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A BACHELOR MINISTER

Another Highland minister of a very different type lived on the shores of Loch Striven—a long inlet of the sea which runs far up among the mountains of Cowal, and opens out into the Firth of Clyde opposite to Rothesay. He was a bachelor and somewhat of a recluse, with many eccentricities which formed the basis of sundry anecdotes among his colleagues. One of these reverend brethren told me that the erection of a volunteer battery on the shore of Bute, where it looks up Loch Striven, greatly perturbed the old minister, for the reverberation of the firing rolled loud and long among the mountains. One morning before he was awake, the chimney-sweeps, by arrangement with his housekeeper, came to clean the chimneys. Part of their apparatus consisted of a perforated iron ball through which a rope was passed, and which by its weight dragged the rope down to the fireplace. By some mistake this ball was dropped down the chimney of the minister’s bedroom, where, striking the grate with a loud noise, it rebounded on the floor. The rattle awoke the reverend gentleman, who, on opening his eyes and seeing, as he thought, a cannon-ball dancing across the room, exclaimed, ‘Really, this is beyond my patience; it is bad enough to be deaved with the firing, but to have the shot actually sent into my house is more than I can stand. I’ll get up and write to the commanding officer.’