18 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



Mr. Ramsay's only sister, who had at a rather advanced 

 age married Mr. Robert Dymock of Edinburgh, had a 

 house at Kilcreggan at the mouth of Loch Long, and 

 there the Ramsays spent much of their time in summer. 

 There Ramsay had a boat, and in it he made long excur- 

 sions alone or with friends. His friends the MacVicars, 

 lived for many years at the head of Loch Goil ? a very 

 beautiful loch that branches out of Loch Long, and he 

 used to arrive there, having rowed all the way, some- 

 thing like 18 miles, and often with a rough sea on. 

 Telegraph offices were sparsely distributed in those 

 parts, and there was no way of announcing his safe 

 arrival, but his mother never worried. Oddly enough 

 she was much more anxious about climbing risks than 

 boating ones, and when he first went to Switzerland she 

 was in terror all the time ; whereas in the worst of 

 weathers, she was never anxious about him in his 

 boat. 



Belmont, as the Kilcreggan house was called, passed 

 to his parents, and afterwards to himself, and remained 

 in his possession till 1898. During that time it was the 

 scene of many happy gatherings not only of his early but 

 also of his later friends. Fitzgerald, Remsen, Ostwald, 

 the Massons father and son Sydney Young and Sir 

 John Murray were among the many who stayed there, 

 but this belongs to a later part of the story. 



In due time Willie Ramsay entered the Glasgow 

 Academy, and of his life at this period we get some 

 glimpses with the aid of a life-long friend, Mr. H. B. 



