Circumstances compelled the earl to leave Scotland, when Robert sojourned with his mother at the house of her brother, a godly protestant minister. Here he showed the value of the instructions he had received at the hands of Lord Perth and his Romish chaplain, by a conduct which disgusted every honest man, and terrified every honest maiden, in all the country round. His worthy biographer is candid enough to say that Robert, in falling off from Popery, did not become a protestant, but an atheist. The uncle turned him out of his house. The prodigal repaired to London, where he rioted prodigally; thence he betook himself to France, and he startled even Paris with the bad renown of his evil doings. On his way thither through Flanders, he had had a moment or two of misgiving as to the wisdom of his career, and he hesitated while one might count twenty, between the counsel of some good priests, and the bad example of some Jacobite soldiers, with whom he took service. The latter prevailed, and when the chevalier Robert appeared at the court of St Germains, Lord Perth presented to the fugitive king and queen there, as accomplished a scoundrel as any in Christendom. There was a show of decency at the exiled court, and respect for religion. Young Graham adapted himself to the consequent influences. He studied French, read the lives of the saints, entered the seminary at Meaux, and finally reprofessed the Romish religion. He was now seized with a desire to turn hermit, but accident having taken him to La Trappe, the blasé libertine felt himself reproved by the stern virtue exhibited there, and, in a moment of enthusiasm, he enrolled himself a postulant, bade farewell to the world, and devoted himself to silence, obedience, humility, and austerity, with a perfectness that surprised alike those who saw and those who heard of it. Lord Perth opposed the reception of Robert in the monastery. Thereon arose serious difficulty, and therewith the postulant relapsed into sin. He blasphemed, reviled his kinsmen, swore oaths that set the whole brotherhood in speechless terror, and finally wrote a letter to his old guardian, so crammed with fierce and unclean epithets, that the abbot refused permission to have it forwarded. The excitement which followed brought on illness; with the latter, came reflection and sorrow. At length all difficulties vanished, and ultimately, on the eve of All Saints, 1699, Robert Graham became a monk, and changed his name for that of Brother Alexis. King James visited him, and was much edified by the spiritual instruction vouchsafed him by the second cousin of the gallant Montrose. The new monk was so perfect in obedience that he would not in winter throw a crumb to a half-starved sparrow, without first applying for leave from his spiritual superior. “Indeed,” says his biographer, “I could tell you a thousand veritable stories about him; but they are so extraordinary that I do not suppose the world would believe one of