ar prices, the influx of cheap wheat
from abroad would mean ruin. He proved that he paid 6,000 pounds a year
for these three farms--two he worked himself, the third was for his
eldest son; but he was liable for the rent. On his first London trip,
my aunt Margaret accompanied him, and on his second he took my mother.
That was in the year 1814, and both of them noted from the postchaise
that farming was not up to what was done in East Lothian.

My grandfather Brodie was a speculating man, and he lost nearly all his
savings through starting, along with others, an East Lothian Bank,
because the local banker had been ill used by the British Linen
Company. He put in only 1,000 pounds; but was liable for all, and, as
many of his fellow shareholders were defaulters, it cost 15,000 pounds
before all was over, and if it had not been that he left the farm in
the capable hands of Aunt Margaret, there would have been little or
nothing left for the family. When he had a stroke of paralysis he
wanted to turn over Thornton Loch, the only farm he then had, to his
eldest son, but there were three daughters, and one of them said she
would like to carry it on, and she did so. She was the most successful
farmer in the country for 30 years, and then she transferred it to a
nephew. The capacity for business of my Aunt Margaret, the wit and
charm of my brilliant Aunt Mary, and the sound judgment and accurate
memory of my own dear mother, showed me early that women were fit to
share in the work of this world, and that to make the world pleasant
for men was not their only mission. My father's sister Mary was also a
remarkable and saintly woman, though I do not think she was such a born
teacher as Miss Phin. When my father was a little boy, not 12 years
old, an uncle from Jamaica came home for a visit. He saw his sister
Janet a dying woman, with a number of delicate-looking children, and he
offered to take David with him and treat him like his own son. No
objections were made. The uncle was supposed to be well-to-do, and he
was unmarried, but he took fever and died, and was found to be not rich
but insolvent. The boy could read and write, and he got something to do
on a plantation till his father sent money to pay his passage home. He
must have been supposed to be worth something, for he got a cask of rum
for his wages, which was shipped home, and when the duty had been paid
was drunk in the doctor's household. But the boy had been away only 21
m