CHAP. xxiv. LABOUR A NECESSITY. 423 



Halladale in the moonlight, and came home, across the 

 hills, by Braalnabin, to Thurso. Or he would walk 

 across the country, over bog and mire, to Morven top, 

 and be back in time for his day's baking. He hammered 

 among the rocks at Murkle Bay until the moon shone 

 clear in the water. He clambered up and down the 

 rocks at Dunnet Head in search of ferns. In the early 

 mornings, in spring, he went up the banks of the Thurso 

 river to see the flowers unveiling themselves before the 

 light of sunrise. The hills about Eeay were among his 

 favourite haunts. There he transplanted the ferns which 

 he had brought from Dunnet Head, so that they might 

 be cheering the wandering botanist when he himself, as 

 he said, was " out of time." 



Labour was an absolute necessity for him. " I find 

 it utterly impossible," he said, " to be idle. There is 

 nothing for me but regular labour. If I cannot find 

 any ordinary work to do, I must invent some extraordi- 

 nary work. I could not be, and would not be, what the 

 world calls a gentleman that is, standing idle even 

 though I were paid for it. The mind must be employed, 

 even though what occupies it is doomed to come to an 

 end and pass away into nothingness, and we ourselves 

 with it." 



The intellectual labours of men such as Dick are 

 often spoken of as the pursuit of knowledge under diffi- 

 culties ; but they are also the pursuit of knowledge 

 under pleasure. "We forget the delight which accom- 

 panies the discovery of a new fact, and the enlighten- 

 ment of a mind thirsting for knowledge. This was one 



