[44] Fond of conviviality, he loved the
intercourse of congenial minds; the voice of friendship was always more
precious to him than the claims of business. He was somewhat expert in
conversation; he talked Scotch on account of long habit, and because it
was familiar to him. He was possessed of a good musical ear, and loved
to sing the ballads of his youth, with several of his own songs; and the
enthusiasm with which he sung amply compensated for the somewhat
discordant nature of his voice. A night with the Shepherd was an event
to be remembered. He was zealous in the cause of education; and he built
a school at Altrive, and partly endowed a schoolmaster, for the benefit
of the children of the district. A Jacobite as respected the past, he
was in the present a devoted loyalist, and strongly maintained that the
stability of the state was bound up in the support of the monarchy; he
had shuddered at the atrocities of the French Revolution, and
apprehended danger from precipitate reform; his politics were strictly
conservative. He was earnest on the subject of religion, and regular in
his attendance upon Divine ordinances. When a shepherd, he had been in
the habit of conducting worship in the family during the absence or
indisposition of his employer, and he was careful in impressing the
sacredness of the duty upon his own children.
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