202 EEMTNISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 



thought of, and I don't think Dick's play ever 

 cost him much. 



There was in Stornoway a very excellent 

 school, both for boys and girls ; and I was 

 really astonished, though having some experi- 

 ence in good schools, at the manner in which 

 the children of both sexes acquitted themselves. 

 The needlework of this school exceeded every- 

 thing I ever saw, except the famous school of 

 Clonakilty, I think, in the county Cork. For 

 this school I believe the town to be indebted to 

 Lady Matheson. There was also a corps of 

 volunteer artillerymen. They said the practice 

 was good, but I never attended. Unfortunately 

 the privates were armed with very good car- 

 bines, with which, if they did not shoot deer 

 themselves, they lent them to their friends in 

 the country to do so. My watcher took a 

 native with one of these weapons, which was 

 traced to a corporal, I think, of the corps, a 

 most respectable man, of course. With true 

 Hebridean, perhaps usual, justice, they punished 

 the poor set-on devil, and let off the real Simon 

 Pure, because of his being highly connected; 

 instead for that very reason punishing him the 

 more severely; as an Irish judge hung a 

 gentleman, precisely because the grand jury 

 recommended him to mercy on the score that 



