[15] Penalties of a really deterrent kind might at least be laid upon those gentlemen who write more than three pages of notes to one of the author's text:
O that the Kaiser showing sense for once
Would loose his fury on each learned dunce,
And visit with his summary proceedings
The rogues who tease us with their variant readings.
[16] Mr. Tocher, a Peterhead gentleman, has adopted a special line of investigation. He has sent out schedules to every school in Scotland asking for detailed information as to the colour of the eyes and hair of the boys and girls. His desire is to connect pigmentation and race-origin. He believes it is still possible to get definite information, by such means, of the settlement and blending of Picts, Celts, Norsemen, and Anglo-Saxons.
[17] How differently the items in the Sacred Canon are regarded in scholastic circles in the South! A Glasgow teacher, discussing the Origin of Evil with a Government official, expressed great resentment at the loss of paradise through Adam's sin, and added: "It comes specially hard on me, seeing that I don't care a docken for apples."
[18] Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr. Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism, frequently so absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined the bye-laws of a literary association in Ross-shire, of which the president is a sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It is a rule of this association that no minister is ever to be president, the reason assigned being that ministers would try to elevate the natives too hurriedly. The people do not object to be elevated, but they wish the process to be performed without unnecessary haste.
[19] I may here refer to a pleasant three hours spent in rowing on Lochaline in the company of Mr. Hugh Macintyre, an old gentleman full of Scott and well versed in the lore of the locality. He was a policeman in Glasgow for thirty-five years (latterly as guardian of the Kelvingrove Picture Gallery), and now, in the enjoyment of good health and a pension, spends his time reading and doing good in his native district. Mr. Macintyre's earliest recollection is of his father being evicted from a small holding, at the head of the loch, in the "forties."
Tennyson and Palgrave were visitors at Ardtornish, as Mr. Lang tells us, but made no special impression on the natives, who styled them respectively Tinman and Pancake.
[20] I could mention another rural parish, considerably further north, where, two winters ago, the roads were so badly blocked with snow that for five consecutive weeks no church services could be held! Both minister and congregation were overcome with grief.
[21] In that part of South Arran which lies between Dippen and Shannochie, there is high up on the hillside, a row of cottages and crofts collectively nicknamed "Mount Misery." The reason for this sinister name is that in most of the houses there is some maimed, consumptive, or imbecile child boarded out by the Parish Council. The children are better there than selling matches at St. Enoch's Station: they are well looked after and almost invariably improve in health.
[22] A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said to me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the last year, and the bridegroom was aged three score and fifteen. I wonder what education is coming to: there is little or no patriotism about Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I could get the people to think more imperially than they do at present."