e on horseback by the dubious bridle-track
through unfrequented wildernesses; he must sometimes plant his
lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers; and he was continually enforced
to the vicissitudes of outdoor life. The joy of my grandfather in this
career was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him through youth and
manhood, it burned strong in age, and at the approach of death his last
yearning was to renew these loved experiences. What he felt himself he
continued to attribute to all around him. And to this supposed sentiment
in others I find him continually, almost pathetically, appealing: often
in vain.

Snared by these interests, the boy seems to have become almost at once
the eager confidant and adviser of his new connection; the Church, if he
had ever entertained the prospect very warmly, faded from his view; and
at the age of nineteen I find him already in a post of some authority,
superintending the construction of the lighthouse on the isle of Little
Cumbrae, in the Firth of Clyde. The change of aim seems to have caused
or been accompanied by a change of character. It sounds absurd to couple
the name of my grandfather with the word indolence; but the lad who had
been destined from the cradle to the Church, and who had attained the
age of fifteen without acquiring more than a moderate knowledge of
Latin, was at least no unusual student. And from the day of his charge
at Little Cumbrae he steps before us what he remained until the end, a
man of the most zealous industry, greedy of occupation, greedy of
knowledge, a stern husband of time, a reader, a writer, unflagging in
his task of self-improvement. Thenceforward his summers were spent
directing works and ruling workmen, now in uninhabited, now in
half-savage islands; his winters were set apart, first at the
Andersonian Institution, then at the University of Edinburgh to improve
himself in mathematics, chemistry, natural history, agriculture, moral
philosophy, and logic; a bearded student--although no doubt scrupulously
shaved. I find one reference to his years in class which will have a
meaning for all who have studied in Scottish Universities. He mentions a
recommendation made by the professor of logic. "The high-school men," he
writes, "and _bearded men like myself_, were all attention." If my
grandfather were throughout life a thought too studious of the art of
getting on, much must be forgiven to the bearded and belated student who
looked across, with