74 ACCOUNT OF A BOY 



trace in his countenance, but to the same motive that led him 

 the very next moment, to trip lightly towards us, and smiling- 

 ly feel our clothes all over — the pleasure he experienced in (he 

 examination of objects that were new to him. My friend Mr 

 Lauder Dick, who has accompanied me in all my visits to Ard- 

 clach, and whose interest in the family, and kindness towards 

 them, have been equally great, has favoured me with a few re- 

 marks, in a letter on this subject, which appear to me so just, that 

 I shall take the liberty to quote them. " From my observations," 

 he writes, " made at the time, with all the attention which an ex- 

 treme interest in the boy could excite, my opinion certainly 

 is, that he was occupied with the coffin merely as being a 

 body of a shape and surface different from any thing he had 

 before met with ; and that he betrayed no emotions of grief. 

 When the procession moved onwards, all his gestures seem- 

 ed more those of a playful boy in good spirits, than those 

 of an afflicted youth, conscious of the awful change which 

 had taken place upon his parent. As it is certain that he 

 had never felt a dead body, nor had any opportunity of 

 learning the object of burial before ; it appears to me, that 

 we .cannot imagine him to have experienced any emotion of 

 grief at his father's funeral, without also supposing him to 

 have had an innate idea of death." 

 I am, my dear Sir, with great regard, yours truly, 



John Gordon. 



Postscript. 



Before sending you this letter, I transmitted a copy of it to 



Miss Mitchell, for her perusal and correction ; and I have 



much pleasure in adding the following extracts from her very 



obliging and satisfactory reply. 



" Agreeably 



