1 Among indoor games, draughts, chess and backgammon were the chief, at all events in our circle. I do not recall witnessing any cardplaying at this time. I have heard of some shopkeepers playing draughts all night, and of leaving their boards only in time to take down their shutters in the morning. In chess, next to my father, my principal instructor was Mr. James Alison, a gentleman of independent means, who divided his time among yachting, bowls, chess and wood-turning. He was always in the mood for a game. Occasionally we were interrupted by the claims of public business, for Mr. Alison was a Justice of the Peace; but these claims were generally met without rising from the table. When the business was finished we resumed our game. The Alisons' house, especially the playroom, was my favourite place of indoor resort as a small boy. One day I was taken to the drawing-room and presented to three beautiful ladies. I was not unfamiliar with them individually, but their collective splendour, dressed as they were in vast white flounces, extended by the enormous crinolines of the period, and their striking beauty, made me shy and dumb. One of these ladies became Mrs. Cochran Patrick, the other two were destined to die within a few years. I felt a childish jealousy of one of these latter (Mrs. Macgregor) because she had taken from me my greatest friend and most loyal playmate, her husband Dr. Macgregor, who as a bachelor had 'been a constant visitor at our house. He was the headmaster of the Stranraer Academy and my father's greatest friend. Both he and his wife died early. Golf was not played in Wigtownshire at this time. The habitat of the game was in the east of Scotland; only much later than the time I speak of did the links of Ballantrae become known to golfers. The outdoor games of Galloway then were bowls in the summer and curling in the winter. Farmer, townsman and peer met on the "green" and on the "ice" on terms of inequality only of skill. I used often to go with my father to watch him playing both games with the persons whose names I have mentioned. McDowall, the Free Church minister of Leswalt, not far from Stranraer, a great friend of ours, was a keen curler. One Sunday a sudden fall of temperature afforded an unexpected opportunity too good to be missed. After he had pronounced the benediction, McDowall leaned over the pulpit and said to his congregation, "We'll meet at the ice the morn." During our Stranraer period we made at least annual journeys northwards. In my early childhood I remember being awakened in 1 John Alison, brother of James, was the inventor of the vertical boiler. 1 Glasgow, after our arrival the night before, by hearing a policeman spring the formidable wooden rattle carried by the force at that time and call out in a stentorian but not unmusical voice, “It's five o'clock an' a fine frosty mornin'." On this or on some similar journey about the same time I was taken by my mother to visit friends in the Vale of Leven at Renton. There we called upon the Miss Smolletts of Bonhill, the grand-nieces of Tobias Smollett. These ladies were old friends of my mother. Once we hurried through Glasgow northwards because of an epidemic of cholera. I have already mentioned the Jacobite leanings of a member of my father's family; on my mother's side there were similar associations. On one of our journeys in 1859 or 1860, I was taken by my mother to visit two old Jacobite spinsters who were distant relatives of hers and possessors of a tiny estate in Kinross-shire. We passed through Perth, and while we were waiting on the platform of the station a train came in from London carrying the Queen to Balmoral. We had a good view of Her Majesty sitting at the window of her saloon and bowing to the few people who were in the station. When we started on our own journey, my mother charged me to say nothing to the ladies we were going to visit about our having seen the Queen. Any suggestion of want of frankness was so unusual with my mother that I forgot all about, the warning. On being subjected by the ladies to a catechism concerning our doings, I admitted that I had seen the Queen. The result was a scolding administered to my mother, "Mary Ann, you ought not to have done this wicked thing. You knew what our principles are." My mother, who knew that the Queen was something of a Jacobite herself, took the reproach with good nature. These ancient prejudices have long died out, but even so recently as sixty years ago they were entertained by many people. During our residence in Stranraer and on occasional visits for a few years afterwards, we walked or drove to many places in the neighbourhood. Inch we went to frequently, for the teacher there was a friend of ours. One holiday of a month was spent at Drumore on the Mull of Galloway, where we went by coach. Drumore is near Kirkmaiden, and the farthest point of the Mull is only a few miles from it. On the other side of the Mull and overlooking the Irish Sea is the bold headland of Dunnan. From Drumore the wide expanse of the Solway Firth stretches away to the east. The whole region is finely wooded until, towards the point of the Rin (or horn) of the Mull, the landscape becomes bare. The shore at Drumore is composed of fine sand and at low tide the beach is of great extent. My brother and I stayed with the coastguard officer, and we were constantly on the water, watching the mackerel fishers and keeping a look-out for smugglers, who found the region then favourable for their operations, as they had from time immemorial. The Mull is saturated with history and prehistory. Here the Picts are said to have made their last stand in this part of Scotland, and here, the legend has it, they were either driven into the sea or they threw themselves into it rather than surrender. A double line of ancient fortifications extends across the Mull, and near these is the cave chapel of St. Medan, which tradition regards as the dwelling-place of a preChristian recluse.1 About 1860, the railway between Stranraer and Port Patrick was opened for traffic. While the line was under construction, I made a journey which to a youngster was a great source of delight. My father and I went over the line on a contractor's engine. After the line was opened we made many journeys to Port Patrick, and even after our family had left Stranraer I visited the little port on several occasions up till 1868, when I made my last visit. In the sixties an effort was made after the completion of the railway to establish a mail and passenger service from Scotland and England via Port Patrick and Donaghadee on the Irish coast. The width of the Channel between these two points is only twenty-one and a half miles. A steamer was placed upon the route--I think her name was the Dolphin-about 1865 or 1866. I went in her upon a trial trip which extended halfway across. The coast is wild, and the narrowness of the Channel causes the tides to flow through it with great force. The Admiralty spent much in building a breakwater; but in the winter of 1867 this breakwater was so severely damaged through a storm undermining a portion of it, that all projects for the further improvement of the port were abandoned and the service to Donaghadee was discontinued. As in some other places exposed to winds from the sea, the windows of the houses in Port Patrick are usually encrusted with brine from the wind-blown spray. Bathing is fine, but not without danger. I remember seeing an elderly lady, one of our friends, dashed with great violence upon the rocks by a wave of unexpected force. There was a pleasant society at that time in Port Patrick. Our principal friends were the family of Dr. Urquhart, the Free Church minister, a man of distinguished appearance and high character, and that of Mr. Shields 1 Although the cave chapel of St. Medan is on a much smaller scale, it may be placed in the same category as the cave chapels near Wetheral on the River Eden in Cumberland and those at Inkerman in the Crimea. the teacher, a sterling though somewhat sombre person. His eldest son, who was a lad of great promise, went to the Pacific in the employment of a trading firm. He was stationed at one of the islands in the Torres Straits, where after a few months he died of fever. One of my latest definite recollections of our residence in Stranraer is hearing the bells ringing on the death of the Prince Consort on the 14th December, 1861. A few months later we left the town. Yet art thou great. Though strangers hold their noses CHARLES J. KIRK, "Ode to the Clyde," THE Civil War in America, in the making for several years, began with the attack on Fort Sumter and the calling out of the Northern troops on 15th April, 1861. Four days later, on 19th April, Lincoln declared a blockade of those States which had joined the Southern Confederacy. This blockade was the means by which the North became victorious, for it prevented the South from exporting cotton, and therefore from obtaining the supplies necessary for the conduct of the war. The effect of the blockade upon the textile industries of Great Britain was disastrous. Upon Lancashire the blow fell heavily. The west of Scotland had been an important centre of the cotton trade in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, but from various causes into which I cannot enter here, the manufacture of grey cotton there had relatively declined, and the trade had been concentrated in Lancashire. Calico-printing had, however, remained in the west of Scotland, the grey cotton being brought from England. The calico printers were thus seriously affected by the scarcity of cotton, and their workpeople, as well as those engaged in cotton manufacture, suffered from unemployment. Yet Scotland was much less affected by the blockade than was Lancashire, because the working force of the people was more widely distributed over a greater variety of industries; and |