Now while I was walking daily in and out great crowds of men (few of whom had any freedom from the cares of money, and many of whom were even morbid with a worse pest called “politics"), I could not be quit of thinking how we jostle one another.  God has made the earth quite large, with a spread of land large enough for all to live on, without fighting.  Also a mighty spread of water, laying hands on sand and cliff with a solemn voice in storm-time; and in the gentle weather moving men to thoughts of equity.  This, as well, is full of food; being two-thirds of the world, and reserved for devouring knowledge; by the time the sons of men have fed away the dry land.  Yet before the land itself has acknowledged touch of man, upon one in a hundred acres; and before one mile in ten thousand of the exhaustless ocean has ever felt the plunge of hook, or combing of the haul-nets; lo, we crawl, in flocks together upon the hot ground that stings us, even as the black grubs crowd upon the harried nettle!  Surely we are too much given to follow the tracks of each other.

However, for a moralist, I never set up, and never shall, while common sense abides with me.  Such a man must be very wretched in this pure dearth of morality; like a fisherman where no fish be; and most of us have enough to do to attend to our own morals.  Enough that I resolved to go; and as Lorna could not come with me, it was even worse than stopping.  Nearly everybody vowed that I was a great fool indeed, to neglect so rudely—­which was the proper word, they said—­the pushing of my fortunes.  But I answered that to push was rude, and I left it to people who had no room; and thought that my fortune must be heavy, if it would not move without pushing.

Lorna cried when I came away (which gave me great satisfaction), and she sent a whole trunkful of things for mother and Annie, and even Lizzie.  And she seemed to think, though she said it not, that I made my own occasion for going, and might have stayed on till the winter.  Whereas I knew well that my mother would think (and every one on the farm the same) that here I had been in London, lagging, and taking my pleasure, and looking at shops, upon pretence of King’s business, and leaving the harvest to reap itself, not to mention the spending of money; while all the time there was nothing whatever, except my own love of adventure and sport, to keep me from coming home again.  But I knew that my coat of arms, and title, would turn every bit of this grumbling into fine admiration.

And so it fell out, to a greater extent than even I desired; for all the parishes round about united in a sumptuous dinner, at the Mother Melldrum inn—­for now that good lady was dead, and her name and face set on a sign-post—­to which I was invited, so that it was as good as a summons.  And if my health was no better next day, it was not from want of good wishes, any more than from stint of the liquor.