convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were
still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often
adventure 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