34 A HUNDRED YEARS 



three and four, my dear mother, who was enthusiastic 

 about Gaelic, started me with a little nursemaid who 

 did not know a word of English, Seonaid nic Mhaoilan 

 (Janet MacMillan). Well do I remember her first 

 lesson. She took me to a looking-glass, and, turning 

 the glass up opposite me, she said, " TJiainig e " (" He is 

 come ''), and then, reversing it, " Dh'fhalbh e " {" He 

 is gone "). I learnt Gaelic in a very short time. My 

 good old English nurse, Emma Mills, I fear, felt very 

 much snubbed, as she was told when out with us to 

 sit on a stone and merely watch us two playing together, 

 but not to interfere. Nurse Emma's favourite walk 

 was to what she was pleased to call the " Heagle 'Ouse " 

 (where a tame eagle was kept), and she did not at 

 all approve of my calling it Tigh na h-Iolaire (the 

 Eagle House), which was much prettier and more 

 appropriate. 



My mother was one of the very few instances of a 

 grown-up person learning to speak Gaelic quite fluently, 

 but in this she succeeded thoroughly, though she always 

 retained a little of bias na heurla (taste of the English). 

 She started going regularly to church when she under- 

 stood only the one word agus (and), and she ended by 

 understanding every word of the longest and most 

 eloquent sermons preached by ministers like Dr. 

 Kennedy of Dingwall and others of that calibre. How 

 I always bless my mother for her determination that she 

 herself and her two stepsons and I should know Gaelic ! 

 Life for me, living in the west as I have done, would 

 not have been worth living without Gaelic. No servant 

 on the place, inside or outside, was allowed ever to speak 



