Blair Collection > Mackintosh's collection of Gaelic proverbs, and familar phrases

other sort of rural employment ; wherefore he was suf-
fered to pursue the bent of his inclination ; and he pre-
ferred to all things that of his being a scholar. His
father therefore sent him to the parish-school, where
his docility, diligence and success, suggested to the
minds of his parents, that he would one day become a
clergyman ; and at an advanced period of his life,
when least expected, this did actually happen.
Having acquired all the instruction that a village-
school could afford seventy years since, he lingered
about his father's house unemployed, save when called
upon to instruct his brothers and sisters, or other chil-
dren of the neighbourhood, whom he taught gratis.
By degrees he got into more extensive employment
as a teacher, which suggested the idea of trying his
fortune in the Scottish capital; and accordingly he
made his appearance there, but in a more humble ca-
pacity than he had dreamed of ere he ventured through
the pass of Killicrankie, down to Dunkeld, thence to
Perth, and eventually to Edinburgh.
In what year he came hither, I know not ; but I
myself remember him (either in 1774? or 1775), as one
of Peter Williamson's * penny-post men, with his bell
♦ Peter Williamson, who was the first that established the
Penny-Post in Edinburgh, was one of its prominent characters
about forty years since. He had, when a boy, been kidnapped
from off the pier of Aberdeen, and carried to America ; and
there sold, by the villanous kidnapper, to a Yankee speculator
in human live-stock : but the poor boy soon changed the scene
df his captivity, for he was taken prisoner by a party of Indians ;
among whom he learned their art of war ; whit;h, on his return