198 A HUNDRED YEARS 



at Gairloch, always went to lier school at Strath, about 

 two miles away, to teach her Sunday class. She might 

 start going there by daylight, but in winter it would 

 be pitch dark before her return. My mother had a 

 favourite old servant who always accompanied her, and 

 who also taught a class. Now, it was necessary to have 

 a small hand-lantern for coming home, and this old 

 Peggy was quite willing to carry when lighted, but 

 nothing would induce her to carry it unlighted, so the 

 lantern had to find its way down to the school some 

 day during the week, otherwise there would be no 

 lantern to light them on their way on Sunday night. 



What a pity that such superstition should have been 

 fostered and encouraged in the Highlands by the clergy ! 

 If the ministers would preach less about predestination 

 and abstruse dogmas of that kind, and would some- 

 times take as their text that " a merciful man is merciful 

 to his beast," and persuade their people to clean out 

 their byres and stables on Sunday, they would be doing 

 far more good in my opinion. 



Before the manse was built at Gairloch (and I may 

 perhaps mention that the famous geologist, Hugh 

 Miller, was one of the masons who helped to build it 

 as a young apprentice). Cliff House at Poolewe, which 

 my uncle described as Poolewe Inn, a mere dirty smoke- 

 hole reeking of whisky, was the parish manse, and the 

 incumbent at one time was a good man, but not a very 

 brilliant one. He possessed as his glebe nearly all the 

 arable land on the south side of the Ewe. The minister 

 also had a summer shieling for his cows at the back of 

 the hill, where now stands the derelict mill of Boor. 



