PREFACE. 5 



disabled ; it was far more easily carried ; and as it 

 folded round the valise, it sometimes served for a 

 pillow on the heather. 



" He'll never get to Lunnun, maister," said Dick. 

 the first whip and kennel huntsman to the Orkney 

 Harriers, sotio voce, as I took the mare from his hand 

 in the Orkneys ; and 1 was not quite sure on the point 

 myself. Because we didn't go with him from Kirk- 

 wall to Wick, Captain Parrot will have it to this 

 hour that we swam the Pentland Frith, just by way- 

 of a relish at starting. The journey, to a man who 

 has a good horse and can send his luggage on ta 

 points, must be a remarkably easy and pleasant one ; 

 but when you have only a shy half-bred nag quite 

 out of condition, and have, perforce, to spend so 

 many months roughing it, in a country to which you 

 are not acclimatized, it becomes no May game. Still, 

 with fine weather, an d a steady practice of getting off 

 to lead for every third or fourth mile, it is a grand in- 

 dependent way of travelling. I may say it was 

 positively exhilarating to put the mare's head straight 

 across Scotland, during a hard frost, from St. Bos- 

 well's to Ayr, and cut down the hundred miles at 

 four-aiid-forty a day ; or to rattle from Athelstane- 

 ford nearly to Kelso over the Lammermoors, with 

 two shirts and three pair of stockings on, and the 

 cold cutting your cheeks to the bone. 



Being asked " How's your wardrobe ?" &c v as you 



