Ardtaraig

long and active life. Winter, as a season, she disliked, but summer was her delight, and the warmer the weather, the brighter and more energetic she became. She was careful of her appearance and “dressed well,” keeping up to the fashion of the day in all details. Mamma well remembered her little feet, in high-heeled red shoes, tap-tapping over the floors. Her riding-habits were of the smartest, and around her hats she wore veils of various colours. I have some gilt buttons belonging to one of, those habits, and an old silver-mounted whip of hers, somewhere stored away, but my relics of Ardtarig are few.
Grandmamma’s mother, née Catherine M’Crotchert, was a high-spirited dame, a bold horsewoman, and much given to galloping over the country in a scarlet riding-habit. A wayward lady was this ancestress of ours, while her husband, Andrew Campbell, must have been the merriest and mildest of men. He must have had for his tempestuous spouse the most tender affection. With him she was ever “my Kitty,” even when putting his love to the severest tests. It was perhaps as well that “Kitty” had so little to do with the upbringing of her daughter, Grace of Ardtarig, and she has always been a very dim figure in our family history. When the first baby, the little Duncan, was born at Ardtarig, she was motherly enough to come to see her daughter, and to act with some show of kindness, but with this the veil seems to have dropped, and she never appears again in the family annals. Some time afterwards she died in Glasgow, and was buried by her sorrowing husband in the “Ram’s Horn” Churchyard, which adjoined an ancient city church of that name. I remember, when quite a child, mamma, pressing my hand one day. as we went along a street in Glasgow, near a high-walled enclosure, saying in a low voice that “Mam’s” mother was buried there. What street it was I cannot say. Both church and churchyard have long since been swept away, but records of them will doubtless be in existence. I have just used a very familiar appellation, long given to grandmamma at her special request, namely, that of “Mam.” As a child I knew her by no other. She became a “granny” quite early in life, and did not relish it; in fact, she refused to be called by any such venerable title, and I, along with the rest of her grandchildren, was taught to call her simply “Mam.”
“Mam” and “Gran” were the dear old early names, but as years passed on, and “Mam” became quite old, the younger branches boldly gave her what was her rightful name, and the old custom fell into disuse. We know how willingly she entered upon her life’s work, and also, full well we know how bravely she fulfilled it. At first, in the earliest stage of her married life, Gran appears to have assumed a certain control over his “baby wife.” Himself possessed of intellectual tastes, he set about keeping up the culture she had acquired. She used to tell how they spent the evenings in those early times, how the newly made husband would read aloud to his little wife the very best literature – Shakespeare, Bacon, Johnson, Addison, Steel, etc. She was an appreciative listener, and would often be quite carried away by some delightful part of the reading, when, woe betide her! at the stroke of ten o’clock, her wedded lord and master would close the book, rise from his chair, restore the volume to its place, and lock the bookcase! Poor little eager wife! In vain she pleaded for one wee respite; he was inexorable, the hour for rest had come, and the lesson of obedience must be learned. This shows George somewhat in the light of an arbitrary gentleman, and so he could be, and some of his descendants, too, for that matter! In this case, however, things adjusted themselves in a surprising way.
The young wife was not the softest of clay, ready to be moulded by the hand of the potter, or the husband. I never heard of any disagreement, or of any obstreperous turning of the tables. Oh no! the struggle, if it could be called such, was a noiseless one. By slow degrees, as time passed on, the wife’s firm will began to be felt. Both were persons fit to rule, but he, as is not uncommon with people of large physique, was, I have said, easy-going and a little indolent. She – small, alert, fiery, satirical and pertinacious – was better equipped for holding her ground in that contest for supremacy which is pretty certain to arise wherever two human beings are linked together in any compact whatsoever. He was masterful, but she, by dint of her own keen weapons, full often won the day. Fortunately, they had two distinct spheres of action, each fully absorbing their thoughts and energies, and to their credit be it said, they rubbed on together very well.
The Shakespearian readings marked an early epoch; ere long they were crowded out by other matters, and I can testify that, in my day at least, the bookcase was never locked, morning, noon or