THE UNLETTERED HERD-BOY. 19 



unusual memory, we shall find abundant proofs by-and-by. 

 So vivid was his recollection of the plants he had seen 

 there in these early days, before he had begun in any way 

 to do more than admire their colour and scent their 

 fragrance, that during his later scientific studies, when he 

 discovered a new plant, he could recall with perfect accuracy 

 the spot where he had seen it years before on the shores 

 of the Mearns. Thus, very shortly before his death, the 

 doctor gave him some drops of Hyoscyamus niger, or 

 common henbane. After learning what it was, the old man 

 brightened up, and at once mentioned that he had seen it 

 in his youth within the walls of Dunnottar, one of its 

 stations in the north, although he had seldom found it 

 since, and never in the Vale of Alford the memory of 

 these happy days then irradiating his countenance with a 

 sunset glow. 



But how strange the contrasts of life ! Here was a lad, 

 nearly fifteen years old, intelligent and inquiring, all on 

 fire with the desire to know who was totally and literally 

 unlettered, ignorant even of the alphabet herding in the 

 land where Knox had pleaded and laboured, so that no 

 parent of whatever condition should " use his child at his 

 own phantasy," but bring him up in " learning and virtue," 

 the children of the poor to be supported at school "until 

 the Commonwealth have profit of them ; " and in sight 

 of the castellated home of that enlightened nobleman, 

 George, the fifth Earl Marischall, who, in 1593, munifi- 

 cently founded and endowed the college in Aberdeen that 

 bears his honoured name, with its numerous bursaries to 

 assist such youths as he ! 



As his active mind gradually opened, and his natural 



