348 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



wished much for a copy of it when selecting matters for 

 my Traditions ; and I have still a volume of these to 

 write ; but really I must not put you to the drudgery of 

 copying; it is worse than being chained at the oar. 

 Tell Miss Grant how much I long to see her in Cromarty. 

 If you visit me in my little room (I am not quite so nice 

 on this point as cannie Elshy) she, I trust, will accom- 

 pany you ; and that you may see it in all its glorious 

 confusion, I shall neither arrange the books nor mend 

 the broken pane. Remember, 'tis I alone who am to 

 be your Caliban during your stay in " the island." 



" I'll show thee the best springs ; I'll pluck thee berries ; 

 I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. 

 And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts. 

 Wilt thou go with me ? " 



' Cromarty, Oct. 29, 1833. 



' The night has fallen, a still, dreamy sort of night, 

 faintly lighted up by the moon. About half an hour 

 ago I was out among the woods, they were gloomy 

 and ghostly, for twilight had begun to darken, and the 

 trees are all in their winding-sheets of red or yellow, 

 except where, in the more exposed corners of the wood, 

 they stand like so many naked skeletons, stretching their 

 bare, meagre arms towards the sky. I was in a rather 

 low mood before going out, and there is little chance of 

 one's recovering one's spirits by walking through a 

 decaying wood in a cloudy evening of autumn. Mine 

 sunk miserably. I remember that, some twelve years 

 ago, I used often to wish that I could retire from the 

 world altogether. I would have fain built myself a 

 little rustic hut in the most secluded recess of some 

 lonely valley, or in the depths of some solitary wood, or 

 under the uninhabited precipices of some uninhabited 

 shore ; and in that hut would I have amused myself, as 

 I fondly thought, with my books, and my pencil, and 



