THE PROFESSOR'S FAMILY PARTY. 277 



accompany him. So Henrietta and myself, and his 

 daughter, Mrs Sheriff Gordon, agreed to go. He after- 

 wards wrote to his daughter, Mrs Terrier, and her hus- 

 band, to both his sons, and to Mr Glassford Bell and his 

 daughter; and so the small select family swelled into a 

 much larger one than was expected. We went by Glas- 

 gow, and then steamed up Loch Lomond to a station at the 

 head of that loch called Inverarnan ; from whence, by Glen 

 Falloch, we drove through a grand wild Highland country, 

 some fourteen miles, to Luib, on the banks of the Dochart. 

 The absurd part of it was, and for a time worse than 

 absurd, that the Professor's carpet-bag, containing all his 

 clothes, all his money, and all his fishing-tackle, had been 

 taken out of the railway van by mistake somewhere be- 

 tween Edinburgh and Glasgow ; so the first night in Glas- 

 gow was one of discontent. We telegraphed for the bag 

 in vain next morning; — there was no word of it. The 

 Professor was with difficulty persuaded to go with us as 

 far as the head of Loch Lomond, Sheriff Bell offering to 

 go that length and return with him to Glasgow. This 

 they did ; and the bag being eventually recovered, my 

 brother joined us at Luib in a day or two. But for a 

 time I was in the heart of the Highlands, apparently for 

 no purpose, having left home at some inconvenience to 

 myself for the sake of another person, that person, mean- 

 while not being one of the party at all. We had broken 



