having simply gained in ice and lost in caloric.
But they set the natural proportions straight
again by plenty of ale and a blazing fire at the
toll-keeper's of Ambleside. But beside these
historical anecdotes, authentic and undoubted,
there were various apocrypha floating about the
world respecting him—perhaps they are floating
yet—as, that he once hied away to Wales with a
gang of gipsies, married a girl of the tribe, and
lived for mouths with her among the mountains;
or that he joined more than one company of
strolling actors, and divided bit and sup with
them as a faithful fellow-labourer should. If he
did, Mrs. Gordon knows nothing of it.

One very romantic expedition was that walking
excursion which he and his wife, pretty,
womanly, elegant Jane Penny, took into the
Highlands together, when they carried bag and
scrip between them—he the heavier luggage,
she the lighter—stopping at shielings, or gentlemen's
houses, as best suited their purpose and
the place, and fishing diligently in every pool as
they went; even though Wilson had once to go
back thirteen miles to get part of his rod, left
behind at his lodgings. They had a few odd
adventures; as, when they were staying at a little
thatched cottage close to the Falls of the Aray,
and the daughter of the house came one Sabbath
morning into the room—the only one—where
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were in bed. She dressed
herself by the little hand-glass hanging against
the unmortared wall, but was not able to fasten
her gown behind, so she went to the bed where
they both lay, with the utmost composure, and
said, ."Do help me to hook my gown!" Mr.
Wilson sat up in bed, and hooked it like a lady's-
maid, and doubtless never laughed. He
astonished one of his cottar friends the day he went
back thirteen miles for the top of his fishing-
rod. After he had fished all round the loch—
Loch Toila—and in many a pool beside, he set
off with his basketful, confessing that he was
rather tired. At eleven o'clock at night he
passed a farm-house where he knew the people,
roused them up, and asked the hostess for milk
and whisky. She brought a canful of the first,
and a bottle of the last, and a tumbler to drink
out of, such as an ordinary Christian, might
have used. John Wilson, with his basketful of
fish and his two-score miles at his heels,
repudiated the tumbler and demanded a bowl; mixed
the milk and whisky in that, and drank the canful
and the bottle in two draughts. This was heroic;
fit for one of Homer's gods, or a Scandinavian
hero; but it just suited Wilson, and carried him
safely to the end of his seventy-mile walk. They
were often taken for cairds or gipsies in their
tour; and the Highland servant at a gentleman's
house, where they had letters of introduction,
showed them into the kitchen, as her best
measurement of their deserts. Another time a
shepherd on Mr. Campbell's estate of Achlian,
to whom they had a note, refused them
admittance on first seeing them, and before the
wife had read her master's mandate, telling
them to " Go on to the farm-house; they could
not take in gangrels there."

A local hero called the King of the Drovers
was much excited on hearing of the look and
bearing of this " King of the Cairds," and
challenged him to a meeting for the better trying of
their strength, and to determine who had the
most right to the title of king in those parts.
They met; and in wrestling, leaping, running,
and drinking, the great drover king was
defeated, and the crown of his fame descended on
the fair glowing head of the stranger. The
oddity of it all was, that while Wilson himself,
in his slouched hat and sailor's dress, with his
broad shoulders burdened with a huge knapsack,
and his long uncut hair, beard, and
whiskers floating on his shoulders, might have
passed very respectable muster among the
tinkers and gipsies, if there had been no
educated person to hear him talk, and the test had
been confined only to athletic sports and feats
of animal strength, the caird's wife was a
slim, fragile, ladylike-looking woman; very ill-
dressed, doubtless, but bearing in every look
and gesture the unmistakable stamp of gentlewoman.
It was this strange contrast which
gave a more striking character to the whole
thing, and which more and more confirmed
many in their belief that John Wilson was a
"good few" degrees beyond eccentricity, and
was mad, decidedly and hopelessly mad. What
would the holders of this creed have thought
if they had heard him " crowing all day like a
cock at Elleray?"—if they knew that he would
lie in bed half the day, and wander through the
glens all the night, no matter how dark, or
stormy, or dangerous?—if they had seen him
just gamble with his life as a man might gamble
with a handful of gold? Yet, somehow or other,
he always managed to come out the winner in
the end; and until that last fatal throw which
must come to us all, with increased capital of
health and strength. But it was the fashion to
call him mad, and fashions are never reasoned
out of life. When his wife could not accompany
him, Mr. Wilson used to go off on these
outward-bound tramps alone, to seek such
adventures and amusement as fortune might be
kind enough to send. Once he had been fishing
throughout the day, and by accident strolled
into Tomintoul while the fair was going on.
He saw a big fellow called Grant ill-treating
another man not able to defend himself. Mr.
Wilson pulled off his coat and thrashed the bully
to his heart's content and the bully's deserving.
Then he put on his coat again, and found his
pocket-book gone, and all his money, save a very
few shillings, gone with it. He set off for
Carrbridge, when he had just enough to pay his shot
and no more; got to Inverness and asked for
his letters, but as he had no money for postage,
they declined trusting him, his appearance not
being of the most encouraging kind, for his
"white duck trousers were covered with mud,
and his white hat entirely so with fishing gear."
Finally, he got to Mr. Alexander M'Kenzie's
house at Dingwall, half famished and quite
moneyless, and wound up his adventure with a
charming sojourn and a delightful friendship.