did not like to complain or to push the
man; that the man seemed to have no liking to anything like work;
that he was unruly; that, being an educated man, he despised them. I
was, however, determined to have out of these _unwilling_ witnesses
the language alluded to. I fixed upon Mr. Stewart as chief; he
hedged. My curiosity increased, and I urged. Then he said, 'What
would I think, just exactly, of Mr. Watt being called an Old B----?'
You may judge of my surprise. There was not another word uttered.
This was quite enough, as coming from a person I should have
calculated upon quite different behaviour from. It spoke a volume of
the man's mind and want of principle." "Object to the keeper keeping
a Bull-Terrier dog of ferocious appearance. It is dangerous, as we
land at all times of the night." "Have only to complain of the
storehouse floor being spotted with oil. Give orders for this being
instantly rectified, so that on my return to-morrow I may see things
in good order." "The furniture of both houses wants much rubbing.
Mrs. ----'s carpets are absurd beyond anything I have seen. I want
her to turn the fenders up with the bottom to the fireplace: the
carpets, when not likely to be in use, folded up and laid as a
hearthrug partly under the fender."

My grandfather was king in the service to his fingertips. All should go
in his way, from the principal lightkeeper's coat to the assistant's
fender, from the gravel in the garden-walks to the bad smell in the
kitchen, or the oil-spots on the store-room floor. It might be thought
there was nothing more calculated to awake men's resentment, and yet his
rule was not more thorough than it was beneficent. His thought for the
keepers was continual, and it did not end with their lives. He tried to
manage their successions; he thought no pains too great to arrange
between a widow and a son who had succeeded his father; he was often
harassed and perplexed by tales of hardship; and I find him writing,
almost in despair, of their improvident habits and the destitution that
awaited their families upon a death. "The house being completely
furnished, they come into possession without necessaries, and they go
out NAKED. The insurance seems to have failed, and what next is to be
tried?" While they lived he wrote behind their backs to arrange for the
education of their children, or to get them other situations if they
seemed unsuitabl