Untitled - Electric Scotland

i2 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. i.
that reading [turning over a number of pages] there s neither
God nor Jesus Christ. l Her good-natured charity was so well
understood by the poor around her country home that some of
them did not hesitate to encroach on it. I remember her
amusement at the answer made to her by a pensioner, as to
whether she would like to have money or oatmeal. Weel,
leddy, she replied, with a curtsey, *
baith s best.
"The birth of Archibald was followed by two bright and
happy years in the family circle. The two eldest boys came
and went between Harrow and Harviestoun, the eldest daughter
was growing into womanhood, and the nursery was full of cheery
little faces.
"The winters were spent, as usual, in the Edinburgh home, the
summer and autumn at Harviestoun. Suddenly, on January 3,
1814, our mother died, almost in a moment. The overstrained
heart had given way. We were summoned to her room, where
she lay dead upon the sofa, on the very spot where I can first
remember her. My earliest recollection is that of sitting, some
ten or eleven years before, upon a little stool beside that sofa,
pricking upon paper
the outline of the chintz flowers on her
dress, while she laid her hand upon my head, and repeated in
a low voice Cowper s lines to his mother s picture. The two
scenes the beginning and the end are, even now, inextricably
blended in my mind. Dark and dreary were the clouds that now
fell upon the happy home in Park Place. While we children
crept about the house, and remarked to each other that the snow
was falling upon mother s grave, relations and friends were
anxiously discussing up-stairs what could be done for the best
with
care.
the nine children thus thrown suddenly upon our father s
Our father ! O how well I remember his constant pacing
up and down, care and grief altogether changing his countenance !
For now, at this very crisis, he had come to know that to this
crowning sorrow of his life were added other causes of perplexity and
trouble. While she was by his side there had been sunshine, and
one difficulty after another had seemed to melt. But now he had
to face the fact that, misled by his sanguine temperament, he had
embarked in, and even carried through, enterprises which, while
The criticism is severe, but it is worth noting that more than half
a century afterwards the Archbishop used frequently to describe a sermon
which had dissatisfied him as
"
a trifle Blairy."