FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   >>  
lies the village of Kinnesswood, noted as the birthplace of the poet Michael Bruce. A native of this village entered the army, and there learned manners at war with good morals, which, after his discharge, brought upon him the vengeance of the law, and he was banished 'beyond seas.' His subsequent good-conduct, however, procured him 'a ticket-of-leave,' and he became servant to the commissariat for the convicts in Van Diemen's Land. In this capacity he had frequent opportunities of seeing the substance brought from the Bathurst 'diggings,' containing the gold which is now arriving in this country in such large quantities. It at once struck him that he had seen abundance of the same material in his native hills, when visiting the quarries in which several of his friends and acquaintances earned their livelihood. This impression he conveyed in a letter to his mother, who, as a matter of course, afforded the information to all to whom she had an opportunity of communicating it. The intelligence spread with the rapidity of an electric telegraph; and an excitement was produced such as is seen among bees when their hive has received a sudden shock. The mountain pathways became immediately alive with human beings, and noises arose like the hum of a city heard at a distance during the busiest hours of the day. In the villages immediately adjoining the place of resort, the excitement was wholly confined to youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and young, hale and infirm, asthmatic and long-winded, grave and gay, taught and untaught, respectable and disreputable, industrious and idle, till it reached a compass of twenty miles at least, extending not only to the Forth and Tay, but stretching inland from their opposite shores. In short, men who had never climbed a mountain all their lives before, though living in close proximity to one, were seen on its loftiest peaks, and toiling there with all the ardour of Cyclops. Meanwhile, some of the less impulsive minds in the district, not altogether untouched by the prevailing mania, began to cast about for warrants to justify their appropriation of some of this much-coveted material, and assure their confidence that it was really gold. Memory, research, tradition, testimony, all came to their help. They recollected how their fathers had told them that the Laird of Lathrisk had wrought a lead-mine on t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   >>  



Top keywords:
mountain
 

excitement

 

native

 

village

 

immediately

 

brought

 

material

 
reached
 

shores

 
inland

opposite

 

extending

 

stretching

 

twenty

 

compass

 
novelty
 

bustle

 
extended
 

confined

 

wholly


youngsters

 
idlers
 

untaught

 

taught

 

respectable

 

disreputable

 

industrious

 
infirm
 

asthmatic

 

winded


Memory
 

research

 
tradition
 

testimony

 

confidence

 

assure

 

justify

 

warrants

 

appropriation

 

coveted


wrought

 

Lathrisk

 

recollected

 
fathers
 
loftiest
 

resort

 
proximity
 

climbed

 

living

 

toiling