The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1858-05-11
The Scottish Shepherd Boy
By COLONEL JOHNSON.

By COLONEL JOHNSON.
1t is said that some are born with silver
spoons in their mouths, and that Dame
Fortune is SO tickle and capricious in the
bestowal of her favors, that the undeserv-
ing and unworthy arc as likely to draw
prizes in her lottery as the good and the
vrtuous. Without coutroverting this, or
sermonizing on the text--"The way Of
man is not in himself; it is not in man
that walketh to direct his stcps"-I shall
assert and prove that Providence, in It's
own mysterious way, frequently interposes,
in tho affairs Of men, "putting down one
and setting up another" contrary to all
probabilities and human calculations.
About the year 1880, John Greig was
born in one of the humblest cottages of
Scotland, in that strick district of the
country where the heather excludes the
green grass, and the shepherds guard their
sheep upon the Jrowne hills, affording but
scarty herbage to the bleating fiocks. He
was the son Of poor shepherd, himself
trained to the same employment from
childhood and he might be seen watch
ing the sheep the livelong day, with faded
bonnet, bareiooted, and his fathers cast
of plaid hanging in tatters upon his pow
erty-stricken frame OF letters and books
John knew nothing. The distant parish
school-house he had never approached; and
the Gaelic Bible and lsalm.bo k, on which
his father stroped his razor, were conceal
cd treasures to his understanding. With
all these drawbacks, John was genius in
bis way; for, though he could not pipe his
pastoral lays on oateu reeds, like Don Vir,
gl's swain of yorc, for lack Of oatcn ma
terial on the heathery hills, yet he con-
trivcd with the stalks of hollow weeds
gathered in tic miry fens, to make flies or
rude flutes of various sizes and conStruc-
ton, with which he could initiate the notes
Of birds tuning their lays even in those al
most barren regions.
There was one strange listener to his
music. Old Nanny McGregor was lone
and weird cronc, inhal,iling small cottage
in the widest and most unfrequcnted gor
gcs Of the hills, and of whose character
and strange habits the peasantry therea.
bouts were wont to conjecture many tidings.
Some thought her draft; Others, that she
had dealings with the Evil One; "spcer-
ing o him about ungodlv mysteries for
sake o. fortin- telin'-that by the lines o
the hand, the wee bit o specks on tea
cups, or the warso bcdivelmcnt of cards,
she befuled the saft ninnies, thereby gath
ering together the warld's gcer, and bury.
ing it underground in her hail-yard." The
fact is that Nanny MGegor was rare
character, and perhaps without a parallel
i'll the present history of Scotland. She
was born some seventy years previous to
the commencement of this narrative, in
family of ancient name, and educated as
well as were the best Of females in the
country part of Scotland a century ago,
which, bye the bye, was none too well.-
She had "a broken heart come DER her.
seeing her lo'ed and lost one washed ashore
a cold corpse fra his vessel, wrecked upon
the rocks" Nanny for many months was
crazed, and wandering among tho high
lands, fleeing like a frighted doe from the
approach Of man, and feeding, to all APP
pearance, like the chameleon, on the air.
She was, however, naturally of too strong
mind to let her grief destroy her quite;
so, gradually recovering, she resolved TO
remain unmarried, snd by active employ
ment, to drown unavailng sorrow. With
trihing sum furnished by her family, she
commenced business as pedlar in small
articles among the peasantry of the hills.
Finding the superstitions Of her country
folks still mUre prevalent than the desire
for thimbles and needles, Nanny veiy
shrewdly connected necromancy and for
tune telling with her other employments,
and she soon found the people would pay
any money within their means for the
qualification Of morbid curiosity. In the
prosecution Of this vocation Of questionable
morality, for many years, joined to an
economy verging on ascetic covetousness,
the wciid sister Of the hills had deposited
considerable sum Of money in the Bank
Of Glasgow, besides what she had buried
in her kail-yard. But Nanny MGregor
had now become an old woman. The
storms Of life had shaken her frail tene-
ment; and the thoughts of approaching
death had drawn her wandering heart back
to early piety, and to the lessons Of god
illness she had beon taught in the nursery.
She had bought the sequestered cottage
have noticed, with kali yard attached, re-
tired to it from trade and necromancy, re-
fusing longer TO tell the fortunes Of the
young, or reveal the hiding place Of lost
goods; and, as far as frail humanity could
resist the force Of long established habits,
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