Explore "The Seven Lights" by John Mackay Wilson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
JOHN M'PHERSON was a farmer and grazier in Kintyre--a genuine Highlander. In person, though of rather low stature than otherwise, he was stout, athletic, and active; bold and fearless in disposition, warm in temper, friendly, and hospitable--this last to such a degree that his house was never without as many strangers and visitors of different descriptions, as nearly doubled his own household.
To the vagrant beggar his house and meal-chest were ever open; and to no one, whatever his condition, were a night's quarters ever refused. M'Pherson's house, in short, formed a kind of focus, with a power to draw towards itself all the misery and poverty in the country within a circle whose diameter might be reckoned at somewhere about twenty miles. The wandering mendicant made it one of his regular stages, and the traveller of better degree toiled on his way with increased activity, that he might make it his quarters for the night.