With Us He Made An Unusually Long Stay; He Liked Good Living And
Comforts Generally, And At The Same Time
He was interested in the
things of the mind, which had no place in the lives of the British
settlers
Of that period; and now he found himself in a very
comfortable house, where there were books to read and people to
converse with who were not quite like the rude sheep- and cattle-
farmers he had been accustomed to live with. He was on his best
behaviour, and no doubt strove hard and not unsuccessfully to get the
better of his weaknesses. He was looked on as a great acquisition, and
made much of; in the school-room he was a tyrant, and having been
forbidden to punish us by striking, he restrained himself when to
thrash us would have been an immense relief to him. But pinching was
not striking, and he would pinch our ears until they almost bled. It
was a poor punishment and gave him little satisfaction, but it had to
serve. Out of school his temper would change as by magic. He was then
the life of the house, a delightful talker with an inexhaustible fund
of good stories, a good reader, mimic, and actor as well.
One afternoon we had a call from a quaint old Scotch dame, in a queer
dress, sunbonnet, and spectacles, who introduced herself as the wife
of Sandy Maclachlan, a sheep-farmer who lived about twenty-five miles
away.
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