with Tom Sheridan and Joseph Gillan, attended
mason-lodges, joined the Volunteers, and, seeing a fountain one day,
wished to be it, for then he should have nothing to do but play. The
natural result followed in a second severe illness, out of which his
kind master, _Corrie_ Elliott, endeavoured to recover him by a
commission to ride through a range of mountain parishes in the south,
in order to search for genealogical particulars illustrative of a case
between Lady Forbes, born Miss Hunter of Polmood, and two gentlemen
named Hunter, who claimed her estate.

'I travelled,' says our autobiographer, 'from manse to manse, and
received unbounded hospitalities from the ministers, whilst I examined
their kirk-registers, and extracted from them every entry where the
name of Hunter or Welsh was to be found. Never was task more
gratifying. The _bonhomie_ of the priests, and the simplicity of their
parishioners, were a new world to me, whilst they, the clergy, men of
piety and learning, considered themselves as out of the world
altogether. The population was thin and scattered, the mode of living
primitive in the extreme, and the visit of a stranger, so
insignificant as myself, quite enough to make a great sensation in
these secluded parts. I found the ministers ingenuous, free from all
puritanism, and generally well informed.... The examination of the
parish books was also a labour of love and source of endless
amusement. They mostly went as far back as a century and a half, and
were, in the elder times, filled with such entries as bespoke a very
strange condition of society. The inquisitorial practices and punitive
power of the ministry could not be exceeded in countries enslaved by
the priesthood of the Church of Rome. Forced confessions, the denial
of religious rites even on the bed of death, excommunication, shameful
exposures, and a rigid and minute interference in every domestic or
private concern, indicated a state of things which must have been
intolerable. High and low were obliged to submit to this offensive
discipline and domination.... My duty was thus pleasantly and
satisfactorily performed. My note-book was full. My skill in
deciphering obsolete manuscript was cultivated and improved; and my
health was restored as if by miracle. Of other incidents and results I
shall only state, that on one occasion, to rival Bruce in Abyssinia, I
dined off mutton whilst the sheep nibbled the grass upon the lawn, our
fare being th