With the docile Finlay as my companion, and left to work out my own will unchallenged, I was rarely or never mischievous. On the occasions, however, in which my band swelled out to ten or a dozen, I often experienced the ordinary evils of leadership, as known in all gangs and parties, civil and ecclesiastical; and was sometimes led, in consequence, to engage in enterprises which my better judgment condemned. I fain wish that among the other "Confessions" with which our literature is charged, we had the _bona fide_ "Confessions of a Leader," with examples of the cases in which, though he seems to overbear, he is in reality overborne, and actually follows, though he appears to lead. Honest Sir William Wallace, though seven feet high, and a hero, was at once candid and humble enough to confess to the canons of Hexham, that, his "soldiers being evil-disposed men," whom he could neither "justify nor punish," he was able to protect women and Churchmen only so long as they "abided in his sight." And, of course, other leaders, less tall and less heroic, must not unfrequently find themselves, had they but Wallace's magnanimity to confess the fact, in circumstances much akin to those of Wallace. When bee-masters get hold of queen bees, they are able, by controlling the movements of these natural leaders of hives, to control the movements of the hives themselves; and not unfrequently in Churches and States do there exist inconspicuous bee-masters, who, by influencing or controlling the leader-bees, in reality influence and control the movements of the entire body, politic or ecclesiastical, over which these natural monarchs seem to preside. But truce with apology. Partly in the character of leader--partly being my self led--I succeeded about this time in getting one of my larger parties into a tolerably serious scrape. We passed every day, on our way to the cave, a fine large orchard, attached to the manor-house of the Cromarty estate; and in ascending an adjacent hill over which our path lay, and which commands a bird's-eye view of the trim-kept walks and well-laden trees, there used not unfrequently to arise wild speculations among us regarding the possibility and propriety of getting a supply of the fruit, to serve as desserts to our meals of shell-fish and potatoes. Weeks elapsed, however, and autumn was drawing on to its close, ere we could quite make up our minds regarding the adventure, when at length I agreed to lead; and, after arranging the plan of the expedition, we broke into the orchard under the cloud of night, and carried away with us whole pocketfuls of apples. They were all intolerably bad--sour, hard, baking apples; for we had delayed the enterprise until the better fruit had been pulled: but though they set our teeth on edge, and we flung most of them into the sea, we had "snatched" in the foray, what Gray well terms "a fearful joy," and had some thought of repeating it,