Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. CHAPTER III.--ECCLESIASTICAL, 134 Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. CHAPTER IV.--EDUCATIONAL, 180 Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue of Latin in former times--Teachers and examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. CHAPTER V.--A TRIP TO SHETLAND, 217 Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. CHAPTER VI.--COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES, 255 Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, please!"--A bad case of nerves.