ble blood running in his veins, that his real father was an earl—maybe the Earl of Selkirk—or, at any rate, some one of gentle birth. There are always people of this sort, who seem to think that greatness must be the child of riches and polite breeding. They have even tried to prove that the mighty Shakespeare was a baronet’s son, as if the author of “Hamlet” could have been honored, in any way, by a title. And they could not bear to think that the famous admiral was the son of a Scotch gardener. Such, however, he was, and like many great men he inherited his genius and character from his mother.
About the beautiful mansion of his father’s patron and employer, within hearing of the mighty waves that dashed against the Galloway shore hard by—and suggested, for ought we know, to the adventurous heart of the boy, a longing for the sea—the young John Paul spent the fleeting and precious days of his early childhood.
We shall come back here, to this home, with
