He had great kindness and tact, and was always kind in the right way. He was once seen, as a lad, flying to open a gate for perhaps the most disgusting person in the parish.
It was a feature in his life's history to keep up intimacies for a certain number of years; the intercourse ceased, but not friendliness.
'In giving me an explanation of the mass before I was received into the Church, I remember' (said a near relative of his) 'his saying that he delighted especially in the Domine, non sum dignus. "It is to me [he remarked] the most beautiful adaptation of Scripture."'
In discussing religion with Presbyterians, he was fond of asserting the truth, 'I, too, am a Bible Christian.'
In conversation once chancing to turn on the subject of one's being able to judge of character and conduct by looking at people in the street, Mr. Hope-Scott remarked: 'Yes, if you saw a novice of the Jesuits taking a walk, you would see what that means.'
The following more detailed recollections appear to deserve a place by themselves:—
When residing on his Highland property at Lochshiel, Mr. Hope-Scott personally acquainted himself with his smaller tenantry, and entered into all their history, going about with a keeper known by the name of 'Black John,' who acted as his Gaelic interpreter. His frank and kindly manners quite won their hearts. Sometimes he would ask his guests to accompany him on such visits, and make them observe the peculiarities of the Celtic character. On one of these occasions he and the late Duke of Norfolk went to visit an old peasant who was blind and bedridden. After the usual greetings, they were both considerably astonished to hear the old man exclaim, in great excitement: 'But tell me, how is Schamyl getting on?' It was long after the Circassian chief had been captured; but his exploits were still clinging to the old Highlander's imagination, full of sympathy for warfare and politics. The natural ease and politeness of the Highland manners in this class, as contrasted with the rougher type of the Lowlands, used always to delight Mr. Hope-Scott. Over and over again, after the ladies had withdrawn from the dinner-table, he would send for a keeper, or a gillie, or a boatman, and ply them with plausible questions, that his guests might have the opportunity of witnessing the good breeding of the Highlands. John, or Ronald, or Duncan, or whoever it might be, would stand a few yards away from the table, and, bonnet in hand, reply with perfect deference and self-possession, his whole behaviour free, on the one hand, from servility, and on the other, from the slightest forwardness. As will readily be supposed, the interview commonly ended with a dram from the laird's own hand.
In one respect he was very strict with his people. He never would tolerate the slightest interference on their part with the rights of property. Some of them were in the habit of presuming on the laird's permission, and helping themselves—no leave asked—to an oar, or a rope, or any implement which they chanced to stand in need of, belonging to the home farm. They indeed brought back these articles when done with; but Mr. Hope-Scott ever insisted they should be asked for, and would not accept the excuse that the things were taken without leave in order to save him the trouble of being asked. He was very severe in repressing drunkenness and dissipation, though no one was readier to make allowance for a little extra merriment on market days and festive gatherings.
Mr. Hope-Scott's chief source of relaxation and pleasure, when he could escape from his professional duties, was building. In this amusement he followed his own ideas, sifting the plans of architects with the most rigid scrutiny, and never hesitating to alter, and sometimes to pull to pieces, what it had cost hours of hard brain-work to devise. No amount of entreaty could extort his consent to what did not commend itself as clear and faultless to his understanding. It might not be a very agreeable process to some of those concerned, but the result was generally satisfactory to the one who had a right to be the most interested. As for contractors, he latterly abjured them altogether; and Dorlin House was commenced and brought to completion under the management of a clerk of the works in whom he had great confidence. In the kindred pursuit of planting (as has already been noticed) Mr. Hope-Scott also took great interest, and the young plantations which now adorn the neighbourhood of Dorlin are the result of his care.
Strong-minded lawyer as he was, he had a firm belief in second-sight. One case in particular, which occurred in his immediate vicinity, is remembered to have made a deep impression on his mind. The facts were these: One Sunday, shortly before Mr. Hope-Scott came to Lochshiel, it happened, during service in a small country chapel close to the present site of Dorlin House, that one of the congregation fainted, and had to be carried out. After the service was over, the late Mr. Stewart, proprietor of Glenuig, asked this man what was the cause of his illness. For a long time he refused to tell, but at length, being pressed more urgently, declared that, of the four men who were sitting on the bench before him, three suddenly appeared to alter in every feature, and to be transported to other places. One seemed to float, face upwards, on the surface of the sea; another lay entangled among the long loose seaweed of the shore; and the third lay stretched on the beach, completely covered with a white sheet. This sight brought on the fainting fit. Somehow the story got abroad, and the consequence was, that the fourth individual, who did not enter into the vision at all, passed, in the course of the next four months, into a state verging on helpless idiocy, from the fear that he was among the doomed. But, strange to tell, the three men who were the subjects of the warning were drowned together, a few months later on, when crossing an arm of the sea not far from the hamlet in which they dwelt. One of the bodies was found floating, as described above. Another was washed ashore on a sandy part of the coast, and, on being found, was covered with a sheet supplied by a farmer's family living close to the spot. The third was discovered at low water, half buried under a mass of seaweed and shingle. The fourth, who had survived to lose his senses, as we have said, died only two years ago.