"The Druid's" Endurance. 325 



had to pluck the heart out of three summers, 

 a winter and a spring ; to travel some eight 

 thousand miles ; to sleep away from home 

 some two hundred and fifty nights, before I 

 wrote a line. It is very easy to draw up a 

 programme but not so easy to hold to it. I 

 often found a new and valuable witness where 

 I least expected, and had to throw over every 

 plan rather than leave him. There was still, 

 in spite of all the hardship and harass, quite 

 a pleasant soldier-of-fortune sort of feeling in 

 never being sure whether yqu would turn up 

 at night by the fireside of a golden farmer, or 

 in a hole, or bunk, in the wall at a wayside 

 inn. Mere scenery I was obliged to dis- 

 regard. In fact it was of no use to me, unless 

 it served as a setting for some crack herd of 

 cattle, or flock of sheep ; and acting on this 

 practical view of things I sternly held to my 

 line, regardless of the most glorious combina- 

 tions of water, wood and mountain, for which 

 other tourists were ever turning aside. I did 

 not even spare a day for the Trossachs, but 

 went ' hot-trod ' past the guide post after black 

 faces in the direction of Rob Roy's grave, and 

 my eye might never have rested on Killie- 



