But there was another curiosity that interested me more
deeply--my grandfather, Alexander Loudon. In his time
the old gentleman had been a working mason, and had
risen from the ranks--more, I think, by shrewdness than
by merit. In his appearance, speech, and manners, he
bore broad marks of his origin, which were gall and
wormwood to my uncle Adam. His nails, in spite of
anxious supervision, were often in conspicuous
mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and
wrinkles, like a ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent
was rude, broad, and dragging. Take him at his best,
and even when he could be induced to hold his tongue,
his mere presence in a corner of the drawing-room, with
his open-air wrinkles, his scanty hair, his battered
hands, and the cheerful craftiness of his expression,
advertised the whole gang of us for a self-made family.
My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle, but there
was no getting over the solid, physical fact of the
stonemason in the chimney-corner.
That is one advantage of being an American. It never
occurred to me to be ashamed of my grandfather, and the
old gentleman was quick to mark the difference.
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