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My Schools and Schoolmastes; Or, the Story of My Education
My Schools and Schoolmastes Or the Story of My Education Author:Hugh Miller General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1877 Original Publisher: Robert Carter Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can s... more »elect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. At Wallace name what Scottish blood But boils up in a spring-tide flood I Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace side, Still pressing onward, red wat shod, Or glorious died." BtTEHI. I First became thoroughly a Scot some time in my tenth year; and the consciousness of country has remained tolerably strong within me ever since. My Uncle James had procured for me from a neighbor the loan of a common stall-edition of Blind Harry's " Wallace," as modernized by Hamilton ; but after reading the first chapter, -- a piece of dull genealogy, broken into very rude rhyme, -- I tossed the volume aside as uninteresting ; and only resumed it at the request of my uncle, who urged that, simply for his amusement and gratification, I shoul d read some three or four chapters more. Accordingly, the three or four chapters more I did read; -- I read " how Wallace killed young Selbie the Constable's son;" " how Wallace fished in Irvine Water;" and " how Wallace killed the Churl with his own staff in Ayr;" and then Uncle James told me, in the quiet way in which he used to make a joke tell, that the book seemed to be rather a rough sort of production, filled -with accounts of quarrels and bloodshed, and that I might read no more of it unless I felt inclined. But I now did feel inclined very strongly, and read on with increasing astonishment anddelight. I was intoxicated with the fiery narratives of the blind minstrel, -- with his fierce breathings of hot, intolerant patriotism, and his stories of astonishing prowess; and, glorying in being a Scot, and the co...« less