Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie | Page 9

time new embellishments. My uncle's stories never wanted "the hat and
the stick" which Scott gave his. How wonderful is the influence of a
hero upon children!
I spent many hours and evenings in the High Street with my uncle and
"Dod," and thus began a lifelong brotherly alliance between the latter
and myself. "Dod" and "Naig" we always were in the family. I could
not say "George" in infancy and he could not get more than "Naig" out
of Carnegie, and it has always been "Dod" and "Naig" with us. No
other names would mean anything.
There were two roads by which to return from my uncle's house in the
High Street to my home in Moodie Street at the foot of the town, one
along the eerie churchyard of the Abbey among the dead, where there
was no light; and the other along the lighted streets by way of the May
Gate. When it became necessary for me to go home, my uncle, with a
wicked pleasure, would ask which way I was going. Thinking what
Wallace would do, I always replied I was going by the Abbey. I have
the satisfaction of believing that never, not even upon one occasion, did
I yield to the temptation to take the other turn and follow the lamps at
the junction of the May Gate. I often passed along that churchyard and
through the dark arch of the Abbey with my heart in my mouth. Trying
to whistle and keep up my courage, I would plod through the darkness,
falling back in all emergencies upon the thought of what Wallace
would have done if he had met with any foe, natural or supernatural.
King Robert the Bruce never got justice from my cousin or myself in
childhood. It was enough for us that he was a king while Wallace was
the man of the people. Sir John Graham was our second. The intensity
of a Scottish boy's patriotism, reared as I was, constitutes a real force in
his life to the very end. If the source of my stock of that prime
article--courage--were studied, I am sure the final analysis would find it
founded upon Wallace, the hero of Scotland. It is a tower of strength
for a boy to have a hero.

It gave me a pang to find when I reached America that there was any
other country which pretended to have anything to be proud of. What
was a country without Wallace, Bruce, and Burns? I find in the
untraveled Scotsman of to-day something still of this feeling. It remains
for maturer years and wider knowledge to tell us that every nation has
its heroes, its romance, its traditions, and its achievements; and while
the true Scotsman will not find reason in after years to lower the
estimate he has formed of his own country and of its position even
among the larger nations of the earth, he will find ample reason to raise
his opinion of other nations because they all have much to be proud
of--quite enough to stimulate their sons so to act their parts as not to
disgrace the land that gave them birth.
It was years before I could feel that the new land could be anything but
a temporary abode. My heart was in Scotland. I resembled Principal
Peterson's little boy who, when in Canada, in reply to a question, said
he liked Canada "very well for a visit, but he could never live so far
away from the remains of Bruce and Wallace."

CHAPTER II
DUNFERMLINE AND AMERICA
My good Uncle Lauder justly set great value upon recitation in
education, and many were the pennies which Dod and I received for
this. In our little frocks or shirts, our sleeves rolled up, paper helmets
and blackened faces, with laths for swords, my cousin and myself were
kept constantly reciting Norval and Glenalvon, Roderick Dhu and
James Fitz-James to our schoolmates and often to the older people.
I remember distinctly that in the celebrated dialogue between Norval
and Glenalvon we had some qualms about repeating the phrase,--"and
false as hell." At first we made a slight cough over the objectionable
word which always created amusement among the spectators. It was a
great day for us when my uncle persuaded us that we could say "hell"
without swearing. I am afraid we practiced it very often. I always

played the part of Glenalvon and made a great mouthful of the word. It
had for me the wonderful fascination attributed to forbidden fruit. I can
well understand the story of Marjory Fleming, who being cross one
morning when Walter Scott called and asked how she was, answered:
"I am very cross this morning, Mr. Scott. I just want to say 'damn' [with
a swing],