

 to mountains agitation not visible to those who 

 simply theorise from the plain. Sometimes when 

 abroad on the wilds, with blue cloud-flaked sky 

 overhead, and many-shaded plain three thousand 

 feet beneath, I have been annoyed at the restriction 

 placed on my freedom of movement by some offi- 

 cious gamekeeper. 



And before the day was out I have been equally 



