As A Boy I Remember Listening To Him With Delight,
For His Memory Was Stored With A Never-Ending Stock Of Stories,
Many Of Which Were Wonderfully Like Those I Have Since Heard
While Sitting By The African Evening Fires.
Our grandmother, too,
used to sing Gaelic songs, some of which, as she believed, had been composed
by captive islanders languishing hopelessly among the Turks.
Grandfather could give particulars of the lives of his ancestors for
six generations of the family before him; and the only point of the tradition
I feel proud of is this: One of these poor hardy islanders
was renowned in the district for great wisdom and prudence;
and it is related that, when he was on his death-bed,
he called all his children around him and said, "Now, in my lifetime,
I have searched most carefully through all the traditions
I could find of our family, and I never could discover
that there was a dishonest man among our forefathers. If, therefore,
any of you or any of your children should take to dishonest ways,
it will not be because it runs in our blood: it does not belong to you.
I leave this precept with you: Be honest." If, therefore,
in the following pages I fall into any errors, I hope they will be dealt with
as honest mistakes, and not as indicating that I have forgotten
our ancient motto. This event took place at a time when the Highlanders,
according to Macaulay, were much like the Cape Caffres,
and any one, it was said, could escape punishment for cattle-stealing
by presenting a share of the plunder to his chieftain.
Our ancestors were Roman Catholics; they were made Protestants
by the laird coming round with a man having a yellow staff,
which would seem to have attracted more attention than his teaching,
for the new religion went long afterward, perhaps it does so still,
by the name of "the religion of the yellow stick".
Finding his farm in Ulva insufficient to support a numerous family,
my grandfather removed to Blantyre Works, a large cotton manufactory
on the beautiful Clyde, above Glasgow; and his sons,
having had the best education the Hebrides afforded,
were gladly received as clerks by the proprietors, Monteith and Co.
He himself, highly esteemed for his unflinching honesty, was employed
in the conveyance of large sums of money from Glasgow to the works,
and in old age was, according to the custom of that company, pensioned off,
so as to spend his declining years in ease and comfort.
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