p; (2) drive fifteen miles in a trap; (3) traverse a
four-mile arm of the sea in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven
miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump
three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to
a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff
quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he
will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for
he gets little enough at present.

Ramsay, too, is a dweller among these treeless bogs, and is engaged,
during his leisure, on a translation of Anacreon which will never be
finished, or, if finished, will never be published. I called on him and
immolated myself on the altar of his Anacreon in order to give him a
little pleasure. He, later on, enlarged on his school, scholars, and
daily life. The horizon of the boys and girls is extremely limited: most
of them have never seen either a pig or a policeman. Cabbages have only
been recently introduced into the district, but are already thriving
wonderfully well considering the thin soil. There are of course no
trees: for what trees could stand against the buffeting of the fierce
wintry gales of the Atlantic? Ramsay's only chum is a missionary, who is
of an antiquarian turn, and goes fumbling about for arrow-heads and
prehistoric bracelets, especially after a storm, when the hill-sides are
laid bare.

Neither Lamont nor Ramsay know a word of Gaelic, and there they are in
districts where English is a foreign language. Needless to say, the lack
of Gaelic is a terrible drawback to these two men. They should never
have been where they are, for they are aliens. The scholars, unbreeched
little rogues, have an advantage over their teacher, and in the
playground talk the tongue of the Celt invariably, and may be maligning
him for all he knows. I am afraid, too, that teacher and minister do not
always consider themselves as auxiliaries in these outer isles. The
younger generation of teachers have, as might be expected, a more
extensive knowledge of books than the old school of Presbyterian
ministers. The latter, feeling their literary inferiority, are inclined
to regard the teacher as an intruder whose work in the school-room will
cause the rising generation to look slightingly on the "essentials." I
have in my possession numerous letters from Highland teachers dealing
with this fear on the part of the clergy