I have a theory that the Calvinistic attitude to the public-house is the chief cause of Scots drunkenness. When a Scot enters a bar he knows that he won't have the courage to be seen coming out again ... and he very naturally says to himself: "Ach, to hell! Aw'll hae another just to fortify mysel' for gaein' oot!" The public-house isn't a public-house at all; it is the most private of houses. Peter Soutar the leading elder in the kirk here always carries a bundle of church magazines in his hand when he enters the Glamis Arms; when the date is past magazine time he enters by the back door. Jeemes Walker the leading Free Kirk elder goes in to read the gospel to old Mrs. Melville the invalid mother of the landlord, and the village is uncharitable enough to remark in his hearing that he really goes to interview his brother "Johnny." I think that it was the doctor who originated that joke. A public-house is no place for a public man in Scotland. * * * The opening of the coal mines has brought to the neighbourhood a new type of person. He is usually an engineer who has spent a good few years abroad, and he is usually married ... very much married. His wife is always a grade above the wife of the engineer next door, and the men appear to spend most of their leisure time in mending quarrels that their wives began. Most of the men are amiable fellows with the minimum of ideas and the maximum of knowledge of fishing and card-playing. They have a certain dignity, and they instantly freeze if you casually ask where such-and-such a light railway is to run. The wives seem to have no interest other than in servants and their manifold wickedness and cussedness. They hold their noses high when they pass through the village, and they bully the local shopkeepers. When I was a dominie these women patronised me delightfully, but now that I am a cattleman they are quite frank with me. I puzzled over this for some time, and the solution came to me suddenly. They are all English women, and in the English village the dominie is on very much the same social level as the vicar's gardener. Mrs. Martinlake likes to chat to me now. She is a middle-aged lady who loves to reminisce about duchesses she has known. She once complained to me because the boys did not touch their caps to her, and on my suggesting that they hadn't been introduced she became very indignant. She called to me this morning as she passed the field I was working in. "Ah! Good morning! I've been looking for you for a long time. I wanted to tell you how much the children have improved; every village boy touches his cap to me now!" and she laughed gaily. "Good!" I cried. "If this sort of thing goes on they will be touching their caps to their mothers next." "And why not?" she demanded with a slight touch of aggression. I shrugged my shoulders.