n the Mother's Catechism of Willison. On Willison my uncles
always cross-examined us, to make sure that we understood the short and
simple questions; but, apparently regarding the questions of the Shorter
Catechism as seed sown for a future day, they were content with having
them well fixed in our memories. There was a Sabbath class taught in the
parish church at the time by one of the elders; but Sabbath-schools my
uncles regarded as merely compensatory institutions, highly creditable
to the teachers, but very discreditable indeed to the parents and
relatives of the taught; and so they of course never thought of sending
us there. Later in the evening, after a short twilight walk, for which
the sedentary occupation of my Uncle James formed an apology, but in
which my Uncle Alexander always shared, and which usually led them into
solitary woods, or along an unfrequented sea-shore, some of the old
divines were read; and I used to take my place in the circle, though, I
am afraid, not to much advantage. I occasionally caught a fact, or had
my attention arrested for a moment by a simile or metaphor; but the
trains of close argument, and the passages of dreary "application," were
always lost.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Cape Wrath.

CHAPTER III.

"At Wallace' name what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace' side,
Still pressing onward, red wat shod,
Or glorious died."--BURNS.

I first became thoroughly a Scot some time in my tenth year; and the
consciousness of country has remained tolerably strong within me ever
since. My uncle James had procured for me from a neighbour the loan of a
common stall-edition of Blind Harry's "Wallace," as modernized by
Hamilton; but after reading the first chapter,--a piece of dull
genealogy, broken into very rude rhyme,--I tossed the volume aside as
uninteresting; and only resumed it at the request of my uncle, who urged
that, simply for _his_ amusement and gratification, I should read some
three or four chapters more. Accordingly, the three or four chapters
more I did read;--I read "how Wallace killed young Selbie the
Constable's son;" "how Wallace fished in Irvine Water;" and "how Wallace
killed the Churl with his own staff in Ayr;" and then Uncle James told
me, in the quiet way in which he used to make a joke tell, that the book
seemed to be rather a rough sort of production, filled with account