60 SOLITUDE NOT LONELINESS. CHAP. vi. 



sense of rest and hope which He like a blessing on the 

 land. I think if people oftener saw the break of day 

 they would vow oftener to keep that dawning day holy 

 and would not so often let its fair hours drift away with 

 nothing done that were not best left undone." 



Dick had many a long and lonely walk at sunset, at 

 dawn, and even at midnight. And yet he was not 

 lonely. His love of nature made a paradise of that bare 

 north country. His solitude was not loneliness. Solitude, 

 to him, was sweet society. He felt the companionship 

 of nature about him on the moors, in the mountains, 

 and along the sea-shore. On calm evenings, when the sea 

 was at rest, he walked along the sands. The sea, though 

 quiet, seemed to breathe. It was like a living thing 

 like a creature at rest. 



Dick was an insatiable wanderer. When he had 

 done his daily work, and the weather was fine, he set 

 out on his botanical excursions. The county was all 

 before him. He would go to the Reay hills in search 

 of ferns ; or up the Thurso river in search of plants and 

 grasses ; or to the extreme point of Dunnet Head. His 

 eyes were always open to receive new impressions. 

 He wondered at the infinite varieties of nature, even in 

 that cold bare country. The lines written by Longfellow 

 upon another great lover of nature, are quite as appli- 

 cable to Dick : 



" And he wandered away and away 



With Nature, the dear old nurse, 

 Who sang to him night and day 

 The rhymes of the universe. 



