The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Willie Gillies. 69
brother of a lord in the days of James V. The difficulty in
their case was to tell the priority of descent among themselves,
and show that another cadet, whose place was
chronicled in the family between the eldest brother and
their common ancestor, died without lawful issue. 1 here
was a gentleman who claimed descent from this middle
brother, but he wanted proof of legal descent from the
fountainhead. After the first link the chain of evidence
was complete. Some persons advised him to apply to me.
He did so, and I was able by the merest chance to supply
the missing link. At the Reformation the records of the
Scotch Papal Church and religious houses disappeared, and
for a couple of centuries they were supposed to be almost
entirely lost. Recent publications by antiquarian and
learned societies prove the supposition wrong, and more
proof is to come, for when the repositories of all the ancient
families are searched, I believe i&w valuable records of the
two centuries before the Reformation will be wanting, and
1 shall not be extraordinarily surprised if an antique
collection of Ossianic poetry should even turn up. Well,
about the time that the question of succession of the lord-
ship of H was beginning to be ventilated, a country
gentleman with whom I was on friendly terms, put in my
hand an old MS. volume which he had found in his family
archives, and which he could not read. It was the
chartulary of a religious house in the neighbourhood, and
one of the consequences of its discovery was that the
descendant of the middle brother completed his title, and
that in less than two years, I was appointed to a public
office through the influence of the new Lord H . I
need not describe its nature further than to say that it
obliged me to traverse a wide district in summer, and
supplied literary lesiure and appliances in winter. The
emoluments were not great but they were abundantly
sufficient for my wants.
Why should it be that when I was reading the official
letter of my appointment, and receiving the congratulations