Ardtaraig

not uncommon long ago – a curious change this, and worthy of note she wore it in long curls hanging down on each side of her face, and, though plain, her appearance was not unattractive.
I remember well that wedding-day, now away in the dim past. It was the first social function, I ever took part in, and consequently it is ¬burnt into my memory. Uncle John was staying at our house, and we all left together for the ceremony. Pat, my brother, was groomsman; while I, tiny mite, was a bridesmaid. It was quite a large party. The then Sir James Campbell of Stracathro and his wife (uncle and aunt of the bride), were amongst the guests; a kindly pair, notable now chiefly as being the parents of our present Premier, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. He was a younger son, and afterwards took his mother’s name of Bannerman. On this occasion he was probably a small boy at home at his lessons, but his elder brother, the present Stracathro, was of the party, a bright good-natured lad, who was, I remember, very kind to me, the only child there; danced me about and filled my little “reticule” (as ornamental bags were then called), with cake. It was a gay scene but we shall let the curtain drop – too soon the play became a tragedy. A year or more and a baby boy was born, George Duncan, a lovely child. Alas! he only blossomed for a little while, and his short life was nearing his close when Uncle John burst a blood-vessel on the lungs, and was brought to the very gates of death. How well I can recall the sick-room, hushed and darkened; the pallid face upon the pillow the weeping and distracted wife! He rallied, however; the baby boy was buried; the so lately made in joy and hope, was broken up, and the sorrowing pair left country and kindred for a foreign land, medical opinion being that removal to a warmer climate was the only chance of life. Again Uncle John comes before me, looking, oh! so, pale and feeble; he has just taken farewell of mamma, his second mother, and now he holds me in his arms, and I feel him, usually so impassive, trembling as he presses his lip to mine. For long after, that quivering kiss haunted me, and child as I was, I realised that there were heights and depths me far beyond, my understanding.
Uncle John and his wife immediately after this left for Trinidad, West Indies. He partly recovered, but I never knew much about their history out there. In course of time a little girl was born, but while she was still an infant, both parents took the fever of the country and died within a few weeks of each other. The babe, Helen, was thus left de¬solate, but a kind lady had compassion on the little one, and wrote that she wished to adopt her. Mamma likewise desired to have the child, and possibly, as the lady was a Roman Catholic (though evidently a good Christian), it might have appeared, according to our Protestant ideas, a duty to refuse the request on religious grounds, but the little girl un¬expectedly died, and a painful difficulty was thus solved. She was buried beside her father and mother, in the cemetery of La Perouse. So endeth a sad story, and no words, I think can add to the pathos of the simple facts.
Amongst other early recollections are some tolerably clear ones of the home of my Aunt Brown and her family in Glasgow, and for the sake of any of her descendants who may happen to read these pages, I shall now note down a few of them. The furthest back of all is concerning their house and garden in the New City Road, as it was then called, but not at all the New City Road of today. It was then somewhat of a suburb, and the house and its trees are very vividly before my mind’s eye at this moment. The family consisted of my widowed aunt, and her three sons and two daughters. They were a cultured, clever, and strictly religious family. It was a house of “plain living and high thinking,” but socially, it held its own. Campbell, or “Cammie,” the eldest daughter, was, by all accounts, a remarkable girl, and made the best use of a liberal education. She inspired no end of enthusiasm in those who knew her, was a wonderful linguist, a good musician, and a fair artist, both in draw¬ing and painting (they all had this gift more or less), and, naturally, had her full share of lovers, as well as admirers of both sexes; the former I believe she rather held at arms’ length. I can just barely remember Cammie. To me a small child, she seemed quiet almost to sadness, and I was rather afraid of her. Her life was a short one – barely twenty-four years. She caught a cold which settled on her lungs, and,