It was with a light heart and a pleasing consciousness of holiday that I set out from the inn at Allermuir to tramp my fifteen miles into the unknown. I walked slowly, for I carried my equipment on my back — my basket, fly-books and rods, my plaid of Grant tartan (for I boast myself a distant kinsman¹ of that house), and my great staff, which had tried ere then the front of the steeper Alps. A small valise with books and some changes of linen² clothing had been sent on ahead in the shepherd’s own hands. It was yet early April, and before me lay four weeks of freedom — twenty-eight blessed days in which to take fish and smoke the pipe of idleness. The Lent term had pulled me down, a week of modest enjoyment³ thereafter in town had finished the work; and I drank in the sharp moorish⁴ air like a thirsty man who has been forwandered among deserts.

I am a man of varied⁶ tastes and a score of interests. As an undergraduate I had been filled with the old mania⁷ for the complete life. I distinguished⁸ myself in the Schools, rowed in my college eight, and reached the distinction of practising for three weeks in the Trials. I had dabbled⁹ in a score of learned activities, and when the time came that I won the inevitable¹⁰ St. Chad’s fellowship on my chaotic¹¹ acquirements, and I found myself compelled to select if I would pursue a scholar’s life, I had some toil¹² in finding my

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