After the mother's recovery, friends and neighbours assembled to congratulate the parents, and drink to the child's future prosperity. This gathering was known as the _cummer-fealls_, or the gossips' wake, concerning which custom the Kirk Session of Dunfermline made, in 1645, one of the most sensible enactments to be found on the minutes of those bodies. Considering, it is recorded, "the inconveniences arising therefrom, as mainly the loss and abusing of so much time, which may be better employed in attending to business at home, by such as frequent the occasions thereof, and the prejudice which persons lying in child-bed receive, both in health and means, being forced, not only to bear company to such as come to visit, but also to provide for their coming more than is either necessary or their estate may bear," the Session inhibited "all visits of this kind, and for the end foresaid, under the pain of being, for the first fault, censured by the Session, and there to be obliged to acknowledge their fault, and, for the next, to make public confession of their fault before the whole congregation." Other singular practices were observed in connection with the baptism of a child. It was placed in a basket, on which a white cloth was spread, with some bread and cheese, and the basket was suspended by a crook over the fireplace, and swung round three times. This was said to be done to counteract the evil influence of fairies and other malignant spirits. The bread and cheese were offered to the first person met on the way to the church, and rejection of it was thought to presage future evil to the babe. When several children were baptised at the same time, the boys were presented for the rite first, for it was thought that, if a girl obtained priority, she would in after time be disfigured by a beard. Baptism was at one time refused to the children of persons outside the communion of the Reformed Church. In 1567, the Countess of Argyle was ordered by the Assembly to "make public repentance in the chapel royal of Stirling, one Sunday, in time of preaching," for assisting at the baptism of the royal infant, afterwards James VI., "in a papistical manner." And even in 1716, registration of baptism was refused to the child of Harry Foulis, son of Sir James Foulis, on the ground that it had been baptised by a minister of the Episcopal Church. Thereupon the father procured the baptismal register from the session clerk, and made the entry himself, appending a statement of the circumstances.