250 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VI. 



a day, and come back on Saturday. I leave this on Tuesday 

 at the furthest, so that time presses, and as the period is less 

 than I thought it would have been, I am anxious to make the 

 most of it." 



" STIRLING, Saturday, September 12, 1840. 



"MY DEAR MOTHER, I promised to write you, when I returned 

 from our Perthshire excursion ; I have just come back from our 

 twenty miles' walk, and sit down to send you a few lines, but as 

 I have been a good deal knocked about, and have a veiy bad 

 pen, you will excuse the scrawl I send you. On Thursday, 

 James and I set off for Balloch, a farm in Perthshire, about 

 three miles from Muthil, where Mrs. M/s children are staying 

 with their aunt. It was a very wild day, the rain falling almost 

 incessantly, but as there was no help for it, we buttoned our 

 surtouts about us, and, staff in hand, set off, Mrs M. accompany- 

 ing us four miles out of town. As we passed through the 

 Bridge of Allan, I was surprised by some one tapping at the 

 glass of a window, and looking round I recognised John Mven's 

 goodly countenance. I stayed a few minutes with them, and 

 set off again, leaving Mrs. M. a little past the Bridge of Allan. 

 We trudged on manfully, through rain and wind, walking four 

 miles an hour without flinching for the first thirteen miles. In 

 this we were greatly assisted by a small drop of brandy which 

 our kind hostess insisted on our taking ; and / by the fact that 

 James was carrying out a quantity of tobacco to Jean Scott [an 

 old servant of the Riissells]. As it was not at all unlikely that 

 the tobacco had been smuggled, I exacted a tax on it, in the 

 shape of a few inches off the pigtail, and getting a light at the 

 cottages we passed on the road, I kept up my steam bravely. 

 After reaching the thirteenth milestone we stopped at an inn at 

 Ardoch, and as it was threatening a very heavy shower, we 

 waited and refreshed ourselves for nearly an hour. Thereafter 

 all went wrong. We left the turnpike road to take a short cut 

 by an old road over the moors. We got directions how to 

 proceed at the tollgate, and James, who professed to know the 

 country, learned the route from the man. But, alas ! his memory 

 failed him at the critical place; and after we had proceeded 



