ith him. He was outlawed and fled, only to be
hunted down for months, and finally captured and executed by one of the
Grants, who, in further virtuous disapproval of Allen's act, seized and
held the Shaw stronghold. The other Shaws of the clan fought long and
ably for its recovery, but though they were helped by their kinsmen, the
Mackintoshes, and though good Scotch blood dyed the gray walls of the
fortress for many generations, the castle never again came into the
hands of the Shaws. It still entails certain obligations for the Grants,
however, and one of these is to give the King of England a snowball
whenever he visits Loch-an-Eilan!

As the years passed the Shaw clan scattered. Many Shaws are still to be
found in the Mackintosh country and throughout southern Scotland. Others
went to England, and it was from this latter branch that my father
sprang. His name was Thomas Shaw, and he was the younger son of a
gentleman--a word which in those days seemed to define a man who devoted
his time largely to gambling and horse-racing. My grandfather, like his
father before him, was true to the traditions of his time and class.
Quite naturally and simply he squandered all he had, and died abruptly,
leaving his wife and two sons penniless. They were not, however, a
helpless band. They, too, had their traditions, handed down by the
fighting Shaws. Peter, the older son, became a soldier, and died bravely
in the Crimean War. My father, through some outside influence, turned
his attention to trade, learning to stain and emboss wallpaper by hand,
and developing this work until he became the recognized expert in
his field. Indeed, he progressed until he himself checked his rise by
inventing a machine that made his handwork unnecessary. His employer at
once claimed and utilized this invention, to which, by the laws of those
days, he was entitled, and thus the cornerstone on which my father had
expected to build a fortune proved the rock on which his career was
wrecked. But that was years later, in America, and many other things had
happened first.

For one, he had temporarily dropped his trade and gone into the
flour-and-grain business; and, for another, he had married my mother.
She was the daughter of a Scotch couple who had come to England and
settled in Alnwick, in Northumberland County. Her father, James Stott,
was the driver of the royal-mail stage between Alnwick and Newcastle,
and his accidental death while he was still a you