140 THE MOOES AND THE MOUNTAINS. 



holiday, a light-armed traveller, with little luggage and no 

 care, as buoyant as a lark, as merry as a sailor. 



But to this self-contained compactness Mr Wilson was 

 a stranger. The best of his life was that which he lived 

 in others, and to him it was hardly a holiday unless his 

 home went with him. Besides, bravely as she bore up, 

 he could not forget that his wife was a frequent in- 

 valid ; and whenever he went forth on any journey he 

 carried with him the anxious forebodings which a busy 

 imagination is sure to suggest to a fond affection. It 

 was, therefore, very seldom that he could be persuaded to 

 join those more distant expeditions which separated him 

 from the domestic circle. However fascinating to the 

 angler and the enthusiastic lover of nature might be the 

 prosj)ect of new landscapes and noble rivers, it could not 

 tempt the husband and the father. 



Nevertheless, in three successive summers he was in- 

 duced to accompany Professor Graham and his botanising 

 companions in their excursions to the mountains of 

 Forfarshire and Sutherland. In the wilder regions the 

 accommodation was sometimes of the most ]3rimitive de- 

 scription, and a party of twenty pedestrians would sleep 

 in a hay-loft, or on the floor of the one spare room in a 

 little public-house, or even in a mountain shielling with- 

 out glass to the windows. On more than one occasion 

 they were accompanied by a naval officer whose feats of 



