. Every one must
have been struck with the seeming inconsistency of his occasional
brilliant, happy, energetic talk, and his habitual silentness--his
difficulty in getting anything to say. But, as I have already said, what
we lost, the world and the church gained.

[20] He gave us all the education we got at Biggar.

When travelling he was always in high spirits and full of anecdote and
fun. Indeed I knew more of his inner history in this _one_ way, than
during years of living with him. I recollect his taking me with him to
Glasgow when I must have been about fourteen; we breakfasted in "_The
Ram's Horn Tavern_" and I felt a new respect for him at his commanding
the waiters. He talked a great deal during our short tour, and often
have I desired to recall the many things he told me of his early life,
and of his own religious crises, my mother's death, his fear of his own
death, and all this intermingled with the drollest stories of his boy
and student life.

We went to Paisley and dined, I well remember, we two alone, and, as I
thought, magnificently, in a great apartment in "_The Saracen's Head_,"
at the end of which was the county ball-room. We had come across from
Dunoon and landed in a small boat at the _Water Neb_ along with Mrs. Dr.
Hall, a character Sir Walter or Galt would have made immortal. My father
with characteristic ardor took an oar, for the first time in his life,
and I believe for the last, to help the old boatman on the Cart, and
wishing to do something decided, missed the water, and went back head
over heels to the immense enjoyment of Mrs. Hall, who said, "Less pith,
and mair to the purpose, my man." She didn't let the joke die out.

Another time--it was when his second marriage was fixed on, to our great
happiness and his--I had just taken my degree of M. D., and he took
Isabella, William, and myself to Moffat. By a curious felicity we got
into Miss Geddes' lodgings, where the village circulating library was
kept, the whole of which we aver he read in ten days. I never saw him so
happy, so open and full of mirth, reading to us, and reciting the poetry
of his youth. On these rare but delightful occasions he was fond of
exhibiting, when asked, his powers of rapid speaking, in which he might
have rivalled old Matthews or his son. His favorite feat was repeating
"Says I to my Lord, quo' I--what for will ye no grund ma barley-meal
mouter-free, says I to my Lord, quo' I, says I, I says." He was
b