A word more. I had my breakfast this morning at 4.30! My
new cook has beaten me and (as Lloyd says) revenged all the
cooks in the world. I have been hunting them to give me
breakfast early since I was twenty; and now here comes Mr.
Ratke, and I have to plead for mercy. I cannot stand 4.30; I
am a mere fevered wreck; it is now half-past eight, and I can
no more, and four hours divide me from lunch, the devil take
the man! Yesterday it was about 5.30, which I can stand; day
before 5, which is bad enough; to-day, I give out. It is
like a London season, and as I do not take a siesta once in a
month, and then only five minutes, I am being worn to the
bones, and look aged and anxious.

We have Rider Haggard's brother here as a Land Commissioner;
a nice kind of a fellow; indeed, all the three Land
Commissioners are very agreeable.



CHAPTER X



SUNDAY, SEPT. 5 (?), 1891.


MY DEAR COLVIN, - Yours from Lochinver has just come. You
ask me if I am ever homesick for the Highlands and the Isles.
Conceive that for the last month I have been living there