A BROKEN LEG IN CANNA
One of the workmen engaged in building a dry-stone dyke met with a serious accident. The materials he had to use consisted of large rounded boulders and blocks of basalt, which required some little care to adjust in order that the structure might remain firm. When the wall had been raised to its full height, a portion of it gave way, and some large masses of heavy basalt fell on the workman, smashing one of his legs. His companions on extricating him from the ruins, saw the serious nature of the injuries. But there was no doctor on the island, nor anywhere nearer than at Arisaig, a distance of some twenty-five miles across an open sea. No time was lost in getting the poor man carried into a boat, which two of his comrades navigated to the mainland. On arriving there, however, they found that the doctor had gone away inland and would not be back for a day or two. As there was no time to lose, the boatmen at once set out for Tobermory in Mull, where the next medical man was to be obtained. They had to traverse a tract of sea which is often rough. Even in calm weather more or less commotion may always be looked for in the water round the Point of Ardnamurchan—the ‘headland of great waves.’ It was some thirty-six hours after the accident before the poor sufferer was at last placed in medical hands. The first thing to be done was, of course, to amputate the mangled leg. The patient stood the operation well, and in two or three weeks was sufficiently recovered to be able to be taken back to Canna. His two faithful comrades, who had waited on with him at Tobermory, had him carried down to the pier, where their boat was ready for him. When he came there he looked all round him with some anxiety, and at last exclaimed, ‘But where’s my leg?’ ‘Your leg! in the kirkyard, to be sure.’ ‘But I maun hae my leg.’ ‘But I tell ye, ye canna hae your leg, its been buryit this fortnicht in the graveyard.’ ‘Weel’ said the lameter, steadying his back against a wall, ‘I’ll no stir a fit till I get my leg. D’ye think I’m to gang tramp-tramping aboot at the Last Day lookin’ for my leg.’ Finding persuasion useless, the unhappy boatmen had to interview the minister and the procurator-fiscal, and obtain authority to dig up the leg. When the lost limb came up once more to the light of day, it was in such a state of decomposition that the men refused to have it in the boat with them. Eventually a compromise was effected. A second boat was hired to convey the leg, and with a length of ten yards of rope between them, was towed at the stern of the first. In this way the procession reached Canna.
PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITIES
Throughout the Highlands the desire to be buried among one’s own kith and kin remains wide-spread and deep-seated. And it would also appear that a Highlander cannot bear that the parts of his body should be interred in different places. The Canna dyke-builder only gave expression to the general feeling.[17]
In due time the natives felt it necessary to celebrate in an appropriate way the recovery and return of their fellow-islander, and the re-interment of the leg in its native soil. With an ample provision of whisky, a banquet was held, and continued till a late hour. On the way back from this orgy, the hero of the accident stumbled across a heap of stones, and broke the wooden leg that had replaced his own. Partly from this fresh accident, but largely, no doubt, from the effects of the debauch, the man could not regain his cottage, but lay where he fell until, in the morning light, he was picked up and helped home.
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That gradual modification of the national characteristics which is observable in all parts of the social scale, has not allowed the Universities to escape. On the one hand, the professoriate is now constantly recruited from the south side of the Tweed, by the selection either of Englishmen or of Scotsmen who have been trained at the English universities. On the other hand, a considerable proportion of the students, more particularly in medicine, come from England, Wales, Ireland, and the colonies; some of them even hail from the Continent and from India.[18] As the non-Scottish leaven thus introduced has no doubt tended to enlarge the culture of the teachers and perhaps to soften the asperities of manner in the taught, the change has been welcomed. The reproach that used to be levelled at the nation that it was too clannish and acted too much on the principle of its own unsavoury proverb of ‘keeping its ain fish-guts for its ain sea-maws,’ certainly cannot justly be brought against its educational institutions. For many years the obvious and earnest endeavour has been to secure the best men, no matter from what part of the globe they may come. The gradual obliteration of the peculiarly Scottish characteristics of the Professors and students is part of the price to be paid for the general advancement. Yet we pay it with a certain measure of regret. There was a marked originality and individuality among the Professors of the older type, which gave a distinctive character to the colleges where they taught, and in some degree also to their teaching.
A ST. ANDREWS PROFESSOR
About the middle of last century the Professor of Mathematics in the University of St. Andrews was an able mathematician and a singularly picturesque teacher. He spoke not only with a Scottish accent, but used many old Scottish words, if they were effective in making his meaning clear. If, for instance, he noticed an inattentive student, looking anywhere but at the black-board on which he was demonstrating some proposition, he would stop and request the lad to ‘e’e the buird’ (look at the board). He lectured in a dress suit, and as he always wiped his chalky fingers on his waistcoat, his appearance was somewhat brindled by the end of the hour. One of his old students gave me the following recollection of an incident that took place in the class-room. A certain student named Lumsden was one day conspicuous for his inattention. The professor at last stopped his lecture, and addressed the delinquent thus: ‘Mr. Lumsdeil, will you come forrit here and sit down on that bench there in front o’ me. I have three reasons for moving you. In the first place, you’ll be nearer my een; in the second place, you’ll be nearer my foot; and in the third place, you’ll be nearer the door.’
Among the Glasgow professors towards the middle of the century, one with a marked individuality was Allan Maconochie, afterwards Maconochie Welwood. Coming of a race of lawyers, for he was the son of one Scottish judge and the grandson of another, he took naturally to the bar, and became Professor of Law in 1842. Being prompt and decisive in his business habits, he soon acquired a considerable practice as referee and arbiter in disputed cases among the mercantile community of Glasgow, and thus saved the disputants the long delays and heavy expenses of the Court of Session. He gave himself up with much energy to the work of his chair, and to college business during the session, but as soon as the winter term was over, he used to depart at once for the Pyrenees, where he possessed a chateau, and where he would spend most of his time until he had to resume his professional labours in this country. During these years of residence abroad, he acquired facility in speaking Spanish, and he would make long solitary excursions, mingling freely among the people.