172 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



with that unhappy courage of the looker-on. 

 He was a good swimmer, and taught them to 

 swim. He thoroughly loved all manly exercises ; 

 and during their holidays, and principally in 

 Highland the Highlands, helped and encouraged them to 

 excel in as many as possible : to shoot, to fish, 

 to walk, to pull an oar, to hand, reef and steer, 

 and to run a steam launch. In all of these, and 

 in all parts of Highland life, he shared delightedly. 

 He was well on to forty when he took once more 

 to shooting, he was forty-three when he killed 

 his first salmon, but no boy could have more 

 single-mindedly rejoiced in these pursuits. His 

 growing love for the Highland character, perhaps 

 also a sense of the difficulty of the task, led him 

 to take up at forty-one the study of Gaelic ; in 

 which he made some shadow of progress, but 

 not much : the fastnesses of that elusive speech 

 retaining to the last their independence. At the 

 house of his friend Mrs. Blackburn, who plays the 

 part of a Highland lady as to the manner born, 

 he learned the delightful custom of kitchen dances, 

 which became the rule at his own house and 

 brought him into yet nearer contact with his 

 neighbours. And thus at forty-two, he began to 

 learn the reel ; a study, to which he brought his 

 usual smiling earnestness ; and the steps, dia- 

 gramatically represented by his own hand, are 

 before me as I write. 



