6 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i 



following notes about his school-days : Andrew was 

 always cheerful and full of fun, so much so that he 

 was nicknamed &quot;Appybe&quot; (happy bee). He was 

 our leader in the stone-fights with the Camlachie 

 boys. He attended Mr. Dymock s class at the 

 Grammar School. When he was a child, a lady who 

 had called was telling Mrs. Ramsay what a good child 

 her lost son was, when Andrew, looking up to his 

 mother, said, &quot; Mother, I would not like to be a good 

 bairn ; good bairns aye die.&quot; He was very fond of 

 dogs. I remember his great grief at being obliged to 

 drown Puck for biting the postman. 



He lost his father in the summer of 1827. Twenty 

 years afterwards, on the anniversary of this sad event 

 in his life, he wrote as follows : My father died this 

 day twenty years at Roseneath. I was then between 

 thirteen and fourteen, and recollect it well. We had 

 been there about a week. He was very ill on the 

 way down in the steamboat, having had an additional 

 slight shock the very night before we started. Willie 

 was sent up from Roseneath a day or two before his 

 death. I accompanied him as far as Ardincaple 

 Ferry, and watched him across. It was a fine day, 

 but blew hard. On the way back I recollect playing 

 with flowers, so strange is it (I believe with all men) 

 that even in great distress the mind occupies itself 

 with trifles. I also recollect during this week of 

 severe illness my mother told me to take a book and 

 amuse myself. It was Shakespeare. I read Juliiis 

 Cczsar the first play of Shakespeare I ever read, and 

 even then it highly interested me. Willie brought 

 down Drs. Coldstream and Buchanan with him. My 

 father died, I think, shortly after they arrived, having 

 been speechless for some time before. I did not see 



