Kirkcaple and Portincross. To my father I fear I was a
disappointment. He had hoped for something in his son more
bookish and sedentary, more like his gentle, studious self.

On one thing I was determined: I should follow a learned
profession. The fear of being sent to an office, like so many of
my schoolfellows, inspired me to the little progress I ever
made in my studies. I chose the ministry, not, I fear, out of
any reverence for the sacred calling, but because my father had
followed it before me. Accordingly I was sent at the age of
sixteen for a year's finishing at the High School of Edinburgh,
and the following winter began my Arts course at the
university.

If Fate had been kinder to me, I think I might have become
a scholar. At any rate I was just acquiring a taste for
philosophy and the dead languages when my father died suddenly
of a paralytic shock, and I had to set about earning a living.

My mother was left badly off, for my poor father had never
been able to save much from his modest stipend. When all
things were settled, it turned out that she might reckon on an
income of about fifty pounds a year. This was not enough to
live on, however modest the household, and certainly not
enough to pay for the colleging of a son. At this point an uncle
of hers stepped forward with a proposal. He was a well-to-do
bachelor, alone in the world, and he invited my mother to live
with him and take care of his house. For myself he proposed a
post in some mercantile concern, for he had much influence in
the circles of commerce. There was nothing for it but to accept