‘Oh, sir,’ answered Moss Nook, ‘do you not know that your father brought me here long ago from Mr M‘Nair’s of the Green [a place some miles off, on the other side of the river]? Your father used to have merry-meetings with Mr M‘Nair, and, one day, he saw me, and took a liking to me. At the same time, Mr M‘Nair had taken a fancy to a very nice pony belonging to your father; so they agreed on the subject, and _I was niffered away for the pony_. That’s the way I came here.’ The man had, in short, been a slave, and was exchanged for a pony. To Mr Bald’s perception, he had not the least idea that there was anything singular or calling for remark in the manner of his leaving the Green. [Sidenote: 1702.] A Scottish clergyman resident in England—the same who lately ‘promoted contributions for the printing of Bibles in the Irish language, and sent so many of them down to Scotland, and there is no news he more earnestly desires to know than what the G[eneral] A[ssembly] doth whenever it meeteth for promoting the interests of the Gospel in the Highlands’—at this time started a scheme for ‘erecting a library in every presbytery, or at least county, in the Highlands.’ He had been for some time prevented from maturing his plan by bodily distempers and faint hopes of success; but now the scheme for sending libraries to the colonies had encouraged him to come forward, and he issued a printed [Sidenote: 1702.] paper explaining his views, and calling for assistance. His great object was to help the Highland Protestant clergy in the matter of books, seeing that, owing to their poverty, and the scarcity of books, few of them possessed property of that kind to the value of twenty shillings; while it was equally true, that at the distance they lived at from towns, the borrowing of books was with most of them impossible. It was the more necessary that they should be provided with books, that the Romish missionaries were so active among the people: how could the clergy encounter these adversaries without the knowledge which they might derive from books? ‘The gross ignorance of the people in those parts, together with some late endeavours to seduce the inhabitants of the isle of Hirta to a state of heathenism,[303] make it very necessary that they be provided with such treatises as prove the truth of the Christian religion. At the same time, the excellent parts and capacities of the ministers generally throughout the Highlands give good ground to expect much fruit from such a charity.’