Anstruther is a place sacred to the Muse; she inspired (really to a considerable extent) Tennant’s vernacular poem “Anst’er Fair”; and I have there waited upon her myself with much devotion. This was when I came as a young man to glean engineering experience from the building of the breakwater. What I gleaned, I am sure I do not know; but indeed I had already my own private determination to be an author; I loved the art of words and the appearances of life; and travellers , and headers , and rubble , and polished ashlar , and pierres perdues , and even the thrilling question of the string-course