MR ROBERTSON'S RECOLLECTIONS. 385 



one exception, I think so." His retort was a most 

 hilarious laugh. Hugh was an exceedingly attentive 

 hearer, and a frequent associate of this gifted minister. 

 He generally occupied the corner of a square pew in 

 the front of the gallery of the parish church, opposite the 

 pulpit ; and as the sermon proceeded he might be seen 

 to lean forward, and fix his keen eyes, from under their 

 remarkable penthouses, on the face of the preacher, 

 seeming not so much to hear the sermon as to penetrate, 

 examine, and sift the man. 



'He was always investigating, and as we walked along 

 either by road or dry channel of mountain stream, or 

 waded through the heather, he would suddenly in- 

 terrupt our high argumentation on some recondite sub- 

 ject, by pulling out a stone from the " dry " dyke to 

 examine its geological character, or picking up a pebble 

 from the bed of the rivulet to note its travels from the 

 distant upland, to which its native rock belonged ; or, 

 on the hill-side, he would find berries suitable for a very 

 hungry man's lunch, and descant on the wild botany of 

 the district; and when we swam, he would, whilst 

 dressing, keep his eyes open to the movements of the 

 dwellers in the deep, or amid the pools and crevices of 

 the rocks. The cuttle-fish suggested opaque learned- 

 ness, which, far from enlightening others, only seemed 

 to afford the possessor of so much inky knowledge a 

 mode of escaping the detection of his weakness ; and 

 the large lobster, hurrying off with one big claw and a 

 little one, suggested the self-sacrifice necessary to safety, 

 taught us by a crustacean who could fling off his leg to 

 save his life. 



'Hugh had built a house for his mother and her 

 second family, and he occupied a room and closet in the 

 upper story ; the closet was fast becoming a crowded 



VOL,, r. 25 



