before breakfast.

On his "Perth days," in going from Craighouse he was obliged to be astir
by four in the morning. His wife usually drove him to the railway
station in time to catch a train starting at six. Sometimes he would
consent to be met again on the arrival of the latest return train at
night and driven home; generally he preferred walking home, after a call
at his office, to see if anything there required his attention. He thus
arrived at Perth by breakfast-time; spent the whole day in passing from
cell to cell of the many hundred prisoners there confined, interrogating
each of them, and taking notes of anything requiring notice; and reached
home not till nearly midnight, yet never appearing at all fatigued.
Latterly he gave up this great effort and did not return till the
following day, sleeping in a hotel at Perth on the occasions of his
official visits.

In 1867 he published the first four volumes of his 'History of Scotland,
from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution of 1688,' and in 1870 other
three volumes, completing the work, and, together with the portion
published in 1853, forming a complete narrative of Scotch history from
the earliest times down to the suppression of the Jacobite insurrection
of '45.

As offshoots from his great work, he published, first in 'Blackwood's
Magazine,' and then, with some additions, in volume shape, two pleasant
books--the 'Book-Hunter' and the 'Scot Abroad,'--besides many other
slighter works. During these years he was often obliged to refuse his
pen for fugitive writing, from unwillingness to interrupt his more
serious tasks.

The following is a note declining, very characteristically, an
application of the kind from his valued friend, Mr Russel, editor of the
'Scotsman':--

"_11th August 1862._

"MY DEAR RUSSEL,--What am I expected to do with the Cat Stane? Not
to review it, I hope. I have had a sniff of it already in the
proceedings of the Antiquarian Society. It is a brilliant specimen
of the pedantic pottering of the learned body which enables me to
append to my name the A.S.S., fraudulently inverted into S.S.A.
Such twaddle always excites me into feverishness. I haven't nerve
for it.

"I see the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa is made out very
clearly, but there seem insuperable difficulties in proving Hengist
and Horsa themselves. This strikes me as a characteristic of the
author's[12] profes