"It depends upon what ye want to see?" the man replied.
"I think I'd like the moors and hills. I get enough of industrial activity in Ontario, and would sooner hear the grouse and the black-cock than shipyard hammers. Then I'd prefer to take my time and go on foot."
His companion nodded approval. "Ye have sense. Are ye a good walker?"
"I have walked three hundred miles through pretty rough country and dragged my belongings on a hand-sledge."
"Then I think I can tell ye how to see rugged Scotland, for the country has two different sides. Ye can take your choice, but ye cannot see both at once. I could send ye by main roads, where the tourists' motors run, to the show-places, where ye would stay at smart hotels, with Swiss and London waiters, and learn as much o' Scottish character as ye would in Lucerne or the Strand."
"I don't think that is quite what I want. Besides, I haven't much time and would sooner keep to the south."
"Then ye'll take the high ground and go by tracks the moss-troopers rode, winding up the waters and among the fells, where there's only cothouse clachans and lonely farm-towns. Ye'll see there why the old Scottish stock grows firm and strong and the bit, bleak country breeds men who make it respected across the world. Man, if I had not rheumatism and some fashious business I cannot neglect, we would take the moors together!"
"You don't seem to like the smart hotels," Foster remarked, half amused.
"I do not like the folk they harbor. The dusty trippers in leather coats and goggles ye meet at Melrose and Jedburgh are an affront to an old Scottish town. But a man on foot, in clothes that match the ling and the gray bents, gives a human touch to the scene, whether ye meet him by a wind-ruffled lochan or on the broad moor. Ye ken he has come slowly through the quiet hills, for the love o' what he sees. But ye will not understand an old man's havering!"
"I think I do," said Foster. "One learns the charm of the lone trail in the Canadian bush. But I have a map, and don't care much where I go, so long as it's somewhere south. Suppose you mark me out a route towards Liddesdale."