The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Willie Gillies. 203
and his uncle went together to visit Willie's mother. Willie
was despatched by the first ship. The widow sold the
furniture of her cottage— it cost her a tear to part with
portions of it, which acquired sacred value from the associa-
tion of ideas—and removed, with her two remaining
children, to her brother's house. I called on Greaves
regularly once a year. He was happier than when I knew
him first, and much more lenient to the failings of others
Willie obtained a " run " for himself in the second year of
his exile. What was better, he regularly remitted instal-
ments of the money lent him by his uncle. Eighteen
months ago the loan was fully repaid, and then the uncle
remitted back the entire sum— a couple of thousands—to
Willie, with a piece of advice respecting the way of
increasing his flocks and herds, and an assurance that he
the uncle—was satisfied the nephew was not one of the
gulls that waited for dead men's shoes, and that for their
laziness and spendthrift habits ought to be hanged. The
sending of this letter to his nephew was nearly the last
deed of William Greaves. At the commencement of last
winter he caught a cold, which he neglected at first, and
which, before a month's end, laid him with his fathers. I
was named one of the executors, and was present at the
reading of his will. The document itself was drawn up by
a lawyer, and gave and bequeathed, in the fullest legal
style, the landed estates to Willie, and the bulk of the
personal property to the two younger children. Old and
faithful servants were liberally remembered, and injunctions
laid on the heir—injunctions even under penalty—not to
turn some favourite shepherds, who understood "the
system," adrift. Two codicils, in the deceased's hand-
writing, dated after the commencement of his last illness,
were appended. The first made a bequest of a sum of
money in the Long Annuities, for the free education of
poor children in the parish school. They were directed to
be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the outlines
of agricultural science from any book suitable for the
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