during his solitary rambles fought with certain problems that perplexed
him.

Here he made the acquaintance of the Scotch gardener, Robert Young, and
John Todd, the "Roaring Shepherd, the oldest herd on the Pentlands,"
whom he accompanied on his rounds with the sheep, listening to his tales
told in broad Scotch of the highland shepherds in the old days when "he
himself often marched flocks into England, sleeping on the hillsides
with his caravan; and by his account it was rough business not without
danger. The drove roads lay apart from habitation; the drivers met in
the wilderness, as to-day the deep sea fishers meet off the banks in the
solitude of the Atlantic."

All this time Louis was idling through the university, knowing that in
the end he would make nothing of himself as an engineer and dreading to
confess it to his father. At length, however, his failure in his studies
came to Thomas Stevenson's attention, and, on being questioned about it
"one dreadful day" as they were walking together, the boy frankly
admitted that his heart was not with the work and he cared for nothing
but to be able to write.

While at school his father had encouraged him to follow his own bent in
his studies and reading, but when it came to the point of choosing his
life-work, there ought to be no question of doubt. The only natural
thing for Louis to do was to carry on the great and splendid work that
he himself had helped to build up. That the boy should have other plans
of his own surprised and troubled him. Literature, he said, was no
profession, and thus far Louis had not done enough to prove he had a
claim for making it his career.