m the town where
the meeting had been held, and brought him into the town during the
night, followed by an immense throng of people.[6]

[Footnote 6: At the opening of the Lauder Technical School in October,
1880, nearly half a century after the disquieting scenes of 1842, Mr.
Carnegie thus recalled the shock which was given to his boy mind: "One
of my earliest recollections is that of being wakened in the darkness
to be told that my Uncle Morrison was in jail. Well, it is one of the
proudest boasts I can make to-day to be able to say that I had an
uncle who was in jail. But, ladies and gentlemen, my uncle went to
jail to vindicate the rights of public assembly." (Mackie.)]

Serious trouble was feared, for the populace threatened to rescue him,
and, as we learned afterwards, he had been induced by the provost of
the town to step forward to a window overlooking the High Street and
beg the people to retire. This he did, saying: "If there be a friend
of the good cause here to-night, let him fold his arms." They did so.
And then, after a pause, he said, "Now depart in peace!"[7] My uncle,
like all our family, was a moral-force man and strong for obedience to
law, but radical to the core and an intense admirer of the American
Republic.

[Footnote 7: "The Crown agents wisely let the proceedings lapse....
Mr. Morrison was given a gratifying assurance of the appreciation of
his fellow citizens by his election to the Council and his elevation
to the Magisterial Bench, followed shortly after by his appointment to
the office of Burgh Chamberlain. The patriotic reformer whom the
criminal authorities endeavored to convict as a law-breaker became by
the choice of his fellow citizens a Magistrate, and was further given
a certificate for trustworthiness and integrity." (Mackie.)]

One may imagine when all this was going on in public how bitter were
the words that passed from one to the other in private. The
denunciations of monarchical and aristocratic government, of privilege
in all its forms, the grandeur of the republican system, the
superiority of America, a land peopled by our own race, a home for
freemen in which every citizen's privilege was every man's
right--these were the exciting themes upon which I was nurtured. As a
child I could have slain king, duke, or lord, and considered their
deaths a service to the state and hence an heroic act.

Such is the influence of childhood's earliest associations that it was
long befor