To these questions a partial answer came sooner than I had expected. On leaving Ardverikie I paid another visit to the Lovats. On joining the train at Kingussie I learned that one of the passengers was Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who was, as an advanced Radical, to make the following day a great speech at Inverness. Needless to say, this speech turned out to be mainly a vituperation of Highland landlords. I mention it here only on account of one short passage. "The landlords," said Mr. Chamberlain, "have made a silence in the happy glens which once resounded with your industry"--as though every wilderness between Cape Wrath and Loch Lomond had not so very long ago resembled a suburb of Birmingham. This is a curious illustration of how readily even a man of most acute intellect may be led by the need of securing applause at all costs into nonsense which, in calmer moments, he would himself be the first to ridicule. As an antidote to Mr. Chamberlain's propaganda another meeting was planned under the auspices of a number of the great Highland proprietors, who gathered together to discuss matters at Castle Grant (Lord Seafield's), the ideal home of a chieftain. To this conclave I was taken by my host, Lord Lovat, from Beaufort. Five chieftains were present, supported by five pipers, whose strains might have elicited echoes from the slopes of the farthest Grampians. Before the public meeting which was planned at Castle Grant took place I had left the Lovats', being called by business to England; but I had not been long in London before an opportunity of political action was offered me, in a manner which I could not resist. My book _Social Equality_ had, it seemed, so far achieved its object that a letter presently reached me, written on behalf of a number of students at the University of St. Andrews, asking me whether, could the requisite arrangements be made, I would be willing, at the next election, to stand as Conservative candidate for the St. Andrews Boroughs, as the present member--a Liberal--would before long retire. The proper authorities were consulted, and, the proposal meeting with their approval, I agreed to begin forthwith the needed preliminary work, on condition that if meanwhile some member of a Fifeshire family should be willing to take the place of a stranger such as myself, I should be allowed to withdraw and make room for him.