seeking none, between Tannahill and Burns; his noblest thoughts,

whether of poetry or music, adequately embodied in that somewhat

obvious ditty,

"Will ye gang, lassie, gang

To the braes o' Balquidder."

- which is indeed apt to echo in the ears of Scottish children, and

to him, in view of his experience, must have found a special

directness of address. But if he had no fine sense of poetry in

letters, he felt with a deep joy the poetry of life. You should

have heard him speak of what he loved; of the tent pitched beside

the talking water; of the stars overhead at night; of the blest

return of morning, the peep of day over the moors, the awaking

birds among the birches; how he abhorred the long winter shut in

cities; and with what delight, at the return of the spring, he once

more pitched his camp in the living out-of-doors. But we were a

pair of tramps; and to you, who are doubtless sedentary and a

consistent first-class passenger in life, he would scarce have laid

himself so open; - to you, he might have been content to tell his

story of a ghost - that of a buccaneer with his pistols as he lived

- whom he had once encountered in a seaside cave near Buckie; and

that would have been enough, for that would have shown you the

mettle of the man. Here was a piece of experience solidly and

livingly built up in words, here was a story created, TERES ATQUE

ROTUNDUS.

And to think of the old soldier, that lover of the literary bards!

He had visited stranger spots than any seaside cave; encountered

men more terrible than any spirit; done and dared and suffered in

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