Lady Victoria Campbell

NIGHEAN AN DIUC 303
Writing to Lady Victoria, " the Eev. Dean of the
Thistle " says, " The Celtic blood in me, on this
matter, says, ' Do nothing you can help doing/
How have you overcome it ? There must be some
Sassenach strain ! " Whatever " the strain," the
language was always in the spirit of righting the good
fight. The diary only marks the conflicts with words
of remembrance. " Tremendous morning of Soup
Crusade. Balemartine men. Milk raid. Milk battle
won." There was no rest in battles won. The conflict
had almost certainly opened a vista of some other
reform, and at it she went, levering " the middle-
man," instructing head-quarters, and making forays
among the feckless ones of the island. Many a con-
science gave wings to the feet in the townships, when,
from afar, the approach of the buckboard told that
the reformer was at hand. No flight ever availed
those whose dormant energies she intended to rouse,
and by letter, or interview, they were all rounded in
at last. There is something infectious in the spirit
of work, as there is in that of idleness, and the single-
hearted desire for the good of all under her eye and
hand was too obvious to be long resisted.
" Lady Victoria was right," has been said in many
a quarter since her passing, and best is her memory
cherished where the slack purpose is again braced,
and loins girded anew for the race of life.
Some account of the ground covered by her was
written for the " Oban Times " by the Eev. William
Gillies, who had seen some of her work, though " not
in her most active years," while he was the minister