RUINS AT ARBROATH.
Our experience has taught us to be sceptical about the tramps of other days who saw Europe afoot. We wonder if they told the whole story. Of modern tramps, none has given such a delightful record as has Mr. Stevenson of the walk he took with a donkey through the Cevennes. And yet, even with him, if you read between his lines, or, for that matter, the lines themselves, you realize that, charming as his story is for us, the reality for him was wearisome, depressing, and often painful, and that probably to it is to be referred much of his after physical weakness. We have also had a new light thrown upon the life of tramps at home, who are so often supposed to have chosen the better part. Theirs is as much a life of toil as if they broke stones on the same roads over which they journey. They are not to be envied, but pitied. The next time one begs from you as he passes, give him something out of your charity; he deserves it.
However, many drawbacks as there were to our walk, we do not regret it. In no other way could we have come to know the country and the people with the same friendly intimacy. For pure enjoyment, it would be best to go over the greater part of our route in a yacht. From it is to be seen much beauty and little misery. The coast-line can be followed, excursions made inland. But a yacht is a luxury for the rich. Besides, on it one lives one's own life, not that of the country one has come to visit. On foot, with knapsacks on our backs, we often passed for peddlers. Certainly we were never mistaken to be tourists of means or sportsmen. Therefore the people met us as equals and talked to us freely.
We were able to correct the vague and false impressions with which we had started. If we did not master the geography of all Scotland, I think—at least on the two coasts as far north as the Caledonian Canal—we could now pass an examination with credit. We learned that haggis and oatmeal figure more extensively in books than on hotel tables; the first we saw not at all, the second but twice, and then it was not offered to us.
Above all, we learned the burden of Scotland, whose Highlands have been laid waste, their people brought to silence. But now the people themselves have broken their long silence, and a cry has gone up from them against their oppressors. If by telling exactly what we saw we can in the least strengthen that cry, we shall feel that our journeying has not been in vain.
THE END.